Saša Šestić was born in Bosnia and played handball for Australia at the Sydney Olympics. In 2008 he founded Ona Coffee, which now has four cafes in Canberra and supplies beans to 100 more across Australia. In 2015, Šestić won the World Barista Championship in Seattle. The following year, he was the subject of a documentary, The Coffee Man.
You probably haven’t heard of Šestić or his company, which is totally understandable. Ona only has a few accounts in Melbourne (Dr Morse and Plug Nickel among them), and given that some of the world’s best coffee roasters are right here, most of us have little reason to look elsewhere.
And yet, when Ona lands next year, it promises to bring something new and never-before-seen to Melbourne, and shake up a scene dominated by the same dozen or so established specialty roasters.
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SIGN UPŠestić and his team have started building inside a warehouse in Brunswick, directly opposite the popular Ovens Street Bakery, with a plan to open before winter next year.
“In that part of Brunswick there are quite a few coffee roasters,” Šestić says. People already go there for local coffee. We’ve found the clientele – the way people think about life and their values – similar to us. It’s a very community-based suburb.”
The cafe will have 80 to 100 seats, a full breakfast menu and an interior inspired by coffee farms, complete with coffee trees. But where things get interesting is the “freezer menu”, an archive of 20 to 30 coffees vacuum-sealed into individual doses and frozen. Ona introduced Sydneysiders to this concept 18 months ago at its cafe in Marrickville. In the same way you can pick an old, renowned vintage from a restaurant’s wine cellar, Ona Brunswick will let you revisit rare and award-winning coffees.
Admittedly, the freezer menu will appeal to a limited number of people. If your usual order is a latte or flat white made with whatever beans are going, get excited for Raspberry Candy, the blend that won Šestić the 2015 World Barista Championship. As the name implies, this blend of three Ethiopian beans is redolent of fresh red berries and really pops with milk.
The Ovens Street site will have a small roaster for custom blends, but in the name of quality and consistency, the majority of beans will come from Canberra, where Ona has a large facility that controls temperature and humidity. “We’re very particular with roasting and quality control and warehousing,” Šestić says.
Despite this operational hurdle, Šestić says he’s been planning to take on Melbourne for four or five years, pending a strong enough team on the ground.
So far that includes 2019 Australian Barista Champion Matthew Lewin, who’s handling Victorian wholesale accounts, and general manager Tom Beaumont, formerly of La Marzocco and Five Senses. Devin Loong, a two-time Australian Brewers Cup champion who’s been with the company for three years, is heading up Victorian retail operations.
These hires make it clear that Šestić is planning to make a real splash here, in what’s probably the most competitive coffee market in the world. “Melbourne is – and always will be, I think – a coffee destination worldwide; the capital city of the world for coffee,” Šestić says. “Being in Melbourne and being part of that scene is exciting.”
Ona Coffee is due to open at 22 Ovens Street, Brunswick before winter 2020.