Coffee Masterclass with Matt Perger World Champion Barista

Coffee Masterclass with Matt Perger World Champion Barista 

Melbourne is voted as one of the best cities in the world for coffee by CNN, Herald Sun, BBC, USA Today and many more in the past few years. The city has many cafes and produced some of the world’s best baristas. One of them is Matt Perger from St. Ali, the World Champion Barista 2013.

Recently, Matt works together with Tourism Victoria and Garage 51 to offer Coffee Masterclass in Malaysia and I was one of the few bloggers who attended the event. It was held at Garage 51 Café in Sunway on a lovely Saturday morning.

I met Matt a day earlier in a different event with Tourism Australia and he already moved the crowd with his great look as girls said he resembles Justin Timberlake. Maybe he is the barista version of Timberlake.

It was a rare occasion for a World Champion Barista to offer coffee masterclass in Malaysia. He is not just good looking but sharp, knowledgeable as well as great in making coffee.

The St. Ali’s head of coffee, Matt started off the session with a few notable myth busters.

Coffee doesn’t reduce your stress.

Coffee will reduce the size of your breast if you drink more than 3 cups of coffee.

I attended a coffee masterclass before but it is nothing like Matt’s. He started off with the origin of coffee and then how it spreads around the world and how it evolves to variety of coffee beans.

He told us that development of coffee started like 50 to 60 years ago while other drinks like wine and liquor have a long history.

What Matt doing is now is very technical and it is coffee science. He starts off with the process of tree to the cup including the origin, supply, processing, roasting and cupping.

It is important to know where is the origin of the coffee bean as well how it is packaged during delivery.  Next is the roasting process with the right time and temperature. Brewing is next followed by grinding and lastly cupping. Any mistake in any of the steps above will spoil the coffee taste and it is really technical and also skills.

We get to learn, see and smell from the coffee powder and how it reacts with filtered hot water with right temperature.

The coffee will get a few minutes to cool down before we taste it. He reminded us not to drink hot coffee and as it will burn your tongue and taste bud. You need to let the coffee to settle down.

Then he continue to share his coffee expertise gave us a quick crash course on the process of coffee from the tree to the cup including sources, supply, processing, differences of roasting profiles and how it affects the taste and how to appreciate a cup of coffee.

That’s not it, we also need to learn to identify and learn to communicate with coffee flavour and aroma characteristics with smell and tasting. The right way to taste is by slurping it. You have to slurp it hard to get the taste. For slurping, no one beats Matt.

Matt recommends Columbia and Kenya coffee beans and he will fly there to inspect the coffee beans before it is transported to Melbourne. You can try his preferred coffee at his café at St. Ali in Melbourne.

I visited Melbourne a few times and I enjoyed the variety of coffees in various cafes in the city. If you are planning to visit the coffee city, make sure you remember to visit St. Ali Café and many others in Melbourne. It was a great Coffee Masterclass with Matt Perger, I learn so many things about coffee and that’s why he is the World Champion Barista.

Note: Matt told us that “Luwak Coffee” is crap and waste of time so don’t waste your money on Luwak coffee.

Wilson Ng