Coffee...oh, specialty coffee!

"Coffees! Come get your coffees!"

My active imagination -> the blonde fellow in dark blue apron wrapped around his crisp, light blue collared shirt yelling to the customers passing by on the pavement from his coffee "laboratory" namely Market Lane Coffee. (Well, it did look like one!)

Melbourne is famous for specialty coffee. There's great coffee everywhere I went. It was another morning hovering like an empty soul in QV Market, in search for good coffee to perk me up. I remember reading an article from The Star paper about the coffees of Australia(Melbourne was in it!) right after I got home from my trip.

We had found ourselves again at Market Lane. This tiny coffe house with whitewashed walls, was introduced by Chanchan's friend, Penny. Located on the same row as McDonald's at QV Market.

Chanchan was queueing up for our "dunno--how-many"-th coffee for the week. Two days before I had ordered a cappuccino from Market Lane. This time, I had a short macchiato. I would say it was quite accidental that I bought something different from what I am used to. Well, I am a coffee lover but not an expert!

So, I placed an order for a macchiato, and the guy pipped, "Short?" Since I had no idea how it tastes like drinking a short - I had gone along with it because it seeemed to be a good idea to try something different in a foreign city. He mixed and stirred, and then my healthy dose of coffee was ready in a white paper cup. Beautiful chocolatey-looking brew...aaahhh...Took a whiff, and then a sip to jolt me awake with its aroma; my eyes twinkling and I found myself smiling, ahaha! As I was a little baffled as to why the macchiato was much, much, much more bitter than cappuccino without sugar, I plopped a teaspoonful of brown sugar into the beautiful mixture, which was a HUGE mistake. OHHHh!! Brown sugar turned my macchiato into a sourish concoction! Bad move.

Market Lane... good coffee!

Market Lane coffee "lab".  Slowly enjoyed with breakfast bought from QV Market.

Oh, do remember - do not repeat my mistake of mixing sugar into macchiato. It does not work that way.  Ouch!


A couple of other coffee stands/coffee houses we went to were:

• Di Bella Coffee stand at Queen Victoria Market
• Seven Seeds at Berkeley Street (near Elizabeth Street)

Each regular sized coffee cost me around AUD3.80 or AUD4..not bad at all!

No photos of Seven Seeds :( but I managed to salvage a couple of photos of coffee at Di Bella's :D

Creamy and foamy, yum yum yummm