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Posted at 11:31AM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Interesting coffee article. I see how espresso was brought to Oz by Italian migrants, but how did it reach NZ? (Given that we don't have a huge Italian community?)

Posted at 11:33AM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

From the CoffeeGeek post: In fact, it is my observation that the New Zealand market is the more competitive of the two, due to fewer large cities without the tyranny of distance - which usually serves to slow down transfer of information.

How weird to read "tyranny of distance" used in this way, and in connection with New Zealand as well.

But it's true. News travels fast. Less than 15 years ago I was in Gisborne and asked for espresso. "We've got ... Nescafe?" was the doubtful reply. I don't think you could find a cafe or coffee shop without a machine anywhere now.

Posted at 11:38AM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Does Simply Paris on Cuba St still have it's icky Nescafe "Nespresso" machine? (SP's only flaw IMHO)

Posted at 11:58AM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

(Given that we don't have a huge Italian community?)

Either your assumption is flawed or Wellington had more than other parts of the country. There are plenty of big/influential families of Italian origin around here - the Bresolini, the fishing families of Island Bay, the guys who set up the Medeterranian Food Warehouse, to name a few.

Posted at 12:16PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

I remember being taken by my mother to Oliver's in Parnell Rd when I was about 12 (early 70s) for my first cappucino.

Espresso machines have been in NZ since at least the 50s, they just seemed to go out of fashion when instant coffee and filter machines came in I suspect.

Posted at 12:20PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Liked the coffee post - and here was me thinking that the opening of Midnight Expresso in the 80's was the start of the coffee wave in Wellington.

Posted at 12:27PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

on global warming.

the abc apparently got muscled into airing the great global warming swindle, despite it being widely panned.

some liberal party culture-warriors on the board, apparently.

Posted at 12:51PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Coffee bars in Dunedin in the 1960s served espresso coffee. Remember the Van Dyke...and the Little Hut? I was pleased to see when I was back in Dunedin last year that the downstairs Little Hut was still going.

Posted at 1:03PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Fancy coffee arrived with the post-war European migrants, I believe. Our Austrian neighbours showed us how to use a percolator in the early 1950s, and yes you could buy them then, and filters, in New Zealand cities. The first coffee bars arrived here about the mid to late 1950s. Some had espresso machines and some didn't. I did not like coffee so always drank the beautiful thick New Zealand apricot juice the coffee bars used to serve. Wherever did that stuff disappear to?

Posted at 1:05PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

on global warming.

the abc apparently got muscled into airing the great global warming swindle, despite it being widely panned.

some liberal party culture-warriors on the board, apparently.

It gets worse ...

Inside the broadcaster there are also reports of tension between Tony Jones, who usually hosts Lateline, and the head of factual entertainment, Denise Eriksen, over his reportedly tough questioning of Durkin when he travelled to England last week.

According to the independent news website Crikey, Eriksen also travelled to London and, without Jones' knowledge, apologised to Durkin for the "rough treatment".

"Edit suites have been resounding all week to screams of outrage from Eriksen demanding that tough responses be cut out. Jones has more than once needed to make clear he will 'walk' rather than agree to a sanitised show," an "ABC insider" reportedly told Crikey.

"Eriksen has even gone as far as demanding a written rundown from Jones as to how he intends to conduct the live to air discussion after the Swindle film airs. He has refused to comply. The stand-off may lead to a sudden change of presenter on Thursday night, so stay tuned."

What a bloody disgrace. Not only are they airing a seriously compromised programme to curry favour with the government, they're not letting their own interviewer ask proper questions of the producer.

Posted at 1:06PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

"the head of factual entertainment"

Tells you everything, really.

Posted at 1:11PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

and here was me thinking that the opening of Midnight Expresso in the 80's was the start of the coffee wave in Wellington

That's exactly what the Havana boys would have you believe, and there certainly is some truth in it. I remember being introduced to this strange beast called the "latte" in about 1990 there.

Either your assumption is flawed or Wellington had more than other parts of the country. There are plenty of big/influential families of Italian origin around here - the Bresolini, the fishing families of Island Bay, the guys who set up the Medeterranian Food Warehouse, to name a few.

I've read that Wellington did indeed have larger Italian (& Greek) communities than anywhere else in the country, and that this gave it a head start towards culinary and social maturity. I'm not sure whether they helped introduce espresso, though: being a low-density town, we didn't get visible urban ethnic enclaves. Island Bay is hardly Little Italy - it may have a strong Italian community, but that's not represented in the built environment.

