Courtesy of Five Senses
Sydney’s Surry Hills isn’t exactly bereft of speciality coffee, yet coffee roaster Five Senses has found a niche with Filter: The New Black, a two-week pop-up café focusing squarely on filtered beans.
Taking over the ground floor of a warehouse on Kippax Street, the pop-up aims to be a space where novices and the filter-fluent alike can hone their palates on tasting flights of six or seven roasts. Tasting sessions and workshops on home brewing complement these filter 101s.
Like nearby cafés Neighbourhood by Seán McManus, Artificer and Glider KS, Five Senses has enlisted Porter & Maple for their pop-up’s fit-out. A sleek white timber and birch-ply cube brew bar is home to a shiny SP9 filter machine, and there’s room for an espresso machine, too. Surry Hillbillies can trip their way through tasting flights at two long communal walnut tables – think beer-hall meets brewhouse.
Around 15 varieties of coffee will rotate over the two weeks across the filter and espresso machines. They range from Ethiopian, Colombian and Kenyan roasts to the more expensive Geisha varieties from Panama and micro-lot roasts from Five Senses’ farm in north Sumatra. “We’ll put a naturally processed Ethiopian that’s really fruity next to a processed Colombian that’s tasting pretty clean, then we’ll walk you through it,” says Ben Bicknell, Five Senses’ project manager.
As befits the filter focus, the food front is just slightly left-of-centre. You’ll find doughnuts from Short Stop in lieu of croissants, and Jesse McTavish, late of Melbourne breakfast powerhouse Kettle Black, has plans for a coal grill menu with Japanese twists on café staples such as avocado on toast with reduced whey and local seaweed.
Five Senses Pop Up – Filter: The New Black, 64 Kippax St, Surry Hills, NSW, fivesenses.com.au/popup; Sat 3 September to Sun 18 September, daily 7am-4pm.
