As all you glamorous and perceptive readers of this humble blog will be well aware, there are two things that are exceedingly hard to find in Melbourne: a great cup of espresso, freshly roasted beans for at home, decent cycling infrastructure, well-insulated homes, and timely public transport.

I suspect that every columnist writing about this café probably feels obliged to say something worldly and cultured about its name, "Abraço". Meaning literally "(a) hug" in Portuguese, as far as I know it can also be used as a warm way of signing off a note to a friend, a bit like Anglos might sign off with “hugs and/or kisses”, or tell a friend to “pass their love along to so-and-so”, if we weren’t generally as uptight as we are about expressing platonic affection.

As a busy member of MCS’s executive team, international trips frequently see our colleague-correspondents flitting to locations such as Bangkok or New York, places which are renowned for their value when trying to impress vague acquaintances at events involving ties, tall tables, and sparkling wine. Usually during such international jetset trips there isn’t enough time to indulge in irrelevant side quests such as tasting and reviewing coffee – there are usually important hands to shake or shady deals to be made. However, in this instance it seemed worth stopping for a few minutes to smell the espresso.

This is a tale of a beautiful sunny day punctuated by a very disappointing coffee.

Overnight, it seems, everything has changed. It’s sweltering (but for how long?) and we’re able to go out and about and socialise (but for how long??). Being a human is starting to be alright again. Even the CBD seems to be slowly coming out of hibernation, with suited office workers buzzing hither and thither — and not a moment too soon as far as this wannabe is concerned.

No snark from MCS today, because small businesses could use our help. Seriously, though. Many of us have to be at home a lot right now, and many of us have seen our favourite hospitality businesses, or even our own, severely impacted. We at MCS probably rate this whole situation about zero out of five cups.

But there is some hope. Read on for our weekly coffee-by-snail-mail picks.

We at Melbourne Coffee Sucks have been quiet for a while, but it has not been in vain. We have been busily negotiating the details of a very exciting deal.

We’re thrilled to finally be able to announce that as of the start of the new financial quarter tomorrow, we’ll finally be joining the Vice Media family!

How coffee works in the Outback

When heading off on a trip into the Big Australian Outback, I feared the worst. In terms of snakes and exposure, but also in terms of the quality of the coffee that would be available. As a precaution, I had already brought along the fanciest jar of instant coffee I could lay my hands on (spoiler: it was terrible), because I had oftentimes been warned that one of the primary reasons for folks not surviving their solo travels in the outback was being caught out at midday in the blazing sun with a flat tyre and no coffee. This is why Jack Absalom has a video on how to make a cuppa coffee with nothing more than bulldust and soap.

It has been quiet for a while here on MCS, but not without reason. Your intrepid and dedicated coffee critics have been on a round-the-world tasting journey, involving daredevil dogs, VHS tapes, boats, and rides on the backs of trucks.

This is a café I’ve felt I should try out for a long time. The name Proud Mary seems to be well-known around these parts, and it always seems to be brimming with people. Normally that’s a good sign when it comes to such establishments. The patrons are fancy, young, and extremely shiny. I wonder what it’s like!