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| "Our Nicole" leaving her local Nashville Starbucks where she gets filter coffee |
I've been living in Melbourne for three years now and I like the place a lot. The weather's agreeable, the people are friendly and St Kilda is a Greenwich Village by the sea. 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.
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When Starbucks announced that they were closing almost all of their Melburnian outlets it was greeted with rejoicing in the Melbourne Age and the Herald Sun. "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 theory, 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. This of course tastes like utter 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 but 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. Many many times I have dropped in at a busy coffee shop, ordered a long black, paid my money, got my change and waited and waited and waited. In the US or UK I would stand there for a few seconds and then someone would hand me an excellent freshly brewed cup of black coffee and I would leave. In Melbourne since you have to brew every cup individually and then clean the espresso holder and fire up the machine again it can be upwards of thirty minutes (!) to get your cup of coffee. Thirty minutes for a cup of joe? This is insanity.
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Australians really need to get over themselves with this coffee nonsense. Actually there isn't really a coffee culture here at all, it's a mannered, decadent, effete, un-Australian steamed milk drinking culture. The propaganda about drip coffee is entirely bogus. Blue collar drip coffee is better than espresso coffee. It's cheaper, faster and when its made strong enough fantastic. 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 great. I'm sorry Australia, I like you, but this cult you've joined has taken you down a bad path and 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.
74 comments:
I posted a slightly modified version of this blog entry a couple of years back so you're not seeing double if you recognize some of it...but then again it is Groundhog Day.
I like this article in today's Guardian about the regrets people have before they die.
Whats great about Guardian readers is the angry skepticism of the comments underneath the article. If this piece appeared in the New York Times there would be nothing but gushing from readers.
No drip coffee in Australia? That just sounds bizarre. Here in Canada we have Tim Horton's, a coffee & doughnuts franchise that is practically a secular religion. Starbucks people (or heretics, as they're called) wouldn't be caught dead in a Tim's, and vice versa. I won't go to Starbucks because I inevitably get stuck behind someone ordering a drink that takes forever to make and creates more noise and steam than the engine room on the Titanic.
As someone who makes coffee all day I know exactly what you're talking about, our coffee here is rubbish and substandard in most places. I keep a drip in my office so i can have a decent black coffee at work and if I get one more person order a "Cup of cino" i'm going to jump the bench and deck them!
Cary
No drip coffee. Drip coffee is seen somehow as lower class or old fashioned or American
I've been in a Tim Horton's and yup great coffee.
Chris
I wonder how many baristas actually drink drip coffee at home because they know full well how bogus the whole espresso business is...
I stopped drinking coffee years ago. I'd only be concerned if they can properly make tea.
Adrian. Is espresso pronounced espresso or expresso?
Speedskater
Of course no one can make tea. They give you a droopy tea bag with lukewarm water which barely begins to excite the tea dust inside.
Matt
Way beyond my area of expertise. Whenever I've had to ask for a "long black" I normally say "with two shots please".
Cary beat me to it, but I was going to say just wait until Tim Horton's invades Australia (and by the way, Cary, I just finished reading K. C. Constantine's first novel and enjoyed it a lot, thanks for the recommendation).
John
I have fond memories of the "old fashioned glazed" donuts I used to eat at Tim Hortons. Bloody delicious.
There's a word for tea dust. It's "fannings."
Speedskater
Ghastly stuff isnt it? It should only be drunk if you're in prison or if there's a war on or something.
This whole Starbucks /Coffee culture malarkey is a lifestyle choice for people who don't actually like coffee ! What they like is the coffee cup as fashion accessory teamed preferably with a man bag and a phone thinner than a razor blade!
The coffee itself has been modified from it's true origins to incorporate syrup , soya milk and a host of superfluous add ins that only serve to disguise it's actual taste !
A simple thing done well is all that is needed !
Adrian, yes, it's ghastly. I'm not sure I'd drink it under ANY circumstance unless I was dying of thirst and that's all that was available.
