Villino Coffee Roasters - Instigators and influencers in the Tasmanian coffee scene.

We spoke with Villino Coffee’s Founder and Owner, Richard Schramm, all about Villino’s achievements over the years, the specialty coffee scene in Tasmania and how Villino came to be.

Villino Coffee Roasters started as an idea in the ‘My Business Ideas’ folder of ex-IT consultant Villino Founder Richard Schramm’s laptop. After growing up and studying in Tasmania, Richard and his wife Melissa felt the itch to move back to their home state after pursuing corporate careers in Melbourne.

A specialty coffee business was the career changing idea that stuck. After lots of research and learning the ropes with a weekend job at a local specialty café, the move was made! Soon after, Villino Espresso opened its doors as a small family-operated café.

Coffee roasting came as a natural evolution in the pursuit of more control over quality and an unavoidable draw to the art and science of roasting. Word got out about the new roaster on the block, and the wholesale supply business took off organically.

We’ve faced all the usual challenges of growing and operating a small business. We’ve reinvented and adapted as we’ve navigated our growth path and over- come unforeseen challenges such as pandemics and economic downturns. We’re ever grateful for our amazing team and the support of our customer base that keeps us going strong and pushing us to always be better!

We’ve been on the scene for 17 years and are proud of the role we’ve played in shaping the local coffee landscape. The local scene has made incredible progress in the last decade. It has been a privilege to be a part of it, both as a producer and a venue operator. There are many cafés and roasteries down here doing really cool things and the hospitality scene in general punches well above its weight for a city of 250,000 people.

When we moved to our new roastery space at the end of 2022, one of the things we were most excited about was

the opportunity for hosting industry events and fostering the further development of relationships across the coffee community. We recently hosted the Alternative Dairy Barista competition and are looking to build out industry education evenings, cuppings and other events for the coffee community. We’re always looking for ways to continue to support the development of Tasmanian coffee talent.

We think it’s pretty cool that we have been here from the beginning of the specialty coffee scene in Tasmania as one of the longest standing businesses under local ownership for nearly the past two decades. We’ve not only evolved and stayed relevant, but feel that we’ve helped build a stronger coffee community.

We’ve never had a huge focus on the competition scene, but over the years our team has had their share of success on the state, national, and even world stage. Our Head Barista Andy has been Tasmanian Latte Art Champion and our Roaster and Barista Suzy recently won the Australian Aeropress Competition and went on to represent Australia in the World Aeropress Championships.

For us, probably our biggest achievement in the last couple of years has been the design and build of our new roastery and headquarters in Moonah. It’s such a special place – a massive space that is the culmination of all our years and experience in the industry. We have roasting and office space, a barista training room, a cupping lab, a workshop, and a cellar door café where you can enjoy our coffee while watching the magic happen.

The Synergy blend has been a part of Villino’s offering since they started roasting in 2009. The blend comprises three high quality, washed process coffees, from Colombia, Guatemala and Ethiopia.

The base of this blend is a washed Colombian called ‘San Sebastian’ from the Huila region. This coffee is a remarkable example of the quality coming out of Colombia. Notable for its high-quality acidity and rich sultana and caramel notes, San Sebastian is the lifeblood of Synergy and sets the stage for this outstanding washed blend.

The next component is a regional lot out of Guatemala called ‘Quetzal’, named after the national bird of Guatemala. Also of the washed process, this coffee brings complex fruit characters as well as some earthy complexity.

The highlight of the blend comes from the highly acclaimed Yirgacheffe region in Ethio- pia. This component is responsible for the floral aroma and further enhancing the cara- mel like nature of Synergy.