In the constantly growing world of quality coffee, cafes and customers are spoilt for choice. There are progressively more boutique roasters popping up ready to supply the insatiable masses, and as such, multi-roaster cafes are becoming increasingly easier to find.
One such multi-roaster, Melbourne’s Assembly, in Carlton, has been leading the pack for some time, featuring coffees from a diverse array of roasters. In selecting its coffees, the staff at Assembly takes a cleanskin approach—tasting everything and doing so blind, so as not to have any preconceptions of what particular roasters’ coffees should taste like.
With the spirit of impartial tasting in mind, Chrissie Trabucco and Ollie Mackay of Assembly are setting out to put on a new set of events—the Roasters District Meet. The first meet will be held in Melbourne at Coffee Supreme’s HQ on Thursday, April 23rd, while the second will be in Sydney at Mecca Roastworks on April 30th.
Roasters District Meet will bring together a number of different coffees from respected roasters (Market Lane Coffee, Barrio, Small Batch, and Sample Coffee Roasters to name a few) to be served as unadulterated espresso (no milk, no sugar) in a rare opportunity to taste an impressive range of roasters under one roof. All espressos will be served blind throughout the evening, so as to create an environment for open and unbiased discussion between attendees and the roasters themselves—before the big reveal at the end of the evening.
Trabucco explained their goals behind the Roasters District Meet: “We’re really hoping to challenge attendees to consider each coffee they drink based on that drink alone,” said Trabucco, “without the preconceived ideas of what a roaster is ‘supposed’ to taste like—or what they heard it tastes like.”
While this may all come across in quite a serious tone, Trabucco outlined to me that the main intention of the events is to bring the community together for a lively and social event (that just happens to revolve around tasting coffees). “At the crux of it, we could taste all these coffees in Assembly at any time, like we do day to day, but opening it up to the roasters themselves is us making a genuine effort to foster a little camaraderie…this coffee community exists and it’d be nice for us all to nurture a little mateship.”
So, if you’re near Melbourne (April 23rd) or Sydney (April 30th), make sure you head down to one of the Roasters District Meet events to taste a bunch of delicious espresso, play some ping pong, and have a drink with some interesting and interested coffee professionals.
Eileen P. Kenny is a Sprudge.com staff writer based in Adelaide, and the publisher of Birds of Unusual Vitality, the coffee interview magazine. Read more Eileen P. Kenny on Sprudge.
Poster design is by Daniel Astorquiza, the in-house designer at Coffee Supreme.
