Ed Moffatt is an import. An Aussie, from Melbourne, living in Orange County, California. He owns Common Room Roasters in Newport Beach, which sits about 600 meters inland from the ocean. He and Common Roomโ€™s co-owner Jeremy Creighton met in South Yarra, whileย Creightonโ€™s ad agency, Passport, was on the same street as Moffattโ€™s first cafe. Now, a hemisphere away, Passportโ€™s second office is in the same building as Common Room.

Creighton moved to America first, while Moffatt was still in Melbourne, working as Localeโ€™s head roaster while owning and running Long Island Brew Bar. At Locale, Moffatt worked under Christiano Portis but had been a part of the Melbourne coffee community since the early aughts. He was established, settled with a wife and kid and house. And then Creighton called.

Apparently, there was no coffee in America. Or at least, there wasnโ€™t any coffee good enough and close enough by, by Melbourne standards, for Passportโ€™s Aussie-majority staff to get any work done.

โ€œSo over Skype,โ€ Moffatt says, โ€œIโ€™m like, buy this machine, buy this grinder, buy these Acme cups. I didn’t say get a Strada,” Moffatt admits. “I said get a [La Marzocco] Linea.โ€

advert but first coffee cookbook now available

 

The setup would become The Common Room, a rolling cart for Passportโ€™s in-house use that, every Friday, Creighton would wheelย out for the public. Between 9am and 11am, Passportโ€™s neighborsโ€”itโ€™s located in an industrial zone whose occupants include businesses like Salt, RVCA, Hurley, and Vansโ€”could come by for free flat whites and shots of espresso. It didnโ€™t take long for them to start knocking on Creightonโ€™s window every morning, asking if The Common Room was open today?

โ€œSo now Jeremy’s like, โ€˜move to America,โ€™โ€ Moffatt says. โ€œAnd Iโ€™m like, โ€˜Okay.โ€™โ€ It only takes 12 weeks, and in early 2016, Moffatt makes landfallโ€”waiting for him is Creighton, a warehouse, and a Joperย roaster. The Common Room closes, and Common Room Roasters is born.

Ed Moffatt

โ€œWe basically didn’t have any wholesale customers,โ€ Moffatt says of the first few months. โ€œWe were just roasting for ourselves, getting our green supply figured out, and taking time to settle the roaster.โ€

Patch Coffee bought from Common Room in the early days, but it was difficult to attract attention. The cafeโ€”charming as it wasโ€”had become a distraction from the company’sย wholesaling goals.

So, early in its life, Common Room went through a redesign.ย โ€œBecause we had to stop and start, we got the chance to redefine our goals,โ€ Moffatt says. โ€œBefore, we were another coffee shop full of computers. And we were like, โ€˜hang on, we’re from Melbourne, we’re a roastery.โ€™ We want this to be an interactive, useful space for people who are into coffee. Now, weโ€™re an operating plant where you can buy coffee.โ€

Moffatt explains that as soon as the switch was flipped, people took notice. Both in Southern California and around the country, cafe owners and restaurateurs, including recent cool kidsย Gjelina and Gjusta, started ringing him upโ€”the Melbournian roaster living in America.

โ€œAll the Aussies around hereโ€”there are a lot because of the surf industryโ€”come in and it’s awesome because I get to transport them all back home, one by one with a flat white and an accent,โ€ Moffatt says.

The bigger picture for Common Room is not to simply act as a place to buy Melbourne coffee, though, but to help America usher in a specialty coffee wave the size and strength of which hit Melbourne 15 years ago. Of course, America already has specialty coffee shopsโ€”as Sprudge readers know, a lot of specialty coffee shopsโ€”but what Moffatt imagines is a movement wherein specialty completely displaces chain coffee, much in the same way it forced Starbucks to shutter the majority of its stores in Australia over the past decade.

โ€œWe’re all of us together against the big boys,โ€ Moffatt saysย ofย chain coffee. โ€œIn Australia, our coffee is so good? We want to be better for our consumers. We want people to think that our level is the norm.โ€

Common Room Roasters is located atย 882 Production Pl, Newport Beach, CA. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Michael Light (@MichaelPLight) is a features editor at Sprudge Media Network.ย Read more Michael Light onย Sprudge.

Photos byย Scottie Cameron.

banner advertising the book new rules of coffee