Looking for more coffee options? perthcoffeescape.com is a new web site where you see reviews of many Perth cafes by actual customers.
I wouldn’t take the top 20 too seriously though, as there’s a few questionable entries in there. I presume this will be rectified as more and more reviews come in, and the quality rises to the top.
Definitely a site to visit if you’re looking to try out some new cafes.
In a continuing sign of Perth’s growing specialty coffee scene, another cafe has opened in the western end of the CBD. Lowdown Espresso had only been open for two days when we visited.
The staff are particularly friendly and enjoy chatting about their passion – coffee!
As well as the usual array of espresso-based drinks, they also do brewed coffee in a fancy Fetco machine, which I’m told works in a similar way to the highly regarded and sought-after Clover machines that are no longer on the market.
I had a long mac, which brought out the deep and complex flavours from their Fiori blend. The coffee is quite strong, and has fewer chocolate notes, but a more nutty or caramel taste than some of the 5 Senses cafes, but it’s not bitter at all. I like it – it’s a really different coffee experience – and that’s what we need, more high-quality variety.
I also tried the brewed coffee, they provide milk and 50/50 milk/cream for you to add to suit your taste. They used the single origin PNG coffee last week when I tried it. The brewed coffee is fantasic, very different to the usual milk-based drinks. It really brought out the flavour of the PNG coffee. I highly recommend giving it a try, it combines the best taste aspects of espresso and plunger coffee in my opinion.
Beans: Fiori
Location: Shop 16A Cloisters Arcade, 865 Hay Street Perth
Rating: 4 out of 5
Well, we finally took the plunge (ahem) and bought the Sunbeam 6910 espresso machine and grinder.
The machine is fantastic – more than good enough for my slowly-increasing coffee-making skills. Grinding the beans fresh makes a huge difference – much sweeter coffee – and also has the side effect of making the house smell like subtly like a Cafe.
Texturing the milk is taking some practice – in an a effort not to overcook like an amateur, I was finding I was under-doing it, so it actually wasn’t going sweet. A bit more time on the steamer and it’s slowly getting better.
The espresso shots are taking some time to get right – the Sunbeam has a hand pressure gauge that assists discovering if the grind coarseness and damping pressure are correct – I’ve been swinging between too fine and too coarse, but getting toward the right combination slowly. When you see the dark red colour you can tell it’s going to be nice coffee. I’ve been using 5 Senses 24/7 blend and Swiss Decaf, as well as the house blend from Velvet.
The techniques I learned at the Epic Espresso course are coming in handy. Once I’ve got the consistency in flavour happening, it will be time to work on the Latte Art.
I’ve been placed out on site for 3 days a week for a client near the Galleria in Morley. Unfortunately there are limited coffee options to say the least.
We’ve tried some from Aroma Cafe and Gloria Jeans and they were certainly not up to high standards you get when you are working in town, conveniently close to King St.
Having said that, the Gloria Jeans Iced Coffee/Mocha is certainly a decent caffeine boost, and hides the burnt coffee taste.
I wonder if there is a market for 5 Senses to start approaching independent Cafes in shopping centres. Hmm.
For fathers day I received a great present – a ticket to the Epic Espresso Mastery class.
Firstly, let me say West Perth is quite sleepy on a Saturday morning, but being greeted with a smile and and offer of coffee from the trainer at Epic was a fantastic start to the day. Hint: if someone at Epic asks you if you’d like a coffee, you always say ‘yes’.
There were six people including me that were attending the course, the instructor was extremely enthusiastic about her coffee, and quickly had us pulling ristretto shots from the fancy Synesso machine after a short session on coffee’s aging process and it’s changing aroma after time.
The Synesso must be a great machine, because my first few shots were actually decent! Then we were shown how to steam the milk – I was surprised to find out how short a time you actually need to do it. Making sure not to overcook the milk is critical.
Midway through the session we found ourselves pouring coffees down the sink – as good as they looked, we all had way too much caffeine already.
By the end of the session we were all pretty chuffed with our newfound skills, and ready to quit our day jobs and start a cafe … or maybe just happy knowing we were now qualified coffee snobs, with the Epic Espresso Mastery Certificate under our arms. Highly recommended for any budding coffee snob.
This relatively recent addition to the Perth coffee scene is gathering popularity very quickly. Based out the front of the 78 Records store on Hay St, the appropriately named cafe has a small setup serving 5 Senses coffee and locally-sourced gourmet food.
When I went there it was quite busy (seems a lot of workers from the classier levels of the Woodside building are there) but the coffee was served quite quickly and the quality was excellent. Temperature was good and the taste was great. Highly recommended.
Beans: 5 Senses
Machine: Synesso
Location: 914 Hay Street
Rating: 4 out of 5
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