Coffee Lab

Mel Caia started working in her family’s café at a young age - probably too young, by her own admission. But young Mel Caia loved it. After a decade or so she took a break from the industry and started work as a coffee and gelato trainer at William Angliss Institute where she still teaches today. And then, in 2006 she got accredited to judge coffee competitions and has since adj

S2E3 - Jack Eydlish initially trained as a pharmacist and has somehow ended up Joint General Manager of Maltra Foods, a proudly Australian-owned food and beverage contract manufacturing business. Maltra started in the mid 90s when Jack’s dad fortuitously partnered in a business providing drinking chocolate and chai powders to cafes around St Kilda. Today – 27 years later – Ja

S2E2 - Just to the northwest of Noosa in Queensland, lies the small town of Gympie, population a bit over 50 thousand. It’s a far cry from the big, bustling, coffee metropolis that is Melbourne, population 5 million, some 2000km to the south. But that’s the journey today’s guest made, and the culture shock was real. We’re very excited to welcome Andrew Baldry, General Manag

S2E1 - When your dad’s a baker, his crazy hours mean you don’t get to see much of him as a kid. Which is why as soon as they could, Steve and Mike Plarre joined their dad at the bakery. A couple of 7 or 8 year olds covered in flour, doing anything they could to get involved. Fast forward a few decades and one of them is now the CEO, the other is the General Manager of Productio

S1E6 - Nick Ferrara was born in Naples, Italy and studied engineering in Rome, before launching into a career in news publishing. He also worked with his mum in a not-for-profit aimed at dissuading young people from a life of organized crime, and at some point also started a wind farm with his mates. Then, with no real knowledge of English, and having never been on a plane before,

S1E5 - Peter Patisteas has seen Melbourne’s coffee culture unfold and mature from a front row seat. He grew up learning the art of coffee roasting – at the time, a very manual process – from his father and uncle, in the Griffiths Brothers roastery. After a foray into investment banking in London in the late 90s, he decided to go straight to the source and see how coffee start

S1E4 - Alberto Schiavon was in Melbourne for the World Barista Championships, where for the first time, competitors did their thing using Barista Attitude machines. The machines themselves are backed by the half-century pedigree of Astoria CMA, but they’re servicing a new customer – a barista, or café owner, or multinational chain that’s looking for something a little bit di

S1E3 - Kamal Bengougam is a risk taker, but it’s risk for the sake of a good story, as much as it is for the payoff. He’s had a varied career including publishing, engineering, biotech, and he’s mashed all those together to land at the cutting edge of super-automated coffee at Eversys. Now, super-automation is contentious. There are those who will argue that automating the co

S1E2 - As time passes, generational shifts occur – in families, in their businesses, the products they’ve created, and the communities they serve. Riding the waves of these generational shifts is challenging, particularly in migrant communities that still feel so connected to their homelands, but for whom identities and points of reference are constantly shifting and changing.

S1E1 - From the espresso bars of Rome to the laneway cafes of Melbourne, La Marzocco is a globally recognized – and loved – brand. But long before he became their Managing Director here in Australia, Barry Moore was a devoted customer, placing hundreds of La Marzocco coffee machines in the businesses he worked in around the world. Then, the opportunity arose to head-up the busi