The Viral Dirty Coffee at This Hot Listed Cafe Is Anything but Regular

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The first thing you notice at Regulars – the bright orange cafe tucked away on Little Latrobe Street – is the line of people outside, rain, hail or shine. They’re queuing for the Dirty -85°C coffee, which arrives at your table in a frozen cup on a small wooden tray with a smaller instruction card that reads: “Sip first, stir later”.

It’s clearly an important instruction, since husband-and-wife co-owners Eddy and Prem Pan make sure to gently remind me of the best way to enjoy their viral cup of coffee while we talk during a lull in service.

“We’re glad everyone likes the coffee, but when we opened, we pictured Regulars as a quiet backstreet place to hang out, similar to a small Japanese cafe” Eddy says of the 16-seat operation.

“We had 18 glasses when we opened,” Prem says. “After one week, we had to order 200 more! It keeps getting crazier here.”

Culinary theatrics often set off an alarm, at least for this cynical food writer. Does the smoke billowing from my cocktail add any flavour? Does this dessert need to have melted chocolate poured onto it from a ridiculous height while I sit and watch? When your order a Dirty -85°C and the barista reaches into what looks like a cryogenic freezer and pulls a glass out with tongs, you ask yourself if it’s all just for show – or socials.

But that’s not the point.

In fact, it’s completely the opposite at Regulars. The dirty coffee (inspired by Bear Pond Espresso in Tokyo) may be the first of its kind in Melbourne. And it’s excellent. So too is the pour-over that Eddy encourages me to try. “This is the only place you can get these beans in Melbourne,” he says matter-of-factly. It’s not a flex. He imported the beans because he loves the taste and thinks Melburnians will, too.

Eddy is a certified Q Grader, which is to coffee what a sommelier is to wine. To become one, you have to study for and pass a six-day, 22-module sensory exam that challenges participants with blind tastings and tests their ability to identify 36 distinct coffee aromas by smell. Ultimately, trainees have to give a rating to both green and roasted coffee beans. A lot of responsibility rests on a qualified Q Grader’s shoulders – the score they give to green coffee beans directly impacts how much farmers can sell their produce for.

Realising this makes it clear that the coffee-making process at Regulars is anything but a photo-op. Everything is necessary, and it’s all done to make the coffee better, not the feed cooler. Eddy and Prem care deeply about their craft, and Eddy in particular has put thousands of hours into learning about and making coffee.

“We use unhomogenised milk in the dirty coffee to add sweetness,” Eddy says. “It costs us a little more, but going to all this trouble with the coffee and not getting the right milk to bring out its taste wouldn’t make sense.”

Both Eddy and Prem have plenty of experimental coffee ideas and Regulars is where they intend to share the results. The Dirty -85°C “makes sense because there’s a lot of uncharted territory when it comes to cold coffee and cold brews, there’s so much we can try,” Prem says. “But we’re looking at ways we can offer something completely new with hot coffee, which is a lot more challenging because it feels like everything has been done.”

Other Regulars specials include an 18-hour cold brew and a Pomelo Sunrise – Ethiopian cold brew with pomelo syrup. All syrups, purees and foams are house-made and Eddy roasts all the coffee beans at a site in Balwyn.

The last thing you notice at Regulars (if you notice it at all) is a trophy sitting on top of a shelf behind the counter, placed in a way that suggests there was nowhere else to put it. It’s an award for being Thailand’s best barista in 2016, a title which allowed Eddy to compete at the World Barista Championships the same year, where he placed 41st.

“Oh yeah, that was really cool,” Eddy says when I ask him about the competition. “I wouldn’t do it again, though. Too stressful. I just want to make coffee here and hope that people can enjoy it the same way we do.”

The Hot List is proudly sponsored by Square.

Additional reporting by Lauren Tran-Muchowski.