“Back home, friends don’t let friends drink at Starbucks. But here, well, it’s often not the worst choice there is.” Random Kiwi co-worker, earlier today.
It’s not the first time the first thing I’ve talked about with someone else from home is coffee. Why? Wanna bond with a Kiwi or Australian you’ve just met in London? Then start a conversation about just how overwhelmingly shit you’ve found the coffee to be here.
It seriously seems to be a better bet than talking about the rugby, or which city you’re from, or politics, or the weather (less depressing than talking about the weather, anyway), or which school you went to… The love of good coffee seems to transcend a lot of the other usual divisions within and between the two countries, and the fact that you are a person who places a high level of importance on finding a place (of which there seem to be about three in the city, two of which are owned by the same people, all of which are owned by New Zealanders) that makes good coffee, almost instantly marks you out as a fellow Australasian.
What’s even more amusing is the look of surprise on many people from this hemisphere’s faces when you profess to caring that much about this particular caffeinated beverage. Some have even expressed surprise that I (being from New Zealand) have even experienced espresso style coffee before.
I set them straight.
“Which school you went to” is actually a Christchurch thing. I was never asked it until I went to Kate’s 30th and met a whole bunch of people from Christchurch who had also moved there. Kate introduced me as my mate from Christchurch who had also moved here and the first question was “Ah, which school did you go to?” followed quickly by “Ah do you know?”.
Personally I see it as a nice icebreaker between Christchurch people (instead of “So… what about all that rain?”) where as non-Chch see it as elitist. Meh.
On the actual contract, move to Wellington. I’ve found several good coffee places cause there are so many freakin’ cafes and Wholly Bagels do not only the best bagel (mmm Sundried Tomato paste in Rock Salt bagel) but also the greatest hot chocolate I’ve ever had… EVER! Even beats the mega-hot chocolate from Le Cafe.
ex-presso? ain’t that what them eye-talians drink?
(ok, that was the texas version, not the london, but from your depiction they don’t sound that dissimilar…)
The coffee in Dub is just as bad. When are you coming over please?
I know what you mean! The scary thing is that the best coffee I can find on my way to work each morning is – yes folks – Starbucks. A sad testament to the quality of coffee in the Square Mile. They are all financial folk for goodness sake – shouldn’t they live on coffee? So yeah, Square Mile = impressive, coffee situation = not so much.
Yes, one might suppose we hick antipodeans have never encountered espresso or colour TV, but my experience has been somewhat the reverse: NZ is way ahead of the game in this area. I mean, the coffee, not the colour TV. You can get espresso *everywhere* – in every bar, in every tearoom in every country town. That may be a slight exaggeration – but only a slight one. And people are extraordinarily picky about it all.
In those benighted forn parts, though, things are different. I found it similarly difficult to get a good cuppa in Canada.
Melbourne types are all about the coffee. So much so that Starbucks appears to have given up and gone home. About 95% of them closed in Vic/Au? About a month ago. There was apparently some rejoicing.
COKE. Just do it.
That’s right, out with Starcrap. It’s hard to get a bad cup of coffee in Melbourne. O I miss it.
Nearly as much as I miss you Tim. You’re still alive then? I want an email please.