Hi, my name’s Marty. I live with my wife and two girls in Melbourne, Australia and, like most people, I’m a coffee drinker.

I don’t remember exactly what age I began drinking coffee, but I know I was still in Primary School. My brother said to me recently that, at the time, he didn’t understand why I was drinking coffee all the time when I was younger.

I’d never given it a lot of thought. I just knew I liked it and my parents said I could drink it.

 

I can remember my Dad teaching me how to make a cappuccino (I didn’t even know what a cappuccino was) with instant coffee.

Simply pour a very small amount of hot water into the bottom of your cup with the instant coffee (just enough to wet it slightly) and stir it like crazy. It eventually changes to a yellowy light-brown sort of colour.

When you top up your cup with hot water, boom! Instant cappuccino! Of course it’s nothing like a real cappuccino, but for me at that age, it was awesome! I haven’t tried that in years…

 

When I was a bit older, I moved on to drinking drip coffee. I think my family inherited a Breville drip coffee machine after my grandma passed away.

I used to fill it up with water, a paper filter and coffee the night before and then set a timer for it so that when I awoke the next morning I’d have a pot of brewed coffee.

My older brother would usually share in that with me.

 

It wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I first tried espresso coffee. What had I been doing all this time?! I’d clearly been doing it wrong.

I had found my new favourite way to drink coffee. I remember thinking that this was REAL coffee.

I moved on to cappuccinos, macchiatos, mochaccinos and these days, I’m all about the lattés.

 

Having grown up and still living in Melbourne, Australia means I’m never that far away from a café. There’s espresso coffee available just about everywhere (that doesn’t mean that they all know how to make it well, though).

I still love espresso and it’s definitely still my favourite brewing method, but I’ve begun to experiment a bit more and can appreciate all the many different brewing methods that exist.

 

I decided to start this site after making the decision to push myself to learn more about coffee and what it takes to make a good cup. Having a site such as this is a perfect way to document my journey and share with you what I’ve learnt along the way.

It’s also a big motivator to actually learn more and try different coffee products/devices that I most likely wouldn’t have otherwise.

 

I hope you enjoy your time here. Be sure to check out my product reviews and blog posts and if you find it useful and enjoy what you read, leave a comment and come back often.

Stay caffeinated!