East End Cafe delivers above and beyond in food and coffee

Being served by those who know what they are doing always adds an intangible value to your first coffee of the day.

In practice it is a value made up of smaller, easy to miss and seemingly meaningless little efforts. Keeping the early morning music down low. Rushing to bring you chilled water so that it arrives before your order. Asking you if you need a second, or in my case third, cup of coffee. When these efforts are not made they are quickly missed. When they are they can just as easily be taken for granted.   

These were things I was thinking about when I sat down on an early morning at the East End Hub. The place had been open for less than a minute but the manager and barista were all over it. Waters, orders, coffees. It was lights, soft music and then action. The first handful of customers looked like they always seem to do. Local samples taken from the spectrum of solitary men. One in a suit behind a laptop. Another in stubble and sandy board shorts. There is always one that comes with a small dog and sits outside. All of them were served and then left to themselves. Just how they like it. All of us silent and still half asleep.

Even the chef arrives looking preoccupied and exhausted, as owners of successful cafes mostly do. His name is Anthony Kocon and his food is excellent. Inventive, thoughtfully sourced and immaculately prepared. The food here is its own detailed story, one that deserves and is best left to be told at a much greater length.

Suffice to say it is a menu that fittingly accompanies the souce and the quality of the coffee, a blend prepared locally by Silverskin Roasters.

Like the East End Hub itself, Silverskin has been recognised at awards nights for producing excellence at the café tables of Newcastle. In 2013, the blend on offer at East End Hub won a Bronze medal at the Australian International Coffee Awards. They have wisely kept the recipe, as much as is seasonally possible, exactly the same in 2018. The blend was called The Boss back then. It has certainly earned that title by now.

Expect this blend to deliver a flavour that has a lot going on.

A piccolo ($3.70) has a bright fruitiness that can partly be attributed to its generous Sumatran content. Whilst the Brazilian portion of the blend, sourced from the Fazenda Chapadao de Ferro estate, brings the lingering chocolate notes, the Sumatran Sipangan Bolon beans add a distinctively herbal spiciness.

Finding a house blend in Newcastle that is almost as Sumatran as it is Brazilian is an unusual experience in the best possible way. It is not a coffee that bursts out from the cup and then overpowers you with its uniqueness but the depth and complexity is there with award-winning style.

Quickly missed and easily taken for granted. Like the most valuable things often are.