Michael Tan has owned Meebz Coffee Roasters for six years, with a background in food service as a barista and café owner.
“While working in many roles within a café, I’ve always gravitated towards the coffee machine,” said Tan. “Being drawn in by the skill and ability to manipulate flavours in so many different ways, and then learning more about coffee and understanding the complexity and effort that goes into each part of the supply chain.”
Meebz is a boutique coffee roastery that focuses on sourcing fine and premium grade coffee from small co-operatives, small yield estates and microlots from all over the world.
“Our roasting process starts from accessing our raw green coffee that we precision roast, data log and monitor. We cup (taste) every batch of coffee that we roast at least once to ensure we are happy with the ongoing quality,” explained Tan. They make tweaks every day to improve the quality and consistency of each roast.
Tan has just opened a second roastery on Symonds Street. The Symonds St roastery is an extension of the branding and design of the Milford shop, but with some industrial touches.
“A lot of the design inspiration is a combination of my interest of clean minimalism mixed with some concepts from the hospitality industry in both Melbourne and Japan.”
Whilst the roastery supplies to consumers, they also supply to cafes with a ‘coffee package’. This is a more personalised package, rather than just supplying beans and barista training.
“This personalised service includes working with the cafes to identify the right type of coffee to serve in their cafes, equipment customisation, joint branding and marketing such as our cardless loyalty app and digital collaborations.”
In its Symonds Street site, Meebz has a new coffee roaster.
“Our new coffee roaster features sophisticated technology that uses significantly less gas and its closed system is cleaner, eliminating smoke and smell.” The new roaster will not only reduce the roastery’s carbon footprint, but its transfer of convection heat will allow greater control over roasting. “This ultimately gives us higher quality and better consistency with our roasts,” said Tan.
Looking towards the future, Tan is hoping to experiment with new exotic coffees and serve these as beans or as a brew through the Meebz coffee bars.
