The extended coffee essay...

In the bonds of a flat white we meet
An essay about espresso coffee, the pressure to be elite and how Australia keeps tryna' steal our shit!

Written by Gessica Sheridan




Prelims

*Hipster –  refers to an alternative sub culture who reject things as they become mainstream.


ESPRESSO
Refers to both the “style of brewing” and the actual drink, also known as a “short black”. Double shot of espresso filling 60mls; served in a 90ml cup.

LONG BLACK
Double shot of espresso over hot water. Usually served in a “tulip”.

AMERICANO
 A single shot of espresso floated on top of hot water, served in a standard cappuccino cup or larger. Often served with extra hot water.

CAPPUCCINO
Double shot of espresso, finished with hot foamed milk and dusted with chocolate or cinnamon. Should be presented as a mallowy dome, displaying golden crema around outside edge.

FLAT WHITE
Double shot of espresso finished with steamed, ultra fine foamed milk. Traditionally served in a tulip cup of 160mls but can be served in a standard cappuccino mug.

CAFFE LATTE
Double shot of espresso, finished with steamed milk. Fluffier than a flat white and served in a larger vessel.

CAFFE MOCHA
Shot of espresso blended with chocolate syrup, finished as for a Cappuccino.

MACCHIATO
Served as a long or short espresso, marked with small amount hot milk.



Prologue
    When my Dad decided to open a cafe it was with one objective; shake up our small town with great food and coffee. It was just what Twizel needed to compete with the big boys - Wanaka and Queenstown. The strong aroma of Supreme coffee would bring in all the rich European tourists. He's a thinker, my Dad.
     Dad would drag me around from cafe to cafe getting idea's, and everywhere we went he would always order a flat white. One day I thought I might have a cheeky taste of his flat white to see what all the fuss was about. It tasted disgusting.  "Why don't you order something nice, like a Mocha?" Mochas even came with marshmallows, and sometimes chocolate fish! "Because flat whites are for the real coffee drinkers, a mocha isn't a real coffee". Well, I had thought myself quite sophisticated, drinking espresso coffees in nice cafes. Finding out I had really just been drinking hot chocolates with a shot of espresso  really hurt my ego.     
     A short while after Dad and I were having breakfast in a cafe called Nectar and my dad ordered a long black. He told me long blacks were for the really hardcore coffee drinkers and I started realizing just how far down the coffee drinking hierarchy I actually was. According to my dad it went; mochas, latte's, cappuccino's, flat Whites and then long blacks. For the next year I worked through that list. It was a proud day when I could stand beside my Dad and say I wanted a flat white too.
    When I started dating my first boyfriend we met for a coffee on the Esplanade. When he ordered himself a mocha I couldn't help cringing with embarrassment and I quickly followed up his order with my regular flat white. It was the first real hurdle of our relationship whether he realized it or not. Luckily it was overcome by my guiding him through a few easy steps... “move on to a latte, then try a cappuccino and soon you will be drinking flat whites!”.


Why Coffee
The pilgrimage to culture, civilization and caffeine!
According to the legend of Kaldi, a Goatherd in the Ethiopian Highlands discovered the effects of coffee when his goats became wildly spirited and did not want to sleep after eating berries from a particular tree...        
    As anyone might guess, the number one reason that New Zealanders drink coffee is for the hit of caffeine. Over 90 percent of those surveyed acknowledged caffeine as one of the reason's they consume coffee. Caffeine is known as a central nervous system and metabolic stimulant; another way of saying that it keeps us alert and wakes us up. Caffeine is also the worlds most widely consumed psychoactive drug. The dollar trade for coffee ranks second in the world only to oil, so it is no wonder that it is a drug that is both legal and unregulated in nearly all parts of the world.  Tests have shown that drinking coffee sharpen's your memory and increases your creativity and this I can vouch for, having consumed more than one of them before even considering approaching this essay! Not everyone however, seems to share this enthusiasm..
    “Once I drank a tripple shot coffee before a test thinking it would wake me up. I spent 3 hours trying to focus and not pee my pants! It didn't go well, I got a 'D'. Jacqui Margetts.                                         
    Caffeine isn't the only reason we drink coffee, if this was the case then we wouldn't have decaf. After surveying my personal association of Facebook “friends” I discovered that many of them held the opinion that decaf coffee was pointless and if you're going to have a coffee you should “go big or go home”. It was a predictable outcome in retrospect, considering the majority of them are University students. Why would they pass up on a legal buzz? Espresso coffee consumption has created its own culture due to its relationship with the social aspects of our lives. Intellectual's don't go out for a lemonade to discuss hamlet, mothers groups don't meet for a glass of water. When was the last time you asked someone if they'd like to have a fruit smoothie with you? Why is it then that we so often chose to centre our lives around this caffeinated beverage?
    “People go for coffee for the social aspect, I guess. Unlike other drinks they get to interact with it and make it their own. Coffee is like a mini holiday for people, an escape from reality” Troy Sheridan        
    Some responses to my ultimate question were more straight forward: "I'd started smoking and I needed a coffee to go with my cigarette" Shahan told me.
                            
