Melbourne Coffee Crawl – Part 1

A number of weeks ago Dan & I went on a pilgrimage to Melbourne to drink the best coffee we could get our hands on. There was no difficulty in finding a good brew. Infact, the worse coffee that I had was still better than most of the coffee I have ever paid for back home in Launceston! The best, however, was so good that if I had caught swine-flu while I was over there, I would have died satisfied. Ok, that’s not quite true, but still, I’m glad that I came back swine-flu free!

The trip was really awesome, fun, & satisfying. What could be more satisfying than walking into a cafe where you are greeted by friendly staff, taken in by the funky decor and groovy & uplifting music, and only moment later be drinking a shot of amazing coffee that is only fit to be drunk by God himself? I defintely had no excuse to sing, “I can’t get no… sat-is-fac-tion”.

Dan had been given a list of cafes to visit that had been separated into two groups: Must visit and Worth visiting if in the area. That list was invaluable as it kept leading us from awesome coffee to awesome coffee. Since I’ve been back, a number of people have asked where they should go for coffee in Melbourne. So, here is the official list of Humphreys Top Nine Melbourne Cafes. I know that nine is a weird number to countdown from, but we only went to nine cafes, and they are all worth mentioning.

This is the first of four or five posts that I plan on posting over the coming week. The first few posts will discuss/review a few cafes each, with the final post revealing my favourite Melbourne cafe. So, if you enjoy coffee and plan on being in Melbourne at some point in your life, make sure that you subscribe! Even if you aren’t a coffee obsessed nut like me, you will definitely be thankful you went to one of these places.

My Disclaimer: I’ve only been to these places once or twice, so I’m not able to comment on many things — especially consistency. For example, I could have gone to a really crap cafe, but fluked a good brew. Likewise, I could have been really unlucky and have been served the only “not awesome” coffee they made all year. Also, my comments are completely biased towards what I like/disliked and how I felt on the day. Your opinion of the place may completely different, and that’s ok Other than that, I wish you all happy drinking!

So let the countdown start at number…

#9 — 7 Grams

505 Church St
Richmond

This is the home of the national latte art champion Con. I went here a about a year ago and my flat white not only tasted amazing, but it was topped off with a perfect double rosetta! This cafe has also been highly recommended by many people and appears in many of the “Best cafe” lists that I have read.

Unfortunately, my excitment about 7 Grams was short lived. Maybe I was completely over caffinated (I had already had 4 shots by then that day)? Maybe a new staff member was being trained or on trial and they didn’t have the same standard of coffee as this place is know for? Maybe some terrorists had staged an attack on 7 grams, swapping all the Veneziano beans with some second rate stale rubbish? Oooh, i should call that in to the terrorism hotline! Which of these possibilities was the reason? I’m not sure.

I’m am disappointed to say that this was the worst coffee that I had for the entire trip. Home of the national latte art champion? I’m sure it is, but I’m guessing he wasn’t there that day because I didn’t know that a “speckled milky-way” was considered latte art . I know many people will be annoyed at me for placing 7 Grams at #9, but this ranking is completely based on my most recent visit. Anyway, here’s what the shop-front looks like from the top of a Google car and below that is a good looking bearded guy sitting inside 7 Grams:

It’s here that I should mention that while in Melbourne our taste buds were treated to a very high quality of coffee. So in reality, the coffee I had there was still pretty amazing. I’m just saying that out of the specially selected cafes that we went to, this one served up the worst cup. You would, however, be doing an amazing job to get a better brew than this anywhere in Launceston!

7 Grams is less than a block from the East Richmond train station. So if you find yourself on a train that is coming to a stop at East Richmond jump out and grab a coffee. Hopefully you’ll have better luck than we did I’ll defintely giving it a second chance next time I’m in town. Check out the mini-map below or view in full at Google Maps.

If you’ve been to 7 Grams it would be awesome if you could leave a comment below as tell us about your experience!

That concludes part one. Stay tuned, because I’ll be posting the next three cafes in a day or two :-)