Go Around The Blend

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday June 17, 2008

Helen Greenwood

Coffee lovers jump at the chance to sample beans from the world's best plantations.

"HAVE you ever roasted coffee?" asks Chris Dickinson moments after we've exchanged hellos. No, is my answer and Dickinson says he's about to change that.

Before I can say "green bean", Dickinson hands me a scoop and gives an impromptu tutorial about the flavour profiles of Colombian, Brazilian, Papua New Guinean, Guatemalan, Kenyan and Costa Rican coffees. I decide the Helen Blend will have Colombian, which has a robust body and makes a good base or filler, plus the vibrant Papua New Guinean, a favourite of Dickinson, and the chocolatey overtones of Kenyan.

I scoop my beans - I can't tell you the quantities, it's a secret - into a bucket that I lug over to the 10-kilogram radiant drum roaster that sits, like an expectant black labrador, in Argosini, the coffee store and cafe owned by Dickinson and his partner, Lou Wijeyaratne.

Following Dickinson's instructions I pull a lever, shift a handle and, hey presto, the beans start tumbling and clacking. We watch them darken through a tiny porthole and pull out the tester, more frequently as time and temperature advance.

We cock our heads, listen for the cracking sounds and sniff the oils being released. Finally, the beans spill from the drum and swish around in the cooling hopper.

Dickinson spends a lot of time with his pet, a Turkish Has Garanti machine. He fires it up five times a week and enjoys the zen of batch roasting so much that he has another machine in the garage so he can keep cooking at home.

Wijeyaratne can turn his hand at roasting when the need arises but he concentrates on the store and sales side. With his background as a former marketing maven at Penfolds, Wijeyaratne relishes having been in on the ground floor of the booming boutique coffee business. "Five years ago when we started, I saw the coffee industry where the wine industry was in the early '80s," he says.

It was then they started looking for a site and formulating a business plan. Both men are New Zealanders who met in Sydney but at the time Dickinson was still living in New Zealand - although he had sold his successful coffee business. Wijeyaratne, on the other hand, had been in Australia for 20 years and was looking for a way out of wine. They opened Argosini in 2005, clad in green, red and black (the colours of the raw bean, heat and the cooked bean).

There are street and inside seats, coffeeware and machines, barista and coffee appreciation classes and a huge retail area that doubles as the baristas' playpen. Actually, these guys are pros who can tell you the micron measurements of their naked portafilter heads (a recent American innovation for baristas) off the top of their heads.

Argosini's signature blend, Sierra, is on sale along with eight other blends - including the full-bodied Carlino's Five and the clean Java Highlander - in handsome canisters. But you won't find the lively, velvety Helen Blend. That's my special stay-home brew.

Argosini

9 Atchison Street, Crows Nest, 9906 6981

Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat 9am-2pm

Best buys

Sierra signature $40/kg; $17/250g tin

Rainforest Alliance $40/kg; $17/250g tin

Zanzibar $36/kg; $15/250g tin

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home