Territory State of Mind - D Town Coffee

I arrived in Darwin when I was 15 years old, moving up from Adelaide. I’ve been in the hospitality industry in Darwin since 1997, when I was 18 — almost 30 years ago — and I’ve always had a love for coffee.

When I was around 30 years old, I started from very humble beginnings. I purchased the Rapid Creek Markets coffee stall from some friends for $5,000. I had a small one-group Faema E98 coffee machine, an old grinder, and a bench on wheels. It was called Christos Coffee.

At the time, I was still working full-time as a barista at the Boatshed in Cullen Bay. As I saved a bit more money, I purchased a bigger two-group coffee machine and grinder and built a small trailer.

There were no commercial coffee roasters in Darwin, and it was my dream to start the first local brand that Darwin locals could really relate to.

I left the Boatshed around 2014 and went into a partnership with a friend in a café at the bottom of the TIO building, called Café del Art.

After trading for a year, the business had grown quite a lot — from around 8kg of coffee a week to 40kg a week. I decided to sell my share in the business and follow my dream of starting a coffee roasting business.

I still had the market stall on weekends, so the business plan was to use the existing trade from the markets to support the business and grow it from there. I completed a roasting course in Melbourne with Equilibrium Roasters, rented the smallest shop I could get at the Rapid Creek Markets (around 50 square metres), and found a good second-hand 15kg Hasgaranti roaster. I managed to do the fit-out and setup within my budget. That was back in October 2016.

The first year wasn’t easy. I was still trying to get my roasts and blends right and was working full-time at Coolspot and Foreshore Café. I used to bring my coffee in to share with Shona, Margaret, John and the team. When they opened the Foreshore Café, they loved the coffee and decided to support me, which was a really big help.

The name Dtown Coffee took me while to come up with, I was trying to think of something which reflects darwin but was more urban , and more i reflects with a coffee brand then it just clicked as locals use the The Name Dtown to identify darwin with.

I actually told a few friends and family the name at first and they wasn't sure about it, but i thought it was a great name so i ran with it and designed the first logo myself  wanted to look a bit gangster but still refined. So we used the old english text and modified the D until i found what i was looking for.

We have a few, actually. Gunbalanya comunity store, Yirrkala Comunity, Milingimbi Comunity also suppy Raffikis cafe in Nhylunbuy, Lite Bites, Gove Airport to name a few.

We do Direct Trade from Timor, and buy the rest of our coffee from large coffee merchants based in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

We only source med to high quality specialty coffee mainly Arabica coffee from south America, Central America, Ethiopia and India.

All of our coffee is carefully selected and blended.

We use up to five different origins in our blends which are consistently  roasted medium roast to bring out just enough flavour and sweetness from the beans.

Wanted names that locals could identify with, Monsoon is an obious one flavour is punchy smooth earthy and sweet. Dragonfly kind of identify's with the coming of the Dry season flavour is light smooth chocolate  caramel sweetness .

Yes definitely, over the years roasts have become lighter and quality is always number one. 20 years ago the coffee was roasted much darker and was a lot stronger.

We try to cater for different tastes , hence the different blends, 

We also have a filter Ethiopian roast which is super light to taste the origins complexity and sweetness which you can pick up notes of cherry, raspberry for example.

For me supported local business is very important.

I always try to support local suppliers and business services the money is then re injected back into our economy making it stronger.

Some company's are foreign or not State owned and i think more than ever in this tough economic climate it is definitely important.

We are a sponsor and Organiser for the Hospitality NT Best Barista Gold plate Awards which is in its 3rd year.

The cafe is attached to our roastery and is a retail outlet to sell our beans grab a toastie or chill out for a quick coffee.

East Timor is our closest coffee producing Country

There is also a large Local Timorese community here in Darwin.

I went over there on a Trade mission with the chamber of Commerce back 2 years ago looking to source coffee for direct trade.

At a tour of  the processing facility bumped in to a friend from Darwin High School Nelson Casimiro. So was only natural that that i should parter with him and the history his with his family farm.

This year in October will be ten years of trading, has been really exititing seeing our brand develop to where it is today.

We are looking at expanding into insterstate markets and show the rest of Australia what Darwin has to offer.