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INDUSTRY PROFILE

Rob McDonald talks about fast-tracking his coffee career and why he chose varietals over the vibraphone.

Ask Rob McDonald how he went from being a barista with no coffee knowledge to Zest Specialty Coffee Roasters’ resident “coffee

expert”, and the answer is quite remarkable. “It’s all thanks to music,” he says.After completing a music degree at the

Victorian College of the Arts, Rob moved to Berlin, Germany, in 2012 to study at the prestigious Jazz Institute of Berlin under internationally renowned vibraphonist David Friedman.

While fine-tuning his skills on the vibraphone (a percussion instrument), Rob applied for part-time work at third-wave mecca The Barn. Owner Ralf Rüller suggested he come for a cupping to assess his ability to understand different flavour profiles and origins.

“I had no idea what that even meant,” Rob says. “I prepared for five days learning about those different things and what specialty coffee was. I’d never even worked on a coffee machine before. When I went in for the interview I had only a very vague idea what to expect, but I knew I had the

sensory capacity to engage with the main taste elements of the coffees.”

Somehow, Ralf saw his potential. Rob got the job and immediately started working with the roastery’s filter coffees. “The way I fast-tracked my coffee knowledge was by taking the same approach I do when studying music – a compositional understanding,” Rob says. “When I think of the different attributes of music I break it down to include melody, harmony, rhythm, texture and orchestration. I break down coffee in the same way.”

To others it might seem complex or perhaps an unorthodox way of thinking about specialty coffee, but to Rob it makes perfect sense.

“Music has enabled my artistic relationship with coffee. Sometimes I’ll say: ‘This coffee is like a samba – it has a vibrant, continuous movement,’” he says.

To Rob, melody refers to coffee’s flavour. Texture is more about mouthfeel, harmony is the distinctive nature of the coffee, and rhythm, Rob says, is the most exciting thing you can draw from coffee.

“If I cup a coffee that ticks all the boxes

in terms of flavour and mouthfeel and an element is still missing, it’s the rhythm or balance that’s out,” Rob says. “Coffee, even though it’s a short, temporal experience, changes as you drink it. As it moves around the palate different flavours come to life, and that’s the rhythm.”

Rob says the more he relates coffee to his love of music, the more he appreciates its complexity.

When Rob worked at The Barn, he was fortunate to be among good company: Norwegian roaster Tim Wendelboe and 2007 World Barista Champion James Hoffmann.

“The interactions I had with them both gave me the tools to develop my craft,” Rob says. “From Tim, I learnt that coffee has no boundaries and not to treat it with any presumptions. He would say to me: ‘We haven’t yet got to the place where we can make coffee as good as it could be.’ He pushed me to look at every little facet of sourcing and brewing coffee.”

As for James, he helped Rob explore coffee in a “meticulous manner”. “James took a balanced approach to creating new

Rob’s musical notes S TA RT YO U R DAY W I T H A LO N G B LA C KCITROËN BERLINGO

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Rob McDonald of Zest Specialty Coffee Roasters has made his fascination with flavour a permanent career move.

INDUSTRY PROFILE

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techniques that could be applied for coffee lovers around the world,” he says.

Although Rob was in Berlin to study music, he took his study of coffee seriously. “After one year I had developed an in-depth knowledge of the vibraphone, but I’d also come to have a deep understanding of the finer nuances of coffee,” he says.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, one instrument stood out more than the other. “When I returned back to Melbourne in 2013, there was a real hype around food and drink appreciation, and Masterchef had just rejuvenated home cooking,” he says. “For me, the timing to pursue coffee permanently was integral.”

Rob sidelined the vibraphone while he took a job at Seven Seeds to learn about the “ins and outs” of what Melbourne coffee was all about: consistency and speed. He then worked as a manager at a pop-up café. The man operating this business bought his coffee from Zest Coffee Roasters.