I'd never seen it like that before, but Neil is right, those cups aren't for coffee, they're fashion accessories.
The Guardian comments were interesting. A little while ago SNL had a skit in which the devil claimed to have invented the internet, "Well, the comments sections, that's all me," he said and I believe him.
Tnat's why it's so good to find a place like this blog to hang out, so thanks everyone.
Neil
I think you're right. People buy their lattes like drones following orders and then prominently display their cups for all to see.
John
You should read the comments on a typical Daily Telegraph (London) article about anything. This is a pretty respectable paper but by comment number seven or eight its like a comment thread on Stormfront or an Illuminati blog.
Speedskater
I think thats why people think they dont like tea because thats all they've ever been given.
Adrian, you used word "baristas" in a comment. You've been co-opted, mate. One shot, or two?
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Oh, and it's "espresso," not "x" sound, You wouldn't want the baristas to look down on you, would you?
I mean, if the folks at Starbucks are going to call their small, medium and large coffees tall, grande, and venti, they obviously want a certain level of class.
Peter,
we had to come up with the word Barista (which is actually bartender in Italian) to validate our chosen (read failed actor/writer) career path to our mothers, hoping she'd confuse it for barrister..
In America, we don't have barristers, solicitors, advocates, or my learned friends, just a whole lot of lawyers.
Peter
I have been coopted. Although I vouch here in the presence of witnesses that I have never uttered the words venti, grande or whatever. I've always gone with small medium and large. Each man draws his own line.
Chris
I was very nearly a barrister. Its practically the same job except that you have to wear a stupid wig and you get paid a shitload more money.
Adrian, I've drawn precisely the same line and, much to the credit of the counter personnel, none has ever pretended not to know what I meant when I asked for a small, a medium, or a large.
Speaking of Bill Murray, I was really surprised to read this Slate article. Not that the Murray brothers were deemed the greatest current set of acting brothers, but that Bill Murray had acting brothers at all.
Happy Groundhog Day! (Though belated to most at this point.)
Peter
I think they prefer it actually.
Seana
Didn't you just wish a happy GH Day already?
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I knew about the Murray brothers. One of them played Freddy on Mad Men. Another one, or possibly the same one, played the Groundhog announcer in Groundhog Day.
No, that was in another loop of reality.
According to the Slate article, it was the other brother that was in Groundhog Day.
But that might also have been in a different loop of reality.
I think the coffee in Melbourne is pretty decent, Adrian, far better than the stuff you can get at a Timmie's in Canada. They put chicory in their coffee. Definitely an acquired taste. I must admit that one of the first appliances I bought when we moved to Melbourne was a drip coffee maker.
Hmmm...agree and disagree with a lean towards the former. Twas great indeed seeing starfucks go belly up as it was a true abomination in both the way it did business and the crud it produced but melburnians did and still do get a bit high horsed about coffee, including myself at times.
I now prefer to brew my own via stovetop or head over to the east brunswick project...which does good and proper espresso...takes 30 secs to buy and 30 secs to drink...hence the name espresso...and it knocks yer socks off...
good point though...the latte/long black stuff is truly awful and can turn the finest single bean organic ethiopian or indonesian civet coffee into a major disappointment..
dunno if that all made sense...haven't had a coffee yet :)
I try to do my Canadian coffee-drinking at a Second Cup or a Timothy's. They're Canadian, and the staff don't seem as much like their cheery McDonald'sized counterparts at Starbucks in the U.S.
Seana
That would make sense. Freddy still looked comparatively young.
John
If you like milky coffee then Melbourne is great, but if you want black coffee its pretty much a disaster all round.
Dan
I wish I could like espresso then I wouldn't have any problems here, but I just can't get into it. No one seems to understand the very simple concept of "a mug of black coffee". Why does the drinkable coffee in this town have to come with milk in it?
Peter
As long as they have those "old fashioned donuts" I'll go along with that.