Thus, the cafes and restaurants set up by Italian (and especially Greek - see the book "Wellington's Hellenic Mil") immigrants tended to cater to Kiwi tastes, meaning (with a few exceptions) fish & chips & Cona coffee. The post-war cafe scene was also given a huge boost by immigrants from eastern & central Europe (e.g. Harry Seresin), but I don't think that there was much of an espresso scene here before the early 80s.

Here's an interesting article about the evolution of cafe culture in Wellington.

Posted at 1:17PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

That coffee article made the pleasure centres in my brain tingle with delight!

What is unique is that, outside Italy, the Australian and New Zealand café markets are the only other 100% espresso-based markets in the world!

This explains why so many antipodeans are genuinely puzzled why they cannot geta flat white or a long black outside of Australian and New Zealand.

There are, of course, differences between Australian and New Zealand espresso coffee culture.

My impression is that New Zealand espresso-based coffee tends to be even bigger and milkier than Australian coffee. Case in point is the classic Kiwi latte-in-a-bowl. As far as I know, New Zealand is the only place in the world where lattes are commonly (but not exclusively) served in a bowl.

Posted at 2:42PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

"As far as I know, New Zealand is the only place in the world where lattes are commonly (but not exclusively) served in a bowl."

I beleive I read years ago (Metro maybe?) that that all started when Cafe DKD behind the Civic in Auck decided to offer Latte's but couldnt source commercial quantities of the traditional latte cups and so use bowls instead.... and then (nearly) every other cafe followed them....

It became a trend thats still followed more or less to this day, despite the correct crockery now being available...

Any one else love DKD's "fish in a bowl" ? (a mocha-latte with a chocolate fish in it, all in affore-said bowl)

Posted at 3:01PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

It is an interesting story about the origin of the latte in a bowl, but really, the cultural synergy is so New Zealand that it seems inevitable that it would have happened - what else would you expect in the home of the world's best dairy products but BOWLS of milky, hot coffee? In good old N of Z, latte in a bowl just makes so much sense. We live in the land of butter, cream, milk and all that good stuff!!! Unless, of course, the price of bio-fuels means Fonterra exports everything to richer people than us and we have our own version of the 1943 Bengal famine.

Posted at 3:44PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Mmmmm DKD fish in a bowl and a slice of the huge chocolate cherry cake (salivate).

Back when I could handle the calories (way back when) it was a staple part of my diet

Posted at 3:45PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

was at a conference this week. one morning i saw someone order a latte, and when it arrived in a coffee cup they kind of... stopped... and stared... clearly thinking...

"whea iz ma bukkit?"

Posted at 3:56PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Confused about how you can measure 'minutes spent on site'. I mean for me Public Address is open in a tab 24/7, but I'm not reading it that often. Similarly with Hotmail, Google News, and a number of other sites. But total time spent *reading* the Web is probably less than 2 per day. I'd probably spend a lot more time on Public Address looking at my own writing, during the composition of a post, than I'd spend reading it.

So how do they measure it?

Posted at 4:10PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Wow! I thought I was just a narrow coffee mind when I found coffee in Europe (outside Italy) was not to my taste. Turns out we're cutting edge, at least in espresso, and particularly latte. Kewl. Nice not to be a yokel sometimes.

I'm really surprised the espresso machine/person ratio is only 1:850. Amongst the people I know it's more like 1:4. But I do live in inner Auckland.

Posted at 4:19PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

The bowl for breakfast to dip the stale bread in or whatever, is French in origin, as for putting milk in (carton milk), usually to the black left-over from whenever before for breakfast to settle the stomach (heh like milk in whiskey).
No bowls and no milk after breakfast time. Alternatively you can pop down to the local bar and have a short black (demi tasse) with calvados and a blanc ciggie for breakfast, perfectly acceptable.
NZ is a nanny state because we are a bunch of over weaning nancies mmmkay? But we got back at them froggies with that stupid over sized rugger ball didn't we.
Jeez are we that cringe-full still, yeah we are.

Posted at 4:37PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

So how do they measure it?

In general, you could be considered to be on a site if you continuously 'hit' pages within it, without a break of longer than 5 minutes. Or 10 minutes. Depends on the type of site - PA you'd say longer because it has long pages of comments, and decent length blog entries.

