Paris Embraces New Wave Of Coffee Makers

Australian law graduate Tom Clark and Antoine Netien, a French-born but Australian-trained master roaster, opened Coutume Cafe in the heart of one of Paris' most traditional districts nearly one year ago.

The interior of the specialty coffee and roasting house looks more like a warehouse mixed with a science laboratory than a traditional cafe on Paris' 7th arrondissement. Floorboards are left bare, customers rest their cups on steel counter tops and only a plastic curtain keeps the roasting machine out of view from the floor.

Coutume Cafe is part of a growing number of mostly foreign-owned establishments that offer a different style of coffee drinking. Most of the baristas in these cafes have been trained overseas and reject the espresso-style coffees that can typically be found elsewhere in Paris.

Mr Netien said: 'I discovered my first real coffee in Melbourne.

'It was by a guy called Pat Totaro [the former owner of Coffee Traders in Mornington]. He showed me how to make five different cups with one variable: you change the grams, you change the tamping, the temperature and you have five different cups. I was blown away.

'I had always grown up with this obsession for food and wine and good produce but I had never had anything like this.'

Mr Netien, who is originally from Lyon, came to Paris via spells in Melbourne and Cheltenham. When he arrived in the French capital in August 2010 he was a master roaster and had won an award for best organic blend at the 2007 Golden Bean Awards in New South Wales.

Now the owners of Coutume Cafe plan to open another establishment in Paris and have 12 wholesale clients, while the owner of Paris-based wholesaler Cafe Lomi believes the appetite for specialty beans is growing fast.