Inside the dusty husk of what was once Frank Frasca’s fruit shop at Marketown in Newcastle, Angelo Luczak looks like any other hard-working Newcastle tradesman. His day started in the early morning and will likely finish in the early afternoon. With a satisfied sigh and a cold one he can look at the concrete evidence of an honest day of physical labor. A pile of gyprock. A neatly demolished retaining wall. See you in the morning boys.
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In a month or so from now, when all the dust has eventually settled, part of the project he has been working on will be unlike any other he has been devoted to in the past. Alongside that of his friends, it will be the fruit of his own inspiration. Slightly relieved but even more energetic and excited, Luczak will then pick up a different set of tools. He will return to what he’s been doing for the best part of the past 15 years. Being a barista.
If any one image can symbolise how the art and the business of making coffee in this city has evolved since Luczak first tied up his apron, it is the sight of Luczak smiling on a building site, gloved and covered in dust. It is a venture just like the one he has been labouring upon – the Grind House cafe at the new Sanbah skate park and retail space.
Like so many local baristas I have come to know around Newcastle, Luczak first honed his skills in a coffee job that felt as temporary as it did repetitive. It was a stop-gap. It was about pouring coffee for an employer who, until your first day behind the machine, you had never met before. You ground beans grown in places that meant almost nothing to you, before handing a quick takeaway cappuccino to a stranger who meant even less.
It was seldom about artistry and even less often about passion.
Nowadays a job behind an espresso machine means so much more. You don’t simply turn up to an already established cafe, you put your boots on and build one for yourself.
For Luczak, the point of departure from coffee as a job toward coffee as a passion and a lifestyle can be pinpointed to a moment in time. From a single origin, if you will. After that, he says, it was almost as though there was no going back.
“At a certain point you have to decide if you are going to do something else or are you going to take making coffee as seriously as you can,” he says.
“I feel like I have just reached that point. It is the moment when you decide that you are going to invest in the best coffee equipment and go for it. For me that moment is now.”
Making coffees for long hours on your feet and in a bustling environment is not everybody’s idea of an enjoyable day’s work. The asset that is often more important than the swishest espresso equipment is the composure shown by those who stand behind it.
“Making coffee is definitely a high stress environment,” Luczak says.
“It’s not for everyone. Very few people want to keep doing it for a long time but it feels like, for those that do, they have flicked some sort of switch.”
Likening some baristas to the passionate chef who quickly turns obsessive about discovering unusual flavours, Luczak believes that certain baristas can become consumed by the quest to perfect the sensory, espresso experience.
Far from turning off when his shifts are over, Luczak spends his spare time these days experimenting with coffee brewing methods on his own kitchen bench at home.
Once that uncommon alignment of obsession and ability – the special thing that Luczak calls a switch – was first turned on here in Newcastle, the search for a specialty espresso became a whole lot easier. Once the native of culinary enclaves like Darby or Beaumont streets, the knowledgeable barista appeared on every second street corner. They became the new rule, rather than the old exception.
The head barista at Mayfield’s Equium Social, Yasmine Steitz, has noticed the difference.
“When I started making coffees in this city a decade ago, it felt like I had joined a competition between Beaumont and Darby streets. They were the only two coffee destinations. Nowadays people will travel to a specific location to drink the espresso they prefer or find a particular kind of coffee experience. Where I work is a perfect example of that. There is nothing else around us but we are still consistently busy,” she says.
This new willingness for customers to explore the suburbs of Newcastle for a great coffee has kept the owner of Ground Up, Andy Scurry, reliably busy behind his own machine. But Scurry can more accurately attribute the strength of his business to the enduringly close relationship he has had with his coffee roaster, Mishka Golski.
Where the roastery was once a mysterious laboratory to the barista, an unfamiliar place that transformed green beans into the dark and aromatic offerings that you ground for your customers, baristas and roasters now work together intimately. Scurry believes that this relationship and the open line of communication that flowed from it has become his most valuable asset.
“From the beginning of Ground Up, I have banked on the ability of Mishka,” says Scurry. “Having the best coffee I could source, roasted by the best person I could find, was the way I tried to excel. As far as I’m concerned Mishka is the man. The mad scientist that I have always depended on.”
So after barista has found their switch, their roaster and their own unique coffee location, what else could there possibly be to worry about? Even along streets that for cafes have been traditionally on the sleepy side, like Young Street in Carrington, Scurry quickly detected an element to the coffee experience that could never be ignored. Service.
“It is so competitive in Newcastle these days,” he says. “When I first opened Ground Up seven years ago, it felt like there wasn’t a huge amount going on in the local cafe scene. It’s changed so much. Now everything has to be perfect. Coffee, food and the way you treat your customers.”
It is a transition that Gillian Foster, owner of Barista Miss in Lambton, has also thought a lot about over recent times. Starting her own coffee project coincided with a need to build fresh relationships with a whole new set of her local customers. Achieving this, says Foster, has meant becoming especially informed about what the contemporary, suburban coffee enthusiast specifically wants their barista to tell them about.
