The world is hooked on Australian coffee culture. This is how it got so good

12/30/2019

Stop an American on the streets of Manhattan and ask them what the best thing to come out of Australia is.

There's a good chance that, alongside old tropes like Crocodile Dundee and AC/DC, the answer will be coffee.

Australian coffee culture, perfected and refined in recent decades, is taking hold in the US, with scores of "Australian-style" cafes springing up.

Woman holding coffee smiles facing left of frame.

PHOTO: What's the coffee order of choice in New York? Increasingly, an "Aussie flat white". (Getty: HRAUN)

"It's safe to say Australian coffee is among the best in the world," says food critic Pat Nourse, who chairs the Oceania voting panel for the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards.

"I think it has been for some time - we've just been a bit slow to wake up to it at home."

But how did a colonial outpost with tea-drinking British roots become internationally recognised for its coffee?