Tucked into Outram Street is Epic Espresso, a small but busy espresso bar serving possibly the best coffee in the CBD. 

By Kassie Gadeke

Walking into Epic around three PM on a Monday afternoon, there are still customers smattered throughout the little store.  A couple have brought their Subway rolls in to enjoy over lattes, while a band of businessmen crowed on an outside table, downing their espressos.

I have never met someone with more passion for coffee.  Epic's owner, Corey Diamond, founded the store after having success establishing Core Espresso in Perth City. Set with warm tones and based on the Seattle coffee scene, Epic is chic, classy and cosy - and can offer a fantastic cup of coffee.  Settling in with a Belgian Couverture Mocha, Corey explained the ins and outs of Epic and Espresso making. After teaching primary school for 12 years, Corey stumbled upon a love for coffee and aspired to inject passion back into an almost flavourless industry. "I didn't drink my first coffee until I was 25. You grow up as a kid and you tasted coffee and thought it was disgusting; you need three or four sugars! I think I stumbled across coffee culture about the same time as we got a home espresso machine, but before that I'd been drinking Dome coffee, commodity coffee, rather than boutique coffee.

"I got captured by the combination of science and art -- there's the science side, controlling your brew, water temperature, that side of it, and then there's the creative impact of the coffee. The baristas skill in pouring the milk, it's amazing, the smell, the taste, there's kind of a romance...the philosophy of it captured me, I just wanted to keep reading and learning about coffee."

In Italian tradition, Corey calls his staff "baristas", hoping that they see their job as fulfilling, and don't just use it as a way to get by.

"I take training very seriously, so I'm certainly using my teaching skills.  One of our baristas, Megan Aguero, is the current Latte Art Champion, she creates freeform patterns, she's not allowed to use a stencil to draw pictures with milk. Jeremy is last year's Barista Champion and I have another girl who came fourth overall in the national competition."

"What they basically have to do in the barista competition is make four espressos, four cappuccinos, traditional style, with no chocolate on top - in Italy, they don't drink them after midday. Then there are four signature drinks, they have to be non-alcoholic, glazed with beverages that have predominantly espresso based flavours but bring other flavours; they might use cream, cinnamon, some honey, it's almost a dessert style drink. One of my staff last year made a very cleansing signature drink which was lychee juice, rosewater, lime juice and espresso so it was almost like the cleansing properties would vanish the espresso taste from your mouth."

Running two sophisticated Synesso machines, of which there are only around 200 in the world, costing around $30,000, Corey is particular not only about his equipment, but the beans that are used.

"At the end of the day, it comes down to the machines you're using and the beans you're using.  We have our own beans we spent about six months designing; which are quite chocolaty with a thin layer of acidity...one of the critical things with coffee is that it must be fresh roasted - we see coffee the same as bread, and in that case, you wouldn't use bread that's been sitting there for a week.  So our coffee is roasted locally, we have two deliveries a week to make sure it's fresh." Because of the design of the beans, one coffee from Epic only contains half the caffeine of a regular cup of instant.  Corey explains that after about three weeks coffee will "turn", meaning that instead of smelling roasted, rich and nutty it will be bitter and ashy, "like licking an ashtray".  Bitter coffee is the reason we need to mask the taste with sugar, and if the beans are not old, the coffee has been percolated too long.

"The baristas here are trained to pull the cup out before the coffee turns bitter...we tell people that come here to take the test - first try it without sugar, and if it does need sugar, we've done something wrong."

Energised and inspired by the facets of the coffee bean, Corey can definitely offer one of the best hot drinks in town, whether it be a cappuccino, latte, hot chocolate, or, in my case, a mocha.  With a smattering of rolls and cakes to accompany the food, Corey sees Epic purely as an espresso bar - food can be left to Miss Maud's next door.

Oh, and if you do intend to grab a cup from Epic remember, "You can always tell that people that say ‘Expresso' don't know anything about coffee!"