I've been living in Melbourne for a year now and I like the place a lot. The weather's agreeable, the people friendly and the architecture around St Kilda reminds me a little of the South of France. One of the biggest irritations however (and if you're a regular reader of this blog you knew that that sentence was coming) is the coffee situation. In the late 1940's Melbourne had an influx of Italian immigrants who brought their coffee worshipping culture with them. In this schemata drip or filter coffee was verboten and every cup of coffee had to be individually made on an espresso machine. You could of course get an espresso itself but Melburnians became hooked on lattes and cappuccino. Gradually this sophisticated culture spread displacing the old diners and restaurants who sold drip, filter or even instant coffee. Now you can't get American style filter coffee anywhere....
Anti Starbucks snobs are probably cheering as they read this and when Starbucks announced that they were closing almost all of their Melburnian outlets it was greeted with rejoicing in the Melbourne Age and even the tabloid Herald. "How dare these Yanks try to impose their weak kneed filter coffee on us when we are light years ahead of them," was the tedious refrain. There are two big problems with this entire grand edifice, however. If you want a standard cup of black coffee in Australia you have to ask for a "long black" which is an espresso shot mixed with hot water. The first issue I have with this is that it tastes like crap. The espresso and the water don't mix properly, it's grainy, either weak or too strong and it's basically inferior in every way to a good cup of filtered coffee (tell this to Australians and they will snort incredulously). The second problem is that it takes fecking forever just to get a bloody cup of coffee. Yesterday I was out for a walk and I dropped in at a busy coffee shop on the water front, I ordered a long black, paid my money, got my change. In the US or UK I would wait for a few seconds and then someone would hand me an excellent freshly brewed cup of black coffee and I would leave. At the Portabella coffee shop however I was informed that it would be a "thirty minute wait" for coffee. Since you have to brew every cup individually and then clean the espresso holder and fire up the machine again, this makes sense. Thirty minutes standing around with sweating, Lycra clad bikers for a crappy cup of joe. I don't think so. I got my money back and left.
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Australians really need to get over themselves with this coffee nonsense. Drip coffee is fine. It's cheap, fast and really good. Did you ever go to Malaysia? There they make fricking Nescafe with condensed milk - bloody delicious, takes two seconds.Watch 30 Rock sometime, everyone's drinking those blue takeaway cups of New York diner coffee which costs 99 cents - you add sugar, half and half - again, bloody delicious. I'm sorry Australia, I like you, but this cult you've joined has taken you down a bad path, you need an intervention. Just try brewing a big pot of filter coffee in the morning for people in a hurry or who think "long black" tastes like shite - you might be surprised by the results.
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The picture BTW is Aussie icon Nicole Kidman exiting her local Starbucks in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Oh and apologies for two beverage posts in a row, won't happen again.
43 comments:
Hello, there! I live in Portugal, and there is a coffee culture here, too. I understand your disappointment, but let me tell you that, for anyone who REALLY appreciates the taste of coffee, those espresso coffees that you mention are the best. Sure you can have a filter coffee and enjoy the taste, but it's not the same thing. And, for the record, Portuguese and Turkish coffee are much better than the Italian one.
Greetings from the North Hemisphere! :)
P.S. It's 11:47 in the morning here and I've just had a "Delta" cup of coffee. Bitter-sweet taste. Amazing! :)
Liliana
I agree with you. Espresso coffee is the best, though actually I think Turkish coffee can be incredible. I lived in Jerusalem for a year and I used to go to this tiny coffee shop in the Old City where I had these little almond cakes and Turkish coffee for breakfast every morning - oh my god, amazing.
I have been to Portugal. To the Algarve and Lisbon. Really enjoyed both places. I've always wanted to go to the north though that stretch of Portugal that leads into Galicia. There are supposed to be a lot of Celtic influences there and I think its a little off the beaten track - at least for tourists.
In California, we've got Peet's, which is much stronger than Starbucks, and which doesn't have the same marketing affectations. We have good filter coffee pretty much everywhere, but there's this new thing of making even regular coffee through some sort of special process--all I know is that it involves special brushes and god knows what all else--and the upshot is that even regular coffee takes about five minutes to make per cup. It's good, but it sure doesn't fit very well into the American work day.
What's up with the Aussies, though? Any decent espresso bar here can whip out several in under three minutes.
