Bundaberg Coffee where I fell in love with coffee
Bundaberg Coffee
Bundaberg Coffee. I still remember the first time I fell in love with coffee.
Previously, the sole purpose of my caffeine intake was purely a survival tactic as I found myself faced with gruelling senior-high-school weeks filled with maths exams, gossip to keep up with, and two little brothers who own Nerf guns. But, one fateful spring day, I took my flat white from the barista, stepped into the sunshine, and took a sip.
I don’t really know what happened. But in a single moment, coffee went from being purely an energy source to an experience: an experience that, like so many others, I began to crave daily.
And I still remember the place where I bought that coffee.
Alowishus Delicious. A (at the time) small café nestled into an alleyway in downtown Bundaberg, for whom I soon found myself employed. Over time, as I delivered hundreds of coffees to tables, served vast amounts of choc chunk cake and laughed with many a customer – I had the privilege of watching Alowishus expand from a cute corner to an alleyway of coffee culture. And as the halls filled and the night shifts got busier I only got more and more excited. About what we were creating. How far it could go. How many more unsuspecting civilians we could convert to coffee cravers. (Kidding. Well, mostly)
The secret to our success? The answer must lie in our coffee. (because; let’s admit it, no matter what the question is, ‘coffee’ is usually the answer) And our particular coffee is supplied by Sacred Grounds. 100% Arabica, the beans are sourced from different locations worldwide, including Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. However, Sacred Grounds will prove different from that of other coffee roasters, as their primary marketing point is that their products are completely organic and Fairtrade. This made Sacred Grounds a perfect counterpart for Alowishus, complementing our passion for social justice; something we ensure is evident to our customers. The final element left for the creation of a perfect coffee? The baristas.
Amy Baldwin presenting her ‘Latte Art’ at Alowishus Delicious
If it takes 2000 hours to craft coffee – from the growing to the grinding, then all that time is dishonoured if the barista makes a bad coffee. So, realising this, our latest focus at Alowishus is keeping our coffees consistent. The level tamp, the balance of silky milk and the right amount of crema – our priority is making sure this is perfect every time, despite the barista. Under the guidance of David Lee-Schneider, Barista Coach and Café Consultant, each barista is working to ensure each beverage is true to its name: cappuccino, latte, flat white. So here is our passion: keeping our coffee consistently excellent for our customers and ourselves. Because, as Lorelai Gilmour puts it “Oh I can’t stop drinking coffee. I stop drinking coffee, I stop doing the standing and the walking and the words-putting-into-sentence doing.”
Hit up Alowishus Delicious the next time you are in Bundaberg. We’ll help you through that words-putting-into-sentence-doing thing in the best way we can.
Romy Field
This blog post first appeared at http://www.baristaguide.com/editorial/specialty-coffee-in-bundaberg/
Read more at Alowishus.com.au/blog
Bundaberg Coffee