    There is a social tradition around drinking espresso coffee, In my family being allowed to drink coffee was a right of passage. Just like the first glass of wine you were allowed to drink at dinner, you weren't going to screw your face up at it but how many of us can really say they enjoyed it? You committed yourself to that glass of wine. You committed yourself because your status as a young adult depended on having no one call your bluff. Long time Coffee Basher and fine arts student Jacqui Margetts shared a similar view with me.
    “What kid likes drinking coffee? It smells like shit and it tastes rusty. We are trained into it just like smoking or anything else except we're told its good for us. Not for our pocket or our health but it's good for us” Jacqui Margetts.                    
    Its seems clear enough that to a certain extent, coffee has a close link with our self consciousness. From an early age we are wired into seeing some grand sophistication associated with drinking coffee. The general consensus I was getting from my interviews was that many of us persevere with coffee because they want to be involved in that culture.  Sam Sharpe made the analogy that first experiences of coffee are like a woman's first experiences of sex; a little uncomfortable at first but it only gets better. More than 70 percent of people surveyed acknowledged social reason's for drinking coffee.
    “I started drinking espresso coffee when you had to drive to Christchurch just to get one. It was a pilgrimage to culture and an alternative life style. My mate read UK magazines and he worked very hard at being trendy, and I followed him.” Gus    
    What may have begun as an alternative culture soon became very mainstream with more and more people involving themselves in the glamourous culture that is espresso coffee.                                         
    According to social worker Rachel Eggleton, “culture is about being a part of a following”. Drinking espresso coffee is very much a result of the way civilization create's cultures that we attach to for a sense of both self and security.  Naturally, from this need for security stems a kind of elitism. “Coffee is about elitism” Gus told me “you feel superior without there necessarily being a motivation for it, still, people drinking coffee in cafe's must feel superior to people drinking a jug at the pub”.                         
    Its a game of follow the leader. Society has set us an example, and that example is you should get up in the morning and you get yourself a damn strong coffee. Its a morning ritual that makes you feel like a part of something, connected to everyone else standing in line to order themselves damn strong coffee. Those of us in that line will give a smile or a nod to any one who joins us. We acknowledge our fellow coffee lovers in a way that we wouldn't acknowledge fellow shoppers at the supermarket. While we lick the froth off our spoons we share a friendly gesture to the spoon licker across from us, Unique to cafe culture, it's something you don't see in the cereal isle.
    “Cities are lonely places. Certain cafe's become a friendly place that you frequent because they recognize you and they know your order. It feels like they know you. It feels good.” Rachel Eggleton
    There reasons we drink coffee are longer than an Americano with a side of hot water and they seem to satisfy one or more of our physical, intellectual, social and psychological needs. Personally I drink coffee to ward away the morning headache's that accompany my addiction but also as a social activity, to reward myself for good behavior, when I'm cold, when I'm bored, when i'm lonely and to keep myself awake during those late nights in the University central library when I'm cranking out the whatever essay is due tomorrow at 12am. 
    According to proud tea drinker, Joel Berryman, “A lot of business people drink flat whites whereas its mainly younger people who drink mocha's”. This intrigued me so I asked him why he thought that was, Joel informed me that business people were always on the run and didn't care what their coffee tasted like because they just needed to stay awake. According to Joel there is a relationship between they type of coffee a person orders and their general work ethic and it didn't surprise me that Joel had made that observation. Joel insisted that for him to drink coffee, someone would have to burn off his taste buds. Fortunately by his own rule he probably won't have to. Joel is an Arts student.     
    Joel may be on to something I think, based on my experience of making coffee's for the same hardworking nurses and doctors at Dispensary Cafe two or three times in one day. Every Saturday and Sunday morning the same people approach the counter looking tired and disoriented, giving me their library cards, apologizing, and attributing their mistakes to not having had their morning coffee. The most popular beverage ordered from Dispensary is a large flat white and the order is usually preceded by a long exhausted sigh and followed by an explanation of why the coffee needs to be large. As in most cafe's however the difference between a large and a small coffee is in the milk. The espresso remains a double shot and hence the amount of caffeine is the same.   When it comes to our taste for coffee, the need goes further than caffeine and the culture is more complicated that business men and arts students.

