Dachshund Coffee

Their delivery of Fat Poppy Specialty Coffee arrives in Hunters Hill from the western suburbs each week. Jars of sugar, if you need it, sit on the wooden tables - cosy settings for two against the banquette or a welcoming communal table. Low temperature pasteurised Country Valley milk from Picton is sweeter, creamier with a higher butter content.

All the Dachshund black coffee is single origin Ethiopian Guji or Kenya Nyeri, and with milk the coffee is blended.

Sasha Jade McGinley, founder of Fat Poppy, buys specialty green beans from around the world, then roasts and blends at her warehouse in Seven Hills. All the beans are roasted individually to specific roast profiles after rigorous cupping, then post-blended to achieve optimum flavour.

"I just did it because I like it." Sasha says, wide blue eyes beaming. "Whatever I was doing with my life I want to love it."

She's been working in specialty coffee for 11 years - starting as a barista. She didn't even drink the stuff until the author of The Espresso Quest Book, Instaurator, took her under his wing. Sasha then became a coffee trainer, worked on a plantation, was later the quality control for Campos in their Brisbane head office, and then operations manager for Nude Roasters London before starting Fat Poppy.

"Life is about putting yourself out there. Without taking risks you don't get anywhere."

"If I do something, I want to know everything," she said of her decision to follow her "massive journey". The Fat Poppy logo shows her 'crop to cup' life. Sourcing good coffee. Roasting good coffee. Brewing good coffee.

Dachshund Coffee owners baristas Rob Stein and twins Matt and Alex Williams take over with the brewing where Sasha leaves off, though you can sometimes (as I did) find Sasha helping out there.

"We are the next step in the process for delivering a quality product to market," extolls Stein.

"The devil is in the detail; we weigh every shot. We brew to exacting recipes."

The coffee machine is a highly modified and upgraded first generation Synesso from Seattle. It was retrofitted with additional pieces by a friend Sean Alcorn of Alcorn Cafe Engineering. "Having worked on a wide variety of different machines we knew what we wanted" Stein continues.

There is a little bit more of a spiel about the coffee machine on the Dachshund Coffee instagram @comesitstay.

The other good news is that the same attention to detail carries through to everything they do.

Quality produce is the base for good food: house-made Maffra cheddar jaffles, 'Egganic' eggs, brioche French toast, bacon cured only from Australian pork, tender (weekend) wagyu corned beef with potato hash, Soho organic ginger beer and other fizzies, orange juice freshly squeezed by the greengrocer across the road.

"We've made a conscious decision to align with quality products."

"It's a small enough operation we can have almost total control of the process."

There's always a friendly smile, locals are remembered. We should know. We're sipping a Dachshund Coffee nearly every day.