Adrian, you're correct about the North area. That's where I live, actually, 40km away from Porto, the second biggest city here. Sure the Algarve is nice, especially if you're a tourist looking for good beaches, but there are other beautiful places, those which are not mentioned in tourist guides... Anyway, if you ever have the chance to visit the North, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. The Celtic influences do exist, and Roman too. Besides, the North is much greener than the South, and the people are more welcoming! :)
I originally thought that was a picture of Ms. Kidman sneaking down the backstairs of some sneaky, down-at-the-heels illicit tryst. Then I read your post and saw I was right, as least as far as Australians are concerned.
Comparing American filter coffee to Italian espresso is just like comparing Bud Light to Guinness.
And, for the record, Portuguese and Turkish coffee are much better than the Italian one.
International incident brewing...
Incident? This might actually become a world war.
Seana
Peet's is good. They have those little tea timers for your brewing your tea. Its a gimmick and they dont work at all, but still I like them. Starbucks only serve tea in a bag but Pete's will give you the real thing. And their coffee's good too.
In Portabella's defence the place was packed to the rafters. Normally its not a 30 minute wait.
Seana
Yeah, I've always been interested in that stretch of coast. Actually I read book a few months ago called The Origins of the British which shows (pretty conclusively) through DNA research that something like 80 percent of everyone in Britain and Ireland came from Galicia, Northern Portugal and the Basque Country - so it would be a sort of homecoming.
Dana
She will never be able to show her face again.
I actually looked for a picture of Melbourne actress Cate Blanchett at a Starbucks but none where to be found. I'm sure she's been but she's just been much smarter about it.
Marco
Well I've had Bud Light and Guinness, but have you had really good drip American coffee?
BTW I should have mentioned that Cuban coffee is Turkish coffee and its very good.
Adrian, you're read Timothy Hallinan. His Poke Mosley is an evolved character, as proved by his acceptance of his Thai girlfriend's love of Nescafe.
I've lived in Rome, where I had my regular cafe, and I can tell you that it doesn't take thirty minutes to prepare coffee anywhere unless the server is also planting the beans. Whoever told you to wait half an hour won't be in business long.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
They have two espresso jets and 30 people ahead of me waiting with numbers on their tables. Unless you're the Green Lantern I dont see how you can do it in a shorter time. To paraphrase Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny the laws of physics do still apply for barristas. One pot of fresh drip coffee and the wait time would be slashed.
This isnt about Slow Food or learning to walk to the beat of a different drummer, its about getting a cup of joe when I'm thirsty.
Then she should get more espersso jets. Or, um, some regular coffee with an intravenous line running straight into needy customers' waiting arms, just like we have in America.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Liliana, eu gusto do chimarrão tambem.
Xiao!
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
look at you showing off.
These beverage posts have been very fruitful, haven't they? Adrian McKinty's Beverage Blog might be your ticket to, well, something.
Took my sister and brother-in-law to my friend's new cafe today, where, in addition to really scrumptious cupcakes, the coffee is excellent. My brother-in-law, who will actually drive miles for good coffee pronounced his mocha almost as good as that of Cafe Roma in Berkeley, which is his highest American standard--and probably mine.
It's Cafe Delmarette, for any Californians in the mix here. I don't think they do a pot of coffee, but it's worth the wait.
Vai enche o saco doutro.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Here's how Yahoo Babel Fish tranlated that last:
It goes fulls the bag of another one.
As usual, I am clueless.
I think the closest idiomatic English equivalent would be "Go break somebody else's balls, will you?"
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Got it, Peter. As a rejoinder, I suspected it was probably a little salty..
but have you had really good drip American coffee?
I don't know. How do you tell it from really bad American coffee?
Unless you're the Green Lantern I dont see how you can do it in a shorter time.
Flash could surely do it, and probably most other members of the Justice League.
And if you brought in super villains, Mister Freeze could whip you up a nice iced coffee.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Marco, I must have told you about the time I had a coffee with Dario Fo in New York, and he asked for decaffeinated, because it was getting late.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Liliana, eu gusto do chimarrão tambem
I love (Argentinian) mate, but its taste is closer to tea than to coffee.
I'm not sure if mate is biologically related to tea, but it is certainly much more like tea than like coffee. I thought of it because someone wrote something about a bitter taste.