“I even get questions about home machines,” admits Foster. “Customers want to know how to change their grind or how to spin their milk better. I think it’s part of a wider trend. People want to know so much more about their coffee now. They don’t just come in to buy a coffee that somebody else has made. They want to know the why and the how.”
Alongside this trend has grown a local customer interest into beans that have been roasted in the surrounding suburbs. A rapidly growing set of smaller coffee roasting teams have produced a range of blends and single origin roasts that have quickly earned respect and recognition.
Barista Miss sources beans from Adam Hills and Trent Alder – the two local baristas who established Darks Roasters back in 2015. The genesis of their award-winning blends mirrors that of other small-scale roasters in the city. Unison and Josie are two more boutique roasteries that were established and are now operated by professional baristas who originally poured coffee right here in Newcastle.
If anything in the local coffee scene is likely to grow to be, over the coming years, even more specialised it will most likely be a more diverse range of locally roasted beans.
“Customers now want to know if their coffee has been roasted here in Newcastle,” Foster says. “Our regulars want their beans locally sourced and locally roasted. As well as wanting to know if we personally know our roasters, they also want to know the story behind the coffee that they are drinking.”
“It’s not for everyone. Very few people want to keep doing it for a long time but it feels like, for those that do, they have flicked a sort of switch.”
Likening some baristas to the passionate chef who quickly turns obsessive about discovering unusual flavours, Luczak believes that certain baristas can become consumed by the quest to perfect the sensory, espresso experience.
Far from turning off when his shifts are over, Luczak spends his spare time these days experimenting with coffee brewing methods on his own kitchen bench at home.
LIFTING THE GAME
When that uncommon alignment of obsession and ability – the special thing that Luczak calls a switch – was first turned on here in Newcastle, the search for a specialty espresso became a whole lot easier. Once the native of culinary enclaves like Darby or Beaumont streets, the knowledgeable barista appeared on every second street corner. They became the new rule, rather than the old exception.
The head barista at Mayfield’s Equium Social, Yasmine Steitz, has noticed the difference.
“When I started making coffees in this city a decade ago, it felt like I had joined a competition between Beaumont and Darby streets,” she says. “They were the only two coffee destinations.
“Nowadays people will travel to a specific location to drink the espresso they prefer or find a particular kind of coffee experience. Where I work is a perfect example of that. There is nothing else around us, but we are still consistently busy.”
This new willingness for customers to explore the suburbs of Newcastle for a great coffee has kept the owner of Ground Up, Andy Scurry, in Carrington, reliably busy behind his own machine. But Scurry can more accurately attribute the strength of his business to the close relationship he has had with his coffee roaster, Mishka Golski.
Where the roastery was once a mysterious laboratory to the barista, an unfamiliar place that transformed green beans into the dark and aromatic offerings that you ground for your customers, baristas and roasters now work together intimately. Scurry believes that this relationship and the open line of communication that flowed from it, has become his most valuable asset.
“From the beginning of Ground Up, I have banked on the ability of Mishka,” he says.
“Having the best coffee I could source, roasted by the best person I could find, was the way I tried to excel. As far as I’m concerned Mishka is the man. The mad scientist that I have always depended on.”
So, after a barista has found their “switch”, their roaster and their own unique coffee location, what else could there possibly be to worry about? Even along streets that for cafes have been traditionally on the sleepy side, like Young Street in Carrington, Scurry quickly detected an element to the coffee experience that could never be ignored. Service.
“It is so competitive in Newcastle these days,” Scurry says. “When I first opened Ground Up seven years ago, it felt like there wasn’t a huge amount going on in the local cafe scene. It’s changed so much. Now everything has to be perfect. Coffee, food and the way you treat your customers.”
It is a transition that Gillian Foster, owner of Barista Miss in Lambton, has also thought a lot about over recent times. Starting her own coffee project coincided with a need to build fresh relationships with a whole new set of her local customers. Achieving this, says Foster, has meant becoming especially informed about what the contemporary, suburban coffee enthusiast specifically wants their barista to tell them about.
“I even get questions about home machines,” Foster admits.
“Customers want to know how to change their grind or how to spin their milk better. I think it’s part of a wider trend. People want to know so much more about their coffee now. They don’t just come in to buy a coffee that somebody else has made. They want to know the why and the how.”
Alongside this trend has grown a local customer interest into beans that have been roasted in the surrounding suburbs. A rapidly growing set of smaller coffee roasting teams have produced a range of blends and single origin roasts that have quickly earned respect and recognition.
Barista Miss sources beans from Adam Hills and Trent Alder – the two local baristas who established Darks Roasters in 2015. The genesis of their award-winning blends mirrors that of other small-scale roasters in the city. Unison and Josie are two more boutique roasteries that were established and are now operated by professional baristas who originally poured coffee right here in Newcastle.
If anything in the local coffee scene is likely to grow to be even more specialised, it will most likely be a more diverse range of locally roasted beans.
KNOW THE STORY
“Customers now want to know if their coffee has been roasted here in Newcastle,” Foster says.
“Our regulars want their beans locally sourced and locally roasted. As well as wanting to know if we personally know our roasters, they also want to know the story behind the coffee that they are drinking.”
