Dozens of places around the world could claim to be “coffee cities,” but few have the blend of ingredients that marks Melbourne as the most exciting of all, according to the 2025 Global Tastemakers panel of food and travel experts.
The global premiere of the documentary, The Rise of Espresso, was held here in 2024. The annual Melbourne International Coffee Expo is on every coffee expert’s calendar. McDonald’s even launched its very first McCafé concept in the city in 1993, supposedly because of Melburnians’ discerning coffee palates. It is, in short, a city that courses caffeine through its veins.
None of this is surprising, says Fiona Sweetman, founder and director of Hidden Secrets Tours, considering that Melbourne is a town built by entrepreneurs, so small businesses like cafés are its heartbeat. The city’s famous alleyways were designed as service lanes for those enterprises. Today, they make the perfect place to install a hidden, “if you know, you know” café or coffee window.
Immigrants, particularly Italians, brought espresso machines with them to the city in the mid-20th century, and a steady stream of newcomers from all over the world have introduced innovations ever since.
“Then there’s the port, which brings in more products than any other in Australia,” says Sweetman. “So we have coffee from Kenya, Columbia, Indonesia, and everywhere else. Because we’re so far from pretty much everywhere, there’s no favoritism.”
For visitors, Australian coffee terminology can be confusing. But learning it is part of the experience. A “long black” is a double shot of espresso added to hot water, while a “flat white” can loosely be called a latte, but it’s stronger, and go easy on the foam.
However, Melbourne goes one step further with coffee nomenclature, with a host of styles you won’t find anywhere else in the country. Ask for a “magic,” for example, and you’ll get a double ristretto topped with steamed milk and served warm, rather than hot, in a mid-sized cup. Those in the know head to places like Carlton’s Good Measure for entirely innovative creations like its Mont Blanc, a filter coffee topped with cream, nutmeg, and orange.
Of course, you can’t discuss Australian food and drink without mentioning the country’s great love of brunch. and coffee is brunch’s uncontested liquid companion of choice.
“In the early brunch scene of the late 2000s, you wouldn’t have poached eggs without a siphon coffee,” says Andrew Kelly, founder of specialist Melbourne coffee roasters Small Batch Roasting Co.
So even if you don’t need to know every single-origin, pour-over detail before you order your coffee, just about any busy neighborhood café in the city can serve you an excellent flat white with your avocado toast.
“It is pretty hard to get a bad cup of coffee in Melbourne,” says Kelly.
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