Melbourne's most famous coffee is magic. But who gets to claim it?

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

Trampoline. Videotape. Linoleum. Windsurfer. Plenty of products started life as trademarks, from Aspirin to Zoom, slowly easing into lower-case status in the dictionary. Some brands echo the creator's name, from biro to leotard, while others explain the gadget's function, such as Philips' air fryer or Sony's memory stick.
Further labels derive from serendipity. Some 20 years ago, that happened on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, after a string of experiments between customer and barista. Zenon Misko, a Ukrainian-Australian trademark attorney, was the customer needing a double ristretto to face the day. Cate Della Bosca, owner of Newtown S.C., was the alchemist open to ideas.
'Around mid-morning,' recalls Zenon, 'I took a break from the office to grab a coffee. But in winter, I wanted something that would last a bit longer, so I'd get a double-ristretto flat white.' A mouthful to order, and a chore to drink, the cool-brown dregs lacking foam and energy by the time the cup was nearing done.
'So I said to Cate, let's try a double-ristretto-three-quarter-flat-white…' . Ten syllables this time, but the hit was a hit. Cate ensured the elixir had that delicate micro-foam layer, the ristretto pour maintained its punch, the reduced milk its temperature. Ten cups later, in that café code enjoyed among regulars, Zenon was asking for that magical coffee he liked, as Cate waved her steam wand. Voila, the magic arrived.
Arrived in the Macquarie too, listed as definition #7 after the supernatural front-runners, though curiously the coffee is marked as Victorian only, as if the recipe has retained its postcode. But just like windsurfers, good ideas travel, the Zenon-Cate magic moving to Sydney, Singapore, New York, Tokyo, even to Nambour (though I hear they call the blend a grom up there). Stroll into your nearest 7-Eleven and there on the coffee-maker's screen you'll find the magic icon (a three-quarter brown blob) beside the macchiato and piccolo latte.
Across the ditch in England, should you visit any of the 1000-plus Marks & Spencer outlets, you'll have the option of ordering 'the company's latest culinary adventure, this time a concept imported from Australia, known as the 'Magic Coffee'' – to quote the catalogue, inverted commas included. As for the price tag? Order the brew and – poof – you'll see £3.15 disappear from your account like magic.
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The magic is equally big in Thailand too, where Zenon and his young family lived for several years. 'There's a café in Phra Khanong, an emerging part of Bangkok, called Karo Coffee Roasters. Karo is a Sri Lankan born and raised in the Maldives whose magic is the best I've tasted.' Seems the sorcery – or make that saucery – has reached the world's palate.
Yet the art of magic, we know, is misdirection. Whether the blend and its label began on Brunswick Street, or across the Yarra, or even in Frankenstein's castle a year prior to this story, is hardly Zenon's concern. 'I'm open to others thinking they own the idea, the name, whatever. It's not 'our' coffee. Cate and I know where we were when we came up with the mix.'
In a reversal of cultural cringe, one British food critic disputed the term as 'magic doesn't end with a vowel so can't be a coffee type.' At least one thing we do know: Magic Marker is the trade name – and intellectual property – of Bic. While a magic coffee, by contrast, belongs to the people.