Best coffee in Australia

I like my caffeine. What I do not like is bitter, reflux-inducing coffee. I like a medium roast coffee made in a drip coffeemaker. Under duress, in need of a fix, I’ll drink espresso if I can dilute it sufficiently with water or ice. But even that is unsatisfying.

Unfortunately, the Italians seem to have brought their form of coffee to Australia before we Americans did. Or perhaps they just overtook us. But having now spent three weeks in Australia’s largest cities, I can report with confidence that drip coffee is hard to find. Hotels serve some sort of percolated or drip coffee at conference breaks, but as the chefs don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, they make it badly. Otherwise, everything comes out of an espresso machine. I’ve learned to order a long black, which has some water added, and then to add icewater to that to make it drinkable.

In Perth, though, walking through an arcade, I discovered the real thing. The place is Low Down Espresso, and they don’t even advertise their drip coffee. But there’s the machine, big as life, on the back counter; and these guys know how to use it. They even make proper iced coffee. Best I’ve had in a long time. If any coffee in Australia deserves a plug from an American traveler, this is the place.