So if you moved around the site, going to a new page every few minutes, it'd measure the total amount of time without that break, and record that.

If you did as you do, and left the page open without clicking links of posting replies, it wouldn't measure that total time, as you wouldn't have hit the server for those hours.

Posted at 4:56PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Just to put paid to any rumours (I have been working flat out today, hadn't read PA and wondered why people kept asking me how I got home from the Labour do...)

... I didn't go to the Labour do.

However I was at the Matterhorn when the assorted dregs (Mr Garner included) arrived, and all I can say is that it was disturbingly early - like around 10ish. They'd all been kicked out apparently, unlike the Nat do a couple of weeks ago, which went well into the night (and which I attended).

Not saying this makes the Nats better than Labour or anything, but they sure are far more Popular and Competent when it comes to a piss-up.

Posted at 6:04PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Coffee existed here and was served before the Italians introduced it at large from the 20s.

My great grandmother made and served coffee in Wellington pre-1910.

She was Norwegian - a race of huge coffee drinkers.

Unfortunately I have no way to substantiate the finer details, including the site of this enlightened establishment. Also, don't ask me how she brought it here or what inspired her to do so (apart from her own habit, perhaps!?).

But my grandmother first told my mother about this well over 50 years ago, before any major coffee renaissance, and I grew up knowing about it - I have no reason to doubt its truth. I hate when good family stories get lost forever!

But: good old Nordic coffee-drinking pioneers! 100 years of coffee served in Wellington.

(They've been drinking it since the 1600s apparently)

Posted at 7:48PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Are any other bloggers finding this Gallery-blogging business creepy? I mean, they're firming getting onto *our* turf, now. Not that I've been in the loop for the last for 8 months, but hey...

The invaders have become the invaded. I feel that my (non-existent) livelihood is being threatened.

Posted at 8:20PM on 12 Jul 07. Permalink.

Thx Kyle. I was thinking it was some kind of 'average length between clicks' formula, but it's good to hear from someone who actually knows.

Posted at 12:48AM on 13 Jul 07. Permalink.

This font is funny
'average length between clicks'

Posted at 1:31AM on 13 Jul 07. Permalink.

Very interesting about the coffee. I've just moved to London and have found it a little challenging for coffee so far, although the potential is good. I put them a couple of years behind NZ, but they will catch up, there are espresso machines everywhere. Generally espresso ranges from about $3.8-$7, so it is only mildly more expensive than home, so long as you avoid Starbucks.

There is a place in Soho (Berwick St) called Flat White, which is NZ/Australian owned and run I believe which makes more sense now I know about the history. Very good coffee, sadly their lammingtons cost 2.5 pounds, and are by far the most expensive baked good. Price collusion for lammingtons in London is worrying, I've not seen one for less than 2.50, and they are rather small and sad looking. On the other hand the waffle scene is pretty dammed good, far superior to Welllington.

Posted at 8:13AM on 13 Jul 07. Permalink.

Of course, the pure espresso is a bit of an exaggeration - there are still old-style cafes (as in "cafs") around that will do filter coffee, and quite a few of the Turkish places around Wellington will do delicious Turkish coffee.

Posted at 8:40AM on 13 Jul 07. Permalink.

Also having just relocated to London, I have found the trick is to stick to straight espresso. Don`t let them muck it up with milk, as they froth it to a bubble-bath consistency, rather than the smooth velvet we are used to in NZ. You can then get a reasonable, but not great, coffee.

However I have found (conveniently close to my flat) a great little cafe in Kennington Lane, in the middle of Lambeth. Called Firozzi, but rather than being Italian as the name might suggest, is run by a couple of Indian women in beautifully tailored saris. The serve coffee as it should be, i.e. a double shot in a small cup with thick crema, and for lattes and macchiatos the milk is properly smooth and velvety. Fantastic.

Posted at 8:44AM on 13 Jul 07. Permalink.

Are any other bloggers finding this Gallery-blogging business creepy?

Nah... but it is damn amusing considering the amount of ink split on the op-ed pages condemning bloggers as illiterate, psychotic liars who wouldn't recognise a fact if it bit 'em on the arse and will be personally responsible for the brain-death of the universe. I recall you've even been name-checked a couple of times, Keith. :)