[brc]

There's really no such thing as 'Aussie' coffee, as I doubt coffee is produced in commercial quantities anywhere in Australia, although there are local roasters.

What they are referring to is coffee made by an Australia barista.

Basically, coffee culture is huge in Australia, and being a quality barista is seen as a cool kind of job to have, despite the generally low pay.

It's not unusual on a city street in Australia to have 5 or 6 coffee shops in a row. At this point, they are competing on coffee + barista quality. With this type of competition, the consumer gets well educated on the nuances between cups, and so it goes.

I had no idea this idea of 'the aussie barista' was being exported to the world, but I guess it makes sense.

In reality, what you're probably seeing is the competitive advantage given from a business cluster in Porter speak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster

Ironically it grew out of Italian culture, mainly through immigrants to Australia. While my best coffee experience was still in Italy, generally I find coffee in other parts of the world appalling in comparison, esp in the USA.

[andrewfelix]

>There's really no such thing as 'Aussie' coffee

Demonstrably untrue. Like most coffee producers, a lot of the beans are imported, some of it is grown locally. But they are hand selected, blended and roasted here in Australia and are most definitely produced in commercial quantities to be consumed here and exported as far as Korea.

To name but a few Campos, Sprocket, Lavazza.

Australia has very rich Italian and European cultural heritage which means we cultivated a coffee culture quite early on, relative to other western countries.

[brc]

@andrewfelix - you're right in that there are specific roasters, but I'm unsure about where they get their beans.

I guess I took 'Aussie' coffee to be places that marketed themselves as 'Australian', or internationally recognised Australian coffee brands. While everyone can find a bottle of Australian wine, and what it means to be Australian wine, defining it for coffee is a difficult task.

dpark, 'Western' is more of a cultural moniker than a geographical moniker.

If you want to get specific about it, all of Europe west of Greenwich is not 'Western' - and that's most of it. Tunisia is definitely Western Hemisphere but you wouldn't call it west.

[dpark]

I recognized Lavazza, so I had to look it up. It's apparently an Italian company, with production in Italy, and seven subsidiaries in other countries (notably not Australia). Probably not the best choice to promote Aussie coffee. The others do seem to be Australian.

By the way, does Australia count as a western nation? It seems to be in the wrong location for that. This is totally tangential to the coffee topic, just something that I found curious.

[andrewfelix]

Culturally western, yes. While we're positioned in 'Oceania', we were settled(invaded?) by the British and had a 'White Australia Policy' up until the 70's, meaning most migrants were of European descent.

Good point on Lavazza, was a bad assumption.

[samfoo]

As an American living in Sydney: I've found it to be exactly the opposite. Sure there's a ton of coffee places, but mostly they're the same crappy $4.00 burnt roast. I suspect Melbourne is probably better, but I haven't had enough coffee there to confirm.

My speculation is that this is due to a general lack of hip/divy/young "artisan" cafes/restaurants in Australia (yes, yes, I know there are some, I'm talking purely about prevalence) compared with "hip" American cities. This is particularly true outside of the hip parts of town (Surrey Hills, mostly).

US coffee quality depends greatly on which city you're in, and the barista being a cool job is true in many places as well. The Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle -- despite the Starbucks black mark) has really amazing coffee shops, and they're everywhere. If you're ever in Portland, I highly suggest Barista -- http://baristapdx.com/ -- it will change your life.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I have lived in Sydney a long time. I agree. Most of it is not that good. But everywhere you go there is usually at least 1 place that you can count on.