A word from our Barista's
Because they've bean there and ground that!

    Kiwi barista's have been gracing the top 10 of the international coffee competition since the year 2002! As Jacqui tells me “Barista's are obsessed! It means something to you and i'm not sure what, but it's important”. There are over 150 coffee bean roasters in New Zealand and most will preach that blending different beans together is actually an art form. Finding the perfect aroma, body and flavor is a thing of beauty! Barista's seem to have similar feelings with many declaring a love for the speed and pressure involved in coffee making, combined with the challenge of making every coffee perfect. I asked barista and cafe owner Troy Sheridan (otherwise known as my Dad) what it was lead him into the espresso coffee industry, “I liked doing things well and I saw that as something that could be done well.. saw the craft and thought there was a future”
    Where you buy your coffee for some people is a representation of their class. We take pride in announcing that we buy our coffee from only the best cafes. It's not just the customers feeling the pressure to be elite, the barista's are down with it too. The association of coffee quality with class may be the reason one person, who chose to remain anonymous tipped me that “all barista's are arrogant. Whatever your order is they're judging you on it and they give you that look that makes you wonder if they spat in your coffee”. Some of this paranoia was warranted, most of the baristas I talked to had numerous reason's for judging their customers on their coffee choice. Shahan was quick to confess to me "I judge the fuck out of people. All the time. For instance if someone doesn't know what they want, I now thats a reflection of their lives".  Decaf coffee with sugar, trim mocha's with extra marshmallows, single shot soy latte's with 2 sweeteners; all these coffee's have little integrity in the eyes of a barista. For the barista, this kind of elitism demands respect for the coffee itself, the more sugar you add the more you tamper with the authentic coffee taste. If you ask for a single shot you are rejecting the full flavor of the espresso shot and if you asked for your cappuccino extra hot don't be surprised when your barista looks pissed off at having to burn the milk for you.  “A flat white is a flat white, it doesn't come with a hazelnut shot or cinnamon or extra hot. Telling a barista how to make a coffee is like telling a chef how to cook but no one see's it that way. Except the baristas. We see it that way” Anonymous
    Barista's are never short of competition's to show off their coffee making skills however most of these focus solely on the presentation of the coffee. Coffee presentation has gone far beyond ferns and hearts with intricately detailed pattens from dragon's to Elmo. Even John Lennon's face has appeared on the top of espresso coffee. While the presentation of an espresso coffee, commonly referred to as latte art is associated with great coffee it doesn't necessarily mean the extraction is good or the milk is not burned. While latte art adds flair to a very refined skill, despite what you think, the fern on your coffee doesn't make it taste any better.
    “Latte art is bullshit. It adds nothing to the coffee but people drink with their eyes. They think just because it looks good that it must taste good too. Espresso coffee is a skill, not an art!” Youri Brouwer
    History credits latte art to David Schomer, owner of the famous Espresso Vivace in Seattle. Schomer is said to have first perfected the heart pattern in 1989 and continued to experiment with different patterns saying he wanted to “promote respect for coffee espresso as a culinary art that emphasizes flavor, a silky feel and stunning presentation possibilities”         
    I work with a man whose arrogance is relative to his experience. After making 600 coffee's a day he visits different cafe's around Dunedin and order's himself a flat white and a short black. The short black tells him if they barista can put through a good espresso shot and the flat white tells him if they know their milk.                              
    Enough from the Baristas though, they're all arrogant and full of self importance anyway, myself excluded. The skills involved in making coffee are simple enough to learn, it is the ability to combine speed with precision which makes a great Barista. Practice makes perfect however, and arrogance is earned.
 
