The 20-minute coffee van that keeps small community together

She arrives out of the fog like clockwork.

Headlights first. Then the hum of her SUV rolling into a gravel car park on a quiet stretch of the Mallee Highway.

It's 7:25am. Underbool, the small country town of 215 people according to the last census, is still half-asleep.

It is Tuesday. One of the two days a week when Lee Brown opens her coffee van for just 20 minutes.

She does not waste a second: bins in, door open, awnings flicked into position.

The coffee van decants with muscle memory.

Inside, the machine kicks on. Grind. Tamp. Lock. Pour.

And by the time the milk is frothing, utes are already lining up.

Underbool is about as far from Melbourne's laneway coffee culture as you can get before crossing the South Australian border.

Among the gumtrees, about 500 kilometres north-west of the latte-sipping capital, a morning coffee ritual has taken hold.

Flat whites. Long blacks. Even caramel lattes. Like the town it services, the coffee is made strong.

And for a short, precise, almost unbelievable window of time, Lee's coffee van is the busiest spot in town.

'That 20 minutes is important'

At 7:30am sharp, the first three customers are at the counter.

And almost instantaneously, three turns into more than a dozen.

Lee moves quickly. She knows most of her customers by name and order, and most of them know exactly how long they have got.

Twenty minutes. That is the rush.

"People look at my hours online and think, 'What a waste of time,'" Lee says while frothing milk.

"But that 20 minutes is important to the town."

It is important for the tradies, the farmers, the truck drivers, the socialites and the passers-by.

They time their morning around their freshly brewed barista coffee.

Lee often makes more than 30 coffees during her 20-minute shift, before heading to her other job at the Underbool Neighbourhood House.

Three days a week, she stays open longer. Three hours.

That's when her alfresco chairs fill, conversations stretch out, and locals settle in.

"It's for my local people," Lee says.

'Being a community again'

For customers, it's less about the coffee and more about what comes with it.

For local shearer Hamish Farnsworth, the coffee van is a chance to see his neighbours.

"The coffee is just the bit that brings everyone together," he says.

"The coffee van does a really good job of just trying to be there for the community, more so than doing it for the money."

For farmers, days are often long and solitary. Hours in a tractor without conversation.

He says five minutes spent with peers makes a difference to their mental health.

"If they can just catch someone before they go to work, it's so much better," Hamish says.

"Everyone's more chirpy.

"Some days you can drive past at 9:30 and you'll have the ladies here having their coffee, interacting and being a community again."

Connection more than profit

Lee opened the van because she missed good coffee, the type she used to order from cafes when she lived in Swan Hill.

She bought the van just as COVID-19 hit. She opened the business regardless of the challenges the pandemic posed.

"It was really great for our community," Lee says.

"People would come down, grab a coffee, get their mail and go to the shop."

In a town where some services are thinning, the van has become a cornerstone.

'Takes a village'

Underbool woman Sonia McVicar wears many leadership hats, including secretary of the local Country Fire Authority and being on the pool advisory committee.

She says the coffee van brings together the people who keep the community alive.

"It takes a village," Sonia says. "That's what we are."

She says togetherness is a core value of the Underbool community.

"A lot of volunteer work goes into the town to keep it going, and we just support each other," Sonia says.

"It's great to support the local businesses, and Lee's been doing a fantastic job bringing everyone together."

'Keeping it going and growing'

The Underbool population is aging. The median age in the area is 52, 14 years older than the state median, according to the 2021 census.

Sonia says the aging population has forced some changes around town.

"[Underbool] has gotten a bit smaller but we're seeing a recent growth," she says.

But Underbool is determined to keep the community spirit alive.

Volunteers, fuelled by Lee's morning coffee, run a community pantry serving fresh milk and bread, the public pool, the cemetery and the recreation grounds where new netball courts have just been installed.

"I think [Underbool is] thriving and we've just got to keep instilling that community-mindedness into our younger ones here," Sonia says.

"And moving forward with keeping it going and growing."

Email address