According to IBIS World, a market research organization specializing in long range forecasting of industries and the business environment, cafes and coffee shop revenues are expected to grow over 30 per cent over the next five years in Australia, proving to be one of the biggest "recession busters".
From humble beginnings, probably as early as the late 1800’s and early 1900’s when the Andronicus brothers drew on their wealth of European coffee-making experience; our Café’ culture is now going from strength to strength.
In the early 1950’s the family imported into the country Australia’s first espresso machine and suddenly Australians started enjoying espresso in the true European tradition. Today, even though we consume large quantise of tea at home, this is not reflected when we go out. In fact tea accounts for only 2.5% of total hot beverages ordered. Hot chocolate, a morning favourite for a close chum accounts for 5%.
Another interesting anecdote is that of the barista. Another friend thought she was going on a date with a barrister when she then realized he was a barista. The reason why I bothered committing this, otherwise piece of trivia to memory, let alone write about it is because the word ‘barista’ was unknown six or seven years ago in Australia.
Now this is part of the vernacular and some espresso bars pay well above the minimum wage for qualified baristas who make good coffee, make it consistently and make it quickly. This brings me to my next point. Looking quickly at Google trends (see illustration) – it seems we (Australians) are second to New Zealand in search volume for the word “barista”. India comes in third followed by Italy and the Philippines.
Australia-originated searches over Google seem to have largely commenced in 2007 around the time when news of Barista Training workshops became new worthy in mainstream News services. Also at about the same time international competitions (such as the Grand Barista Cup) were being held to find the best Barista.
No comments:
Post a Comment