The original owners of the award-winning chartplace-getting head-turning champion-barista-toting
7 Grams of Richmond have moved on. Their new venture is now open in the city, and is named after another crucial number in the world of espresso: 65 Degrees. That's how hot you want your milk to be, Celsius-wise. If it's any hotter than that, you must be in Perth. You could have fun brainstorming a list of names they'll be able to use at the next five cafés they open. Actually, I could have fun with that too. And I will.
- 8 ounces
- One Saucer
- No Sugars
- No Sleep
- Fifteen MacBook Pros
- Free Wifi
Regarding those last two points, they don't apply at 65 Degrees. That was one of the most curious things about this place: no café folk. It's usually unavoidable: whenever you go to a place with great coffee, it's always accompanied by dudes with assymetrical haircuts chained to Macbook Pros and doing something complicated in Photoshop. But they were nowhere to be found. Everyone I saw (except for me, and Luke who I was sitting with) seemed to have a real job: wearing suits, travelling in groups, talking about important work-related stuff. The place looks just CBD lunchbreak-y enough to ward off the
Wayfarer set. This is one of the few great-coffee/non-hipster haunts in the city. And it's a win-win situation: there's more likely to be somewhere to sit, and 65 Degrees don't lose any business because, by-and-large, those guys sit around for longer without ordering more drinks anyway.
“But Ryan,” I hear you say, “that's impossible. The coffee must not be very good.” Well, let me tell you a story. My latté came out to the table fairly quickly. I had time to take one sip, when the waiter came back, apologised, and took it away again.
“Sorry, he wasn't happy with how he poured it.”
The barista made me another one.
That's some dedication. It wasn't even taste-related. Just presentation, and dedication to the job. I would have been totally happy with the first one. He could have quite easily moved on to the next order, but even at first-coffee-break-of-the-day rushhour, he knew he should do it again, and did so. Thumbs up.
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