“One day I remember a Zest trainer came in and I was making an iced pour over. He was taken with my knowledge and offered me the chance to join the Zest team,” Rob says.

His job title at Zest is “multi-faceted”. “Each day I assess coffee like an expert and taste coffee like a customer,” Rob says. “I do sensory analysis and quality assurance, green bean sourcing and work on the company’s branding image. My role is all about communication. The hardest part of specialty coffee is finding a language that people can understand and engage with.”

The language that Rob believes is working best, however, is music. “I don’t find complex tasting notes very useful, but if I use metaphors as a musician to relate different experiences in coffee, people find it easier to engage,” he says. “Coffee is much more feeling-based than a complex recipe of different flavours. I really love when a client tell me I have been able to influence the way they experience coffee.”

Within his work at Zest, Rob says he’s been given every opportunity to be as innovative and creative as possible. “I’ve been able to incorporate a balanced approach where we respect the traditional past of coffee while embracing new ways of thinking,” he says.

This freedom has seen him develop Zest’s Espressist series and post-post blending. Due to the permeability of coffees, Rob discovered that some roasted coffees react differently when blended and placed with different origins in a paper bag. To solve the problem post-post blending keeps the origins in two separate bags until the user self-blends the coffee for brewing.

Rob has also helped develop a range of blends that correlate to particular artworks. The Espressist series references flavour characteristics with four well-known

coffee origins and significant pieces of music, such as the Libertango, Corcovado, African Mailman, and Bahia. Corcovado, for instance, is a traditional Brazilian song that draws on rhythmic aspects from bossa nova traditions, with a rich, harmonic, and melodic relationship. Rob says the respective blend shares the same characteristics.

Building direct relationships with farmers is another of Rob’s passions. Earlier

this year Rob travelled to Costa Rica to experience his first harvest.

“It completed my understanding of seed to cup. My experience on the farms gave me greater knowledge of the elements we can control on ground level, and what we can change at the roastery to complement the farmer’s work,” Rob says. “The most important thing I saw was the extreme amount of effort specialty coffee farmers put into hand-processing to achieve quality. Because of this, I’m even more passionate about closing the gap between farmers and roasters and developing more knowledge about cultivation practices involved in producing new varietals of coffee.”

Through importer Bennetts’ one-for-one project, Rob says that gap is closing bit by bit. “I’m in touch with one Honduran farmer via Skype, and another from Colombia via WhatsApp. With such direct contact I can obtain more specific details about the origin, processes used, and then draw a better picture for our customers,” Rob says. “I’m even learning Spanish to make sure no barriers stand in our way.”

Rob grew up on a dairy farm in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, approximately 50 kilometres west of Melbourne. Ironically, Rob says he became accustomed to identifying different flavours and origins of milk, based on the different breed of cow and the paddocks they would graze in.

“My dad would quiz me about what paddocks the cows were in, and I’d know straight away by tasting specific characteristics of the milk. It’s funny to look back on that now and realise that I’ve always had a good taste palate,” he says.

Rob’s journey in coffee happened organically, but it’s something he embraces. “It certainly wasn’t the path I thought I was going to take in life. But then again it seems many people aren’t in coffee from the start either,” he says. “You hear of people from all walks of life moving into coffee, and it was the same for me. It was my second choice after music, now it’s my first.”

Rob still has ambitious goals both in music and coffee he wants to achieve, but for the moment he’s happy with the choices he’s made. “Every once in a while I like to remind myself that even if I’m roasting a filter coffee for a coffee competition, or helping my grandmother enjoy a cappuccino without two sugars, I’m increasing people’s appreciation for coffee,” he says. “That’s why this industry is so rewarding.”

“COFFEE IS MUCH MORE

FEELING‑BASED THAN A

COMPLEX RECIPE OF DIFFERENT FLAVOURS.”

Rob has played an active role in helping Zest Specialty Coffee Roasters develop the Espressist series and post-post blending.