All images: Glam Adelaide
Walking into Cherry Specialty Coffee, your eyes are instantly drawn to the 7-metre, marble top espresso bar, created specifically for customers to sit and enjoy their brew. More than just a coffee shop, the new King William Street café dives deeper into the world of coffee driven by a strong passion from its owners, Ramy Massoud and Adam Raslan.
For some, coffee is simply a means to an end. A little cup of energy to get us through the day, or at least the morning. But for others, coffee is a way of life, a form of expression and a way to connect with others. Generally, you’ll fall into one of the two camps. Ramy and Adam fall into the latter.
Friends since they were teenagers, Ramy and Adam have gone through the ebbs and flows of any long-lasting relationship – drifting apart, coming back together and now they are embarking on a brand-new chapter in their story: Opening a business.
Cherry Specialty Coffee offers just that – specialty coffee. “We don’t throw the term around lightly,” laughs Ramy. “We both have a strong passion for coffee and its origins and we want to offer the best of the best and educate our customers on what they’re drinking and where it comes from.”
And it all starts with the machines. The pair have settled for nothing but the best with a KB90 espresso machine (one of only three in the state) and an automatic brewing device for filtered coffee, the Tone Touch 03 – the first of its kind in the state.
But Adam and Rani don’t want you to just order and run, they want to educate. “We purposely created a long espresso bar for customers to sit so we can chat about where the beans came from, the flavours and their origins. If someone is going to spend $16 on a coffee, we don’t want it to be ‘here’s your coffee and see you later.’”
Prices for your chosen brew vary depending on its cupping score, with the higher quality beans obviously going for a higher price point. A lot of love and effort also goes into the rotating menu.
“It’s not just putting beans through the grinder and away you go, there’s a lot of factors to monitor,” Ramy explains. “We try the beans ourselves every morning and make any adjustments that need to be made depending on the heat or humidity which can affect the taste. I have over 10 coffees a day,” he laughs.
“Once we decided to open this café we sat down with the team from Veneziano Coffee Roasters and started doing lots of after-hours training with them to get our skills where they needed to be. We wanted to make sure we had every area of coffee covered.”
Not that Ramy needs much help, competing in the 2012 Barista Championships and placing third in the state for his latte art.
If you want to learn more about the world of coffee, Cherry offers coffee flights or as they’re affectionately known, a “Barista Breakfast” with each flight containing an espresso, a milk-based and a filter coffee. The beans used for black coffees are also alternated weekly so those who like their coffee straight up can try beans from different regions around the world.
Cherry is also one of only three places in South Australia to offer frozen coffee – a way of storing the bean after its peak roast time to trap the flavours. “We only do this with high grade 90+ beans,” explains Ramy. “We have a pinnacle series of beans from 2021 and 2022 that are all frozen. It’s similar to a wine menu, but for coffee.”
Definitely a place for coffee connoisseurs, Adam and Ramy want to ensure that Cherry is a safe space for everyone. “We want to educate and get our customers engaged.”
A small selection of pastries from Jenny’s Bakehouse as well as Adam’s own bircher muesli are available in a grab-and-go format but with indoor and outdoor seating available, there’s no need to rush off if you don’t need to.
Cherry is located at 29 King William Street Adelaide and is open Monday – Friday 7am – 4pm.
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