Soul Brew’s legendary recipe is equal parts coffee and community
Less than a year after opening, an Angle Vale café’s blend of crafted coffee and neighbourhood spirit has earned it the title of SA Octobyfest Local Legend from Toby’s Estate.
Shallum Lubcke has a diverse background in the coffee industry – supporting franchise owners, training teams and owning coffee shops and mobile coffee vans – and he is now the co-owner of the recently-crowned SA Octobyfest Local Legend, Soul Brew Coffee in Angle Vale.
CityMag asks him to describe his relationship with the little brown beans.
“I think the words ‘coffee guru’ have been thrown around a little bit…Coffee guru, coffee addict and, possibly, coffee snob,” Shallum shares.
“That probably describes a love for coffee that is made right, understanding how you can make an okay coffee – but to make a good coffee, there’s a lot more involved.”
Shallum’s in-laws Verity and Paul Schmelzkopf are co-owners of the business, and the family are variously involved in the area’s church groups, sporting clubs, local melodrama, scouts and schools.
They saw an opportunity to be a “touchpoint within the community” and a space for people to feel welcome.
“Everyone’s on a different journey for the day, whether it be happy, sad, mad, and we want to be that place where they can relax or [have] a pick me up,” explains Shallum.
“Our motto is coffee and food that touches the soul; it’s more than just a purchase, you can actually feel love through the coffee [and] our chef’s cooking in a way that you feel, this food, it’s made with love.”
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Soul Brew Coffee opened last December with a hand-picked team of about 20 people, a mix of experienced baristas and hospo workers, plus newcomers who understood what they were looking to achieve.
It appears to have worked, with Soul Brew Coffee recently crowned 2024 SA Octobyfest Local Legend by Toby’s Estate, although Shallum says it was “a huge surprise and very flattering”.
“We didn’t expect it – we knew we’re greatly supported by our local community and those who call us their home for coffee,” he says.
The award was voted for by the public.
“For us, being less than a year in, we were super happy to have that love straight away – the competition is highly regarded, the top four are great establishments and we know them well.”
Make mine a double!Toby’s Estate SA territory manager James Karas notes that the team’s hard work has paid off.
“They’re doing a fantastic job in a spot that is definitely underserved for good coffee and good food, and they’ve built a real community out there,” James says.
“They’ve got a really solid, regular customer base who obviously love what they do and have shown their appreciation for that.”
Octobyfest is Toby’s Estate way of acknowledging the day in, day out grind of café owners and workers who are passionate about their craft and place in the world of coffee.
It’s a natural extension of the company’s ethos, as the Sydney-based coffee importer and roaster works hard to create a fair and sustainable supply chain that supports growers, their futures and the future of coffee.
Toby’s Estate is exclusively used in around 25 cafés across the state, says James.
“I look after our accounts and try to help them to get the best out of their coffee, and support them in any way that we can really – not just with coffee, but in in running hospitality businesses, because as we all know, it’s a hard slog out there at the moment,” he says.
Shallum recounts how in choosing a coffee bean supplier for Soul Brew Coffee, he considered “the bigger brands” but landed on Toby’s because of the “care factor”, both in the ethical sourcing of the green beans and the roasting process.
“Understanding that they careful with every part of that process [and] their end product is very consistent,” he adds.
It could be imagined that coffee drinkers across Australia would have similar expectations of their brews, but it turns out South Australians like a lighter roast to their beans than people in Melbourne or Sydney.
Shallum says he was looking for roasted beans with “a bit of punch, but not too much to be overpowering”.
“There are obviously brands that push the darker, robust, very smoky flavours, but we were chasing something for the SA market that was medium [in intensity] and cut through the milk but was great as a long black or an espresso, too.”
For customers’ after hours coffee fixWhen his team were testing the various coffees, pairing the flavour profiles with the café’s preferred local milk supplier Tweedvale Milk, they also kept coming back to Toby’s Estate.
The team landed on a medium roast for Soul Brew’s house blend, while also using other Toby’s beans to batch brew filtered coffee on their trusty Mochamaster.
“Toby’s have a range of single origins or blends that are more unique or might be in a small batch.
“The idea behind it is that you’re trying that coffee that might be two, three or four times the price of a normal bag of coffee.
“You’re trying that in a smaller volume, so you can buy it per glass, per cup in store.”
Consistency of preparation and product is key to winning over customers, says Shallum, adding there’s the science and artistry to making a great cup.
Every grind is weighed and there’s specific formula times for each bean and style of coffee, which leads to the perfect shot (again, checked before serving), plus there’s the texturing and temperature of the milk.
Understanding these layers of precision makes it hard for Shallum and his coffee fans to “just grab a coffee anywhere”.
The house blend has proved a winner and Shallum says they’ve converted plenty of customers, who’d ordinarily use beans from the supermarket for their home coffee machines, into grabbing a bag of the beans.
“Having these take home beans helps bridge the gap between their next coffee with us,” Shallum says.
Soul Brew Coffee, 121 Heaslip Road, Angle Vale 5117. Connect: Instagram
Toby’s Estate. Connect: Instagram
