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Coffee fans here can now get Australia’s best specialty coffee delivered to them

SINGAPORE — A new web and mobile platform — where coffee lovers can shop for Australia’s best coffee beans, freshly roasted, at one place — was launched on Wednesday (May 25).

Cafebond founders Eugene Chen (left) and Keyis Ng are confident in Singapore's growing market for speciality coffee.

Cafebond founders Eugene Chen (left) and Keyis Ng are confident in Singapore's growing market for speciality coffee.

SINGAPORE — A new web and mobile platform — where coffee lovers can shop for Australia’s best coffee beans, freshly roasted, at one place — was launched on Wednesday (May 25).

Cafebond.com (https://cafebond.com/), a local start-up, will be coming online at 7.30pm with coffee beans from 14 of Melbourne’s top cafes-cum-roasters (including Small Batch Roasting Co and Code Black Coffee Roasters), as well as World Barista Champion Sasa Sestic’s roastery and cafe, Ona Coffee, in Canberra.

Australia has one of best coffee cultures in the world, said Sestic, who is in town for the Singapore premiere of The Coffee Man, a character documentary that follows the 37-year-old on his journey to the Australian and world championships. The screening of the film at Capitol Theatre today is in conjunction with the portal’s launch.

“Australia as a country is very diverse; every cafe and roastery will do things slightly differently,” Sestic said. “I think it would be interesting for consumers to taste all the other coffees and see what their (preferred) cup of coffee is.”

For example, Ona Coffee sets itself apart by sourcing its beans directly from growers. “We work with 150 plus farmers in 10 countries; and we also own our own coffee farms (in Nicaragua and Honduras at the moment),” he added. It also helps that the company boasts two barista champions, Sestic and current Australian champion (2016) Hugh Kelly.

“And we also do three different roast profiles — a roast profile for filter coffee, for espresso and milk based coffees. (Consumers) can select the blends ... and we also provide the (brewing) recipes, so people can brew these coffees very easily,” he continued.

What’s more, beans bought via Cafebond.com are roasted upon order and delivered within seven days, and at a nominal fee of S$10, to boot. “What Cafebond does is bring the shipping cost down to make these beans more affordable, said co-founder and CEO Keyis Ng, 28, who began working on building the business with partner and CTO Eugene Chen, 31. “To ship a 250g bag of beans from Australia to Singapore using DHL or TNT will easily cost up to S$30 to S$40 dollars, which is more than the cost of the beans,” Ng shared, explaining that the flat delivery fee regardless of the size of the order, is made possible using a “consolidation shipping algorithm”.

Consumers can view all available brands on the website but can only place an order from June 1. That said, the company will waiving delivery charges for the first week for all orders.

“We charged a delivery fee of A$10 for orders within Australia,” Sestic said, pointing out how consumers in Singapore will get their coffee beans “as fresh as Ona’s customers in Sydney or Perth”.

He also explained how the seven-days delivery schedule works to their advantage. “Some of the coffee we roast can peak between 25 and 30 days from the moment they are roasted. Which is why I was excited that Cafebond can deliver within seven days. And if someone starts using their coffee from the moment (it is delivered), it might be too fresh, which is a good problem. So it’s never going to be delivered stale,” he said. “We recommend customers (enjoy) the coffee from day nine or 10 and up to three-and-a-half to four weeks, depending on the coffee. We usually write down that we prefer you to finish the batch within 30 days of being roasted.”

Because coffee harvest is seasonal, origins of the beans in the blends, he explained, are also adjusted to provide a consistent product. “We understand that speciality coffee at home was not very popular because it was not approachable; even though it is very delicious, it is very hard to make it nice. So we try to minimise all the fuss surrounding making good coffee,” Sestic said. To which Ng added: “The specialty coffee market in Singapore is very small. But people are getting more educated about their food, so I think it is definitely growing.”

In fact, Ng remains extremely positive about this increasingly global culture. “We hope to be the world’s largest specialty coffee e-commerce platform in five years, and bring Cafebond.com to coffee lovers throughout Asia,” he said.

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