Adrian, you may be able to sample those doughnuts when you go back home for a visit. I was surprised to find a Tim Horton's in the Great Victoria Street bus station in Belfast a couple of years ago.
Peter
I will take myself there at once!
About four years ago I went to this amazing donut place in Granville Island in Vancouver. First time I'd had an "old fashioned" donut since my childhood when we used to call them gravy rings for some reason.
A great thing about Melbourne is the presence of the mobile jam donut van. They fry them right there for you. And they are pretty tasty.
I couldn't help myself at the Befast Tim Horton's. I ordered a bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese.
Mobile vans in the Netherlands serve oliebollen, which are like deep-fried doughnuts but without the hole.
A friend refers to all those who just want some extravagant, steamed milk confection as "dairy queens."
The whole esoteric world of coffee beverages reminds me of a scene in Bill Bryson's book >i where he tries to order coffee at a fancy coffee joint in Portland, Oregon:
When at last my turn came, I stepped up and said: "I'd like a large cup of coffee."
"What kind?"
"Hot and in a cup and very large."
"Yeah, but what kind--mocha, macchiato or what?"
"I want whichever one is a normal cup of coffee."
"You want americano?"
"If that means a normal cup of coffee, then yes."
"Well, they're all coffees."
"I want a normal cup of coffee like millions of people drink every day."
"So you want an americano?"
"Evidently."
Santa Cruz is big on the foamy coffee, which I like from time to time, but you can always get it straight, although now that I think about it, there may be a small trend toward doing things the Australian way.
I probably should write up some of my experiences of hanging out in non-trendy coffeeshops someday. I hung out in the cheapest places I could find back in the day when I lived with other people and needed to get out a lot. The only thing I asked was free refills, a concept which is probably no longer even in existence.
Peter
There's a big cult about Philadelphia Cream Cheese in the UK. I like it and I like it on a bagel but I'm not culty about it the way some people are. But yes that was a smooth move.
Aiken
Bryson nails it. Thats exactly the experience.
Although try asking for an Americano or drip coffee in this town and the owner will come at you with a knife.
Seana
Ahh, I too remember the days when a waitress in a diner would come over to you and say "honey do you need a refill" and you'd say yes and they'd just give it you.
Definitely write up those experiences.
Yes, come to think of it, the menu on the wall of the Belfast Tim Horton's must have specified Philadelphia brand cream cheese, an odd honor for such a humble condiment as cream cheese.
In blue collar parts of Belfast people will serve Philadelphia Cream Cheese on Ritz crackers as a special treat for a honoured guest.
Philadelphia cream cheese was the only kind of cream cheese there was when I was growing up. In retrospect, it is an odd concoction.
Good, but odd.
Way off topic, but I just got an email from my sister about my 10 year old niece's first formal art class.
"While her classmates chose pictures from an art book of puppies and kittens to draw,
Olivia chose Norman Mailer."
No, I have no idea why, but it's a real portrait, all right.
Seana
Thats encouraging that anyone under 10 knows who Norman Mailer is.
Yeah, I don't know that she knows who he is. She must have liked his face. Hopefully, this isn't a bad sign for her future involvements.
I used to love cream cheese on Ritz crackers when I was a kid. Maybe this prefigured my affinity for crime fiction from Northern Ireland.
My faith in American youth has been restored.
philly cream cheese rules.....even in coffee..
can i have a double organic timorese decaf latte with a lump of philadelphia floating on top....brotherly love!
yes i stray..sorry...
Cream cheese in coffee? The deuce, you say!
Dan, I think you have actually maybe brought things back on topic.
I have never heard of that use of Phildelphia cream cheese. I will have to try it, though I have to say that I am a little bit skeptical.
I may onc have used cream cheese as a substitute for butter in a pinch when caught short while preparing Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner. But in coffee? Too outré for me, thanks.
ok while we are on asides...but related to you...i found an excerpt of CCG this morning in the Herald Sun...pretty much a full page...good work!
