La Crema of the crop

Roasters may offer views of the machinery or cupping sessions of particular coffees, but usually, the finer points of roasting stay behind closed doors. Kicking off in 2021, La Crema Coffee Roasters in South Australia will offer fully guided tours of its La Crema Reserve Roastery.

 

“Coffee is the number one consumed product in the world, but most people have never seen a green bean before. They don’t know about roast profiling, cupping, all the things we do in the industry,” says Tony Gentilcore, the Owner and Founder of La Crema Coffee.

 

“We wanted to establish something where people can watch beans be roasted live, follow them through to the cupping room, and from that, finish off with an espresso martini.”

 

La Crema Coffee began in 2008, after more than 25 years in the coffee business, Tony wanted to put his own stamp on the craft. Since then, business has boomed with the wholesale part of the business growing roughly 20 per cent each year.

 

Tony chose the name La Crema for the business because “that’s the best part of the coffee”.

 

“We started with only three people, now in 2021, we’re up to 27 staff,” Tony says.

 

“My passion for coffee grew while owning cafés and working for coffee companies. I wanted to share my Italian background, create a product people enjoyed, and learn the art of roasting and perfect what we do.”

 

To keep up with the growth of the business, La Crema moved to Denis Street in St Marys in 2013. The business grew again near the end of 2020, taking over the building next door to expand the retail/café part of the business. The large venue contains many separates rooms where it can accommodate different types of customers, from a cupping room and boardroom for meetings to areas that are more dog or kid friendly.

 

La Crema serves its self-named house blend – a medium-to-dark-roast four bean mix – in the Reserve Roastery, as well as three single origins per day from a rotating line-up. The roastery has another half a dozen blends it roasts for wholesale customers – Tony says the Milano blend is a fan favourite – and up to 30 single origins available in its retail section.

 

“We cater for all markets and offer a real range of coffees, from light roast Ethiopians to double roast Colombians,” Tony says.

 

“We’ve set up a wood oven roaster in our café that’s about 55 years old that has come from Italy. It brings some enormous flavours out of the coffee.”

 

With great coffee comes great milk and for several years, the La Crema Reserve Roastery has used Pauls Professional Café Crema, a foodservice-exclusive milk formulated to pair with coffee.

 

“We work closely with Lactalis and recommend Pauls Professional Café Crema to all of the cafés we supply coffee to. They give us great support and when we get new customers, they go out and see them straight away and help them get started,” Tony says.

 

“Not every milk works well with coffee and the main thing you want is consistency. But Lactalis has formulated Pauls Professional Café Crema to work well with coffee and I’ve found it gives us consistency in milk all year round.”

 

Like every business, La Crema had to adapt to life with COVID in 2020, but Tony says the business has come out stronger.

 

“A lot of people were working from home, so they’d come in to buy equipment and then they’d keep coming back to buy more beans,” Tony says.

 

“We weren’t sure how long COVID was going to go on for, so we took a gamble and a risk to carry out a refurbishment and upgrade of the building next door. But thanks to our quality product and loyalty from our customers, we knew we had the foundations to build on what was already there.”

 

Tony hopes the La Crema Reserve Roastery coffee tours will do just that, with strong early interest and SA Tourism keen to help promote, while building coffee knowledge in the community.

 

“It’s more than just a café. I want to create a coffee journey experience,” Tony says.

 

“My passion and love for coffee has been building inside me for years, and it’s rewarding to now be able to put it on show.”

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