This week I found myself driving out to Forster, on the Mid North Coast of NSW. I work 40 minutes in the opposite direction, but a work event took me to the Surf Life Saving Club at Cape Hawke. I'd never been to this area before, and wasn't overly sure what to expect - and then I hit absolute gold in a coffee cup! And indeed, the coffee cup was part of the gold.
How delighted I was, that attached to the Surf Club, was a really funky looking coffee shop - Bostin Brew Co. It had been 90 minutes in the car to get here, so I naturally went to the loo first - but then, the very next task was to join the queue for a large skim cappucino, no sugar.
The cover image let's you enjoy some of the scenery - pretty spectacular location for a coffee shop, right?
The coffee shop seating was all outside, albeit undercover - and the shop itself was out of a kiosk. The setup looked pretty smooth, and it was busy! I couldn't get a shot of the seating as it was full of people. To prove this point further, I had the longest wait between order and coffee that I'd ever experienced. It was 11 minutes - It wasn't bad service, it was just the backlog of the orders, which I guess meant that the girl making the coffees just had to do her best - but it shows how popular the place was. Right?
I couldn't quite figure out why the name of the place was 'Bostin' - nothing particularly gave it away or explained it, and so that will need to remain a mystery. But what won't remain a mystery is the beans!
The cup reads, $1 from every bag of Bear and the Beard coffee sold goes directly to help Bear Cottage provide care for children from all over Australia with life limiting conditions and their families.
I know what you're thinking: just by buying the coffee, I was actually being rather charitable. The coffee was $4.50 which is pretty standard these days in Australia, if anything, it was probably cheaper than you'd expect from an independent shop. To help put it in perspective, this same coffee would have cost $4.90 at McCafe.
In deciding to sit on the sand to enjoy the start of the beverage, I couldn't help but notice the cup - I feel like every coffee I have been getting recently has been in a boring generic cup - but then this one turns up in my little hands - and it's artwork. It made me wonder, did the coffee taste really good, or did the coffee cup experience make it better? In truth, it was nice coffee - but I think it will linger in my mind as better than it was, because of this design!
Anyways, then I had to head in to my meeting - I unintentionally brought sand into the meeting on my shoes - but, you have to figure that would happen a lot to this conference room. In setting myself up with my paperwork and whatnot, the way I had positioned the cup had caught my attention. When I had been outside, I had thought the cup "2 sided" - one with the logo, the other the information. How curious then that this image was staring back at me.
It is of course, the 'bear' and 'the beard' from the brand. I couldn't help but smile - it seemed that this coffee just kept giving and giving and giving.
Evaluation:
I'd give the coffee itself an 8/10. It wasn't too hurt, and it went down well. It had a nice taste on the tongue too - the barista, in a rushed state, really could have made a million errors with the coffees - but her steady head led to a really good end product.
Yet - in asking if I'd go back, I'd give the coffee experience a 10/10. I don't think I've ever seen so much whimsy on a coffee cup - and, it was whimsy which kept on giving. It was unexpected, and the charitable quality it offered made this an impressive cup to get my work day underway. (I couldn't say 'day underway', as I'd already had two coffees at home, one in a mug in the car - so this was #4 - but it was 8.40am when I had it - technically, that's a slow day for me).
Until next time
Happy Brewing
Tim