ABOUT US
Minerva Coffee founder, Sylvester, has long been a coffee aficionado. Before he transitioned into coffee roasting he collected antique coffee machines, with particular emphasis on lever-style piston coffee machines. Piston pressure coffee machines were first invented by Giovanni Achille Gaggia in 1938. Gaggia’s principle of forcing hot water over coffee grounds to produce the unique ‘crema’ on the espresso is still the foundation of how modern coffee machines work today.
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Some of Sylvester’s machine collection can be found permanently showcased at Museo Italiano, Melbourne , Australia. Other of his machines are part of a temporary exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, in Melbourne .
One of Sylvester’s machines previously exhibited at the Melbourne Museum and showcased in the book “Espresso comes to Melbourne” authored by Dr Andrew Brown-May, is one of the first four commercial espresso machines imported into Australia.
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His obsession with coffee and his frustration of relentlessly searching for a ‘decent’ coffee led Sylvester to pursue this interest into a more serious hobby - that of roasting his own coffee.
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Sourcing state-of-the-art coffee roasting equipment from STA Impianti, Bologna, Italy, Sylvester setup a micro coffee roasting facility. Micro-roasting in small 20kg batch quantities is what makes each bag of Minerva Coffee beans carefully crafted.