Mapping a global phenomenon

Aussie Cafés Abroad

with Rhonda Evans

Australian café culture has gone global.
What makes a café Australian when it’s a world away from Australia?

I’m mapping hundreds of cafés across dozens of countries —
meeting the founders, collecting their stories, and exploring how a way of doing coffee and brunch became one of Australia’s more visible exports.

Why do people create cafés inspired by Australia elsewhere in the world?
I’m exploring what they draw from Australian café culture, what they adapt or reinvent in the process, and what their choices might tell us about how Australian culture travels and how Australia is imagined and expressed through these cafés.

A flat white in a duck-egg green cup, the initials Dr R drawn into the foam by the co-owner, beside an open notebook of handwritten fieldnotes.
LUCYD, Seoul — “Dr R”, drawn by the co-owner.

Help me expand the dataset

Know an Australian café beyond Australia?

Or the person behind one?

Every lead gets checked. Some become the next founder I meet.

Nominate a café

or send it to me on Instagram or Facebook

Follow along

The fortnightly dispatch

Every two weeks: one café and the person behind it, one thing the research has turned up, and one way you can help.

The project is led by Rhonda Evans, Director of the Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.