The Coffee Barun

Main North Road is not an address at which you would expect to find good coffee being roasted on site by a coffee connoisseur and fanatic. KFC's and DIY superstores are far more suited to the neighborhood in question, yet Mark Barun has found a site and introduced good coffee to the area. Long may such optimistic foodie ventures flourish.

We visited the Coffee Barun because they had been mentioned as one of the best places in Adelaide for coffee, and because, on further research, we noticed that they had advertised a Coffee Cupping at the end of October.

We were intrigued by the notion and so turned up at the unlikely venue at 2pm to be faced with the overwhelming smell of a frying plate churning out quality looking burgers. It would seem that the Coffee Barun can't rely on coffee alone in its current location. A pity as the frying smell completely overwhelmed any residual coffee smells.

When we mentioned the coffee cupping Mark himself stepped forward and invited us to take a seat. We joined two other enthusiastic home roasters to try four different single origin coffees that Mark had roasted the day before. He freely admitted that it was too soon after roasting to really start tasting but said he was too excited to wait any longer!

The Coffee Cupping ceremony involved 100g of water (weighed) to 10g of ground beans. The resulting gunge on top is then skimmed off and the tasters are given spoons from which to slurp off tastes of the black coffee. The names are written on the bottom of the cups and are revealed at the end of the tasting.

The clear winner at this Cupping was the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. It had a depth and smoothness to it that marked it from its competitors. My friend also enjoyed the Cup of Excellence Costa Rican coffee. We agreed that the El Salvador coffee was too bitter and fruity - although I loved it a little later when Mark made me a piccolo latte with it. The final contender was a Costa Rican Herbazu that none of us thought exceptional. Mark admitted that he had in all likelihood over roasted the beans at this, his first attempt, as you never can really tell where the "sweet spot" is for each bean until you have gone past it.

Having all agreed that the Yirgacheffe was the pick of the bunch Mark then got out his coffee siphon and proceeded to make us all small cups of the coffee in question. The coffee siphon was a fascinating mad scientist type contraption that, when placed over a mini gas burner and rubbed like a genie lamp, siphons condensed steam back through coffee grounds to create an intense coffee. It looks like a lot of fun, and I am sure this is part of the attraction, but Mark also assured us this was the purists way to make great coffee. Of course purists also take their coffee black so at this point we held up our hands to being latte lovers and Mark obligingly made us some piccolo lattes to keep us happy. (By this point I was near flying with the pure force of all that caffeine but I nevertheless licked my latte spoon clean.)

Mark has 16 different coffees hanging on the wall - a home roasted mix of blends and single origins. He is very excited about 5kg of Geisha coffee that he has ordered with a friend for his own happy home siphoning. I found our visit here an education, but it has only confirmed us in our current selection of Yirgacheffe as our favourite home blend.