There are coffee shops, and then there are places where you can watch your beans travel overhead from the roaster while deciding whether you’ve got room for another pastry. Merlo’s Bowen Hills Torrefazione (Italian for roastery, for the uninitiated) is firmly the second kind.
Two for one, 1pm to 3pm
Iced Vovo & Iced Vovo Matcha Special
For International Coffee Day on Thursday 1 October, Merlo is giving Brisbane a very convincing reason for an afternoon coffee run. Between 1pm and 3pm, buy one coffee and get another free at Merlo-owned cafés.
The offer isn’t limited to a flat white or long black, either. Specialty drinks are in, including the very photogenic Iced Vovo Matcha pictured above.
You could claim your two-for-one at any Merlo. But if you’re making an occasion of it, head to Bowen Hills.
Inside Merlo’s coffee HQ
The aroma of toasting beans hits you before you’re through the door. This sprawling, industrial-chic warehouse is Merlo’s flagship, and the closest you’ll get to watching the whole operation while holding a coffee.
Beans are roasted on site daily, then travel to the baristas through the overhead tube system snaking across the ceiling. It’s theatre, but practical too: the coffee in your cup is about as close to the roaster as it gets.
Coffee geeks can take the experience home. The shelves stock freshly roasted beans, brew gear and those dangerously addictive dark chocolate-coated coffee beans.
Come for coffee, stay for lunch
Allow more time than your usual grab-and-go. Bowen Hills runs as a full restaurant, with Head Chef Matt Knoll and his team working from an open kitchen you can see from the café.
So there’s no settling for a cabinet snack because you’ve stayed longer than planned. Pull up one of those blue chairs, order properly and turn your coffee mission into lunch.
Expect substantial plates that hold their own alongside the coffee. It’s also the right call if your companion is less caffeine-obsessed than you: they can eat while you work out how many coffees constitute a reasonable Thursday afternoon.
Don’t skip the bakery
Merlo’s own bakery shares the Bowen Hills site, making fresh bread and pastries for the wider Merlo network. The flagship gets a front-row seat.
That means an unusually generous spread: bread, pastries, pies, sandwiches and plenty of cabinet temptation. With the roastery, restaurant and bakery working side by side, a visit feels genuinely behind the scenes. Our advice? Don’t arrive straight after eating.
Coffee nerds, there’s a Geisha release too
Merlo’s limited Brazil Geisha from Fazenda Santa Monica in Ibiraci has already proved popular, selling out during its pre-release.
Produced by third-generation coffee farmer Jean Vilhena Faleiros, the anaerobically processed coffee has a cupping score of 88.5/100, with jasmine, hibiscus and coffee blossom on the nose, followed by grape, blueberry, dried fruit and brown sugar. For the uninitiated, a cupping score rates a coffee’s aroma, flavour and other qualities in a standardised tasting.
With the pre-release snapped up, café allocations have been reduced. Rather than full serves, Merlo is offering 4oz cold-drip samples for $3.50, poured from a cold-drip tower.
Want more than a taste? A limited amount of the Brazil Geisha is still available to purchase online for $49.95 per 500g bag, while stocks last.
What to order
Keep it old-school with a punchy double espresso on the Espresso Blend, or a silky flat white on the bold Forza Blend if your brain needs a serious jump-start. The current Bean of the Month is worth asking about too.
Then settle in. Claim your two-for-one between 1pm and 3pm, try a cold-drip sample of the limited Geisha, watch the beans travel overhead, order lunch and leave room for whatever has just come out of the bakery. International Coffee Day only comes around once a year. You may as well do it somewhere that takes coffee seriously.
Merlo Coffee Bowen Hills Torrefazione, 104 McLachlan St, Bowen Hills. Find out more