I first tried mate in Brazil's extreme south, where the culture and the beverages are similar to Argentina's.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Seana
Did you ever go to Chez Panisse in Berkeley? I had a nice dinner there once. In fact it was a very nice day. I got to see inside Dashiell Hammett/Sam Spade's apartment on Post Street and then a nice dinner over the bay.
Peter
You know if you'd done a Yiddish phrase I could have gone to my in house translator and replied with something equivalent.
I was tripping too much on the straw thingy to really enjoy my mate. I was sure I was doing it wrong.
Marco
Yeah Flash could do it. Did you ever catch Frank Millar's sequel to The Dark Knight? Flash had a big role in that if I recall correctly.
How did you tell bad coffee from good coffee in America - simple one is made with love, one isnt.
What's the point of every other superhero when Flash could resolve every fight in nanoseconds?
simple one is made with love, one isnt.
Made with love? You mean like Mom 's robots?
I'm working on a Scots/Yiddish word over at my place.
I was tripping too much on the straw thingy to really enjoy my mate. I was sure I was doing it wrong.
Well, the mate has to be ground to the right texture. I bought some when I got back to Philadelphia, and it just clogged up in the cuia (straw).
It's good form to suck the hot mate right down and to empty the bomba (gourd) with a big slurp. I must have done this well, because after I had done so at a big churrasco (country barbecue), my host clapped me soundly on both shoulders and said: "I like you." Then, leaning closer and speaking sotto voce (sotto voce), he said of the other foreigner present, his brother-in-law: "I don't like the German, though."
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
No, I don't think I ever have been to Chez Panisse, though I certainly passed by it many times. My friend's brother was a chef there for awhile though, and he's catered a couple of her parties, so I may have experienced a bit of the style. He's one of those guys who can do anything, and recently left that world to become a lawyer.
I know. It's all wrong.
My brother-in-law was telling me that Peet's has a little museum about their history in their original Berkeley store. He liked it, but I'll bet they don't let Italians in, for fear they would snicker too much.
Seana
Another thing I like about Peet's (at least the ones in Denver) is that they didnt play annoying music. They didnt play any music at all. We dont need music everywhere certainly not when you're drinking a nice cup of tea.
They do play classical music at ours sometimes, but I rather enjoy that.
Here's one thing I didn't get when I was in Italy, lo, these many years ago--the whole espresso culture seemed to be about men standing at a bar drinking down shots of the stuff rather briskly, then leaving not long after. I remember sitting down and drinking cappucinos with my friends in Florence, uh, Firenze, but I had a feeling that aspect was just put in for the tourists.
Here in the U.S. the whole coffee culture is about sitting around together. A lot of restaurants used to pride themselves on the bottomless coffeepot, though this is not so true anymore, except at breakfast places. It's funny, because you'd think the whole situation would be reversed, with Americans wanting it fast and Italians lingering. True, that's why we have the to go cup, but still people still really like to idle over coffee here.
This is all completely random observation, which I could probably contradict myself if I didn't feel so sure that someone else would very ably do it.
30 minutes for coffee? No thanks. I don't care where the coffee comes from as long as it arrives quickly and a spoon will stand upright in it!!
In my kitchen you will find good American drip coffee, or at least good drip coffee made in an American kitchen.
Greg
I'm with you on the strong coffee, however I have a secret love for that weak free refill diner coffee, its great if you've got a couple of hours to kill and its even greater if the waitress is a bit sarcastic and sassy.
Mmmmmmmmmmm... I like sarcastic and sassy, unfortunately down here in the south we don't have diners (Waffle House does not count). I miss the diners of the northeast (NYC area), but you just made it worse with the sarcastic and sassy mental image!
Greg
I used to go to this soul food cafe in harlem for coffee some mornings before catching the A train. Sassy isnt the word my friend. But of course I loved it. And was careful to keep my mouth shut.
Best of all if the waitress calls you hun (for "honey," not for "Attila").
I always associated that with older, lively but jaded women, so I once asked a sexy 20-year-old diner waitress how old one had to be before one started calling one's customers hun. It comes with job, she said.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
I like it in the South when they call you sugar.
Of course in Belfast everyone gets called "love".
I like it in the South when they call you sugar.
Of course in Belfast everyone gets called "love".
I've been called sugar in the South. Makes me feel all warm and hospitable.
Everyone gets called "love" in England, too, I think. I once read a criticism of a novel whose author had characters call one another "love" rather than "dear" or vice versa. These things matter.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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