I remember, not too long ago, when the only choice of coffee you had was either Bovril or dishwater, such was our collective contempt for this beautiful drink. I often wondered why the café culture of cities like Melbourne had never been replicated here.
However, over the last few years a few dedicated, passionate souls have begun to change our minds. In Dublin, Coffee Angel, The Bald Barista, 3FE and more recently, Imbibe Coffee have started a coffee revolution.
New and old converts to coffee are literally crossing town just to get a taste of this new coffee revolution.
Coffee in restaurants
However, one of the last bastions of bad coffee is good restaurants. How many times have you had great food and great wine, all to end with a distinctly average coffee? At a restaurant the coffee experience should be as good as the entire meal and the lasting impression is all important.
Imbibe Coffee
Enter stage left, Imbibe Coffee and Gary Grant, one letter away from the eponymous actor and Ireland’s latest in a line of coffee heroes.
Gary’s main business, Imbibe Coffee, is all about great coffee.
What does great coffee mean? Well, first off it’s got to taste great. It also needs good provenance. We seek provenance in our food, our wines, so why not our coffee?
But provenance is more than just the “terroir” of the coffee bean, it’s also about the people who produce it.
- Are they growing and processing the bean in the best possible way, with passion and purpose?
- Are they being paid a fair price for their work?
- Has the land that they’re producing the coffee from been an ecological sacrifice at the expense of rainforest ecosystems?
These are just some of the things that matter to Gary when he’s bringing coffee from bean to cup.
All his coffees are Fairtrade, Organic and Rainforest Alliance certified. Oh, and they taste great.
For me, that’s coffee you can believe in.
