In January the city burned and sweated and buzzed with tennis. The Australian Open came like a wave and the cafés near the courts felt it first. Then the laneways. Then the whole city. People came in wearing hats and lanyards, clutching programs like sacred texts. They spoke in quick bursts. Europeans, Americans, others with accents you couldn’t place. They wanted coffee. They needed it. The sun was too strong, the nights too long, and the matches too late.
They came early, before gates opened, when the air was still thick but not yet cruel. They lined up at places they had read about. A place Djokovic once visited. A place a blogger from Berlin had called “the soul of espresso.” They took photos. They said it’s better here. And it was, though not always in the way they meant. It was better because the baristas made it matter. Because they knew people would come from Madrid or Montreal or Osaka and expect something perfect. They didn’t always get perfect, but they got real. No short cuts. No syrup. Just beans, milk, water, heat, and the hands that knew what to do.
In the afternoons, the cafés grew hot. The machines steamed and hissed and the floors stuck slightly underfoot. Staff moved like they were dancing uphill, sweating through shirts, grinding shot after shot. A cappuccino for the Frenchman with the Rafa hat. A piccolo for the woman with Centre Court wristbands and sunburn on her nose. Ice water for the child who had cried through two sets of doubles.
At night the city changed again. Matches went long. Five sets. Tie-breaks. Dramas. People stumbled in after midnight, wired and tired, looking for one more drink. Sometimes the cafés stayed open late, sometimes not. The ones that did made coffee like they were keeping something sacred alive. Because in Melbourne, you do not serve it half-hearted. Not ever. Not even at two a.m.
The tournament brought noise and lights and the kind of people who left big tips or none at all. But it brought life too. The city felt full. The cafés hummed like old engines running hot but steady. And when the last point was played, and the players flew out, and the heat eased just a little, the baristas kept pouring. Because the tennis left, but the coffee stayed. It always did.