Dan
And there was an interview in yesterday, which alas is not online.
I tried to become a coffee drinker but couldn't handle it. Coffee is everywhere and it's caffeinated, which is why I tried to psyche myself into it. But I am a tea drinker alas.
I'm told that Quebec does not have half and half. My partner is crazy about the stuff, which I bring with me on bootleg runs from MA every once in a while. Does anyone know if half and half is sold elsewhere in Canada? How about Australia?
When I lived in Colorado, high altitude, I drank my tea. I'd then go back to Boston for holidays and every day back would burn my tongue. Finally learned that with the high altitude of Denver / Boulder, water boils at about 10 degrees cooler. Which means I was drinking cooler tea in Colorado, and not used to hot tea in Boston.
Philadelphia cream cheese is a real booster in homemade frosting (butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, splash of milk, oy jesus).
Tea drinker's problems are right up there with coffee drinker's problems, I think. I mean for getting while out. At least in the U.S. I think that's one of the main reasons I never really got on to tea.
seana, you're right about the terrible tea situation. it's why I was looking to make a switch to coffee. I'm outnumbered so might as well consort with the ruling party.
Boston was a pretty heavy coffee / tea and ice cream town. Serious offerings for gourmands of all three items. There was a local chain called Coffee Connection that took great pains to serve not only, apparently, great coffee, but also an eye for detail on serving tea. The variety of teas and just the ability to serve it well, boiling water, steeping, etc. They also did great with iced teas too.
Now everyone serves Tazo, which isn't for me. And Coffee Connection was taken over by Starbucks. There's this place in Cambridge that used to be a tiny blues club. They used to served 25 different kinds of beer, labels I'd never heard of...when I was 19 and underaged. The musicians and singers were incredible. Nobody but white people showed up. The best singer ever was reluctant to sing. We'd spend the whole night waiting for her to follow up with one song, only to get glumly rewarded with 1.5 other songs. That place was its own universe.
Now it's a coffee place too. It does serve good tea. you can play scrabble there.
Sheiler, I'm sorry to hear that Coffee Connection has been taken over by a member of the Starbucks/Amazon/Apple/Facebook axis of consumer evil. I spent many hours there in the 1980s. A man never forgets his first meeting with a French press.
Peet's Coffee here does have good tea, but they still just give you tea bags--actually two teabags, which turns out to be way too strong. And it is pretty pricey for tea bags.
If I lived in England, I'd switch over to tea, I think. But not here.
I swear that the closest I ever came to an out-of-body experience was drinking tea, at the Luk Yu Teahouse in Hong Kong, first green tea, then black (never the other way around; that would spoil the palate). This place looked more like a restaurant than a café, yet I was left in peace to drink my tea all afternoon, to inhale the heady aromas, and all for what amounted to the equivalent of a single American dollar. It was the cheapest, yet most expansive high I have ever had.
=======================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
"Luck you" indeed.
Seana, here’s a bit about the teahouse and its name. =======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Harry Lam was not so fortunate in his experience there, it seems.
You can't pin that on me. I was nowhere near Hong Kong at the time.
Peter, I'm making note of the tea house if I ever make it over to Hong Kong. Wow.
I had something similar, experience wise, when I met Doris Lessing. But nothing by ingesting.
Ah, so you met Doris Lessing, but you didn't inhale.
I grew up with real drip coffee -- not with a paper filter and plastic funnel -- but with a metal two-piece coffee pot. There were holes in the bottom of the top part, and you'd pour the water in it. Then pour it with the handle on the bottom half.
That was good coffee! Rarely in my city is there tasty coffee. One has to go to an Italian or Latino restaurant or have a friend who buys fresh coffee and makes it well.
I switched to tea a long time ago, and just to bring a few politics into the mix, love both Irish and English Breakfast tea. Nothing like them, if they are well-brewed.
Gave up cream cheese awhile back, but if I could have cream cheese and lox spread or scallion spread on a fresh bagel, it would make my week.
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