The making of a flat white
    A Barista will start a new coffee by firstly getting rid of any ground coffee left over in the grinder. If it has been sitting for longer than 10 minutes, it has probably become stale. Once the barista (we'll call him Jack) fills up the circular group with coffee, he levels it off and tamps it down. During the tamp he apply's only the most accurate pressure to assure the coffee runs perfectly. Jack attaches the tamped coffee group to the espresso coffee machine and flicks a switch which starts the expression of the coffee (yay!). Jack cuts off this expression just as a lighter liquid is extracted from the machine. Good on ya, Jack! Now for the milk. Lets say Jack is making flat white; well, we're in New Zealand so he probably is. Jack fills up his milk jug part way with Medowfresh blue milk and holds it so that the the head of the steamer is just covered by the milk. Once he has turned the steamer on Jack maneuvers the steam wand so that the milk is spinning in a circular motion while it steams. Jack aims to get the milk to a silkier velvety texture with a glossy coat and at a temperature of 65 degree's making sure he doesn't stretch the milk (allow any air) after it has reached about 40 degrees. While slowly tipping the milk into the cup so that the flow of milk is hitting the side of the cup and the dark espresso color is brought to the top, Jack pours the milk to approximately half way. Jack then lightly wriggles the jug in his hand creating numerous swirls which he finally runs the last of the milk through creating an artistic fern on the top of the coffee. Don't forget to give a cheeky wink to the customer watching you work your magic. Nice work Jack!




The Flat White
Pride of the North, South, East and West.
 
Another legend tells of the Ethiopian slaves who were found to be unusually energize after eating red “cherries” from a particular tree. This snack was soon encourage due to their improvement of their work rate.
        While many countries in the world are fond of coffee,  New Zealanders can be added to a growing list of countries who want to centre their lives around it. The origin of the flat white continues to be a topic of debate but for those of us born and raised under the long white cloud there is no question about it. New Zealand invented the flat white. Like the pavlova, the flat white coffee was perfected in New Zealand, more specifically, Wellington, but due to it's culinary shine it is has been added to the long list of New Zealand achievements that Australia has tried to lay claim to; Lamingtons, Split Enz, Jandals (just to name a few). “New Zealand took the Flat white and refined it, we basically obsessed with it, and we're still obsessing over it”, Troy Sheridan.
        Finally, a coffee that could be ordered by a bloke without anyone looking sideways at him. The flat white was just what the men of New Zealand were looking for, a no nonsense drink that was stronger than a latte without the frills of a cappuccino.
    My dad was all too keen to share with me his first encounter with the great flat white. He was in a work meeting at the Korner cafe in Twizel and was asked if he would like a Flat White. Thinking it must have been a type of white wine my Dad decline the offer confessing that he was driving home. Fortunately my Dad's knowledge of coffee has improved greatly since the year 2001.
    The flat white coffee is certainly the favorite for Kiwi's. During the month of January, the busiest  month for Shawty's cafe in Twizel, 37 percent of coffee's ordered were flat whites followed by the latte which made up only 18 percent of coffee's.
     I consulted my Facebook “friends” again and asked them what they thought should be New Zealand's national drink. Most people answered Speight's which was again unsurprising considering the majority of them live in Otago.  Some people answered L n P and I even had someone tell me they thought coke was our national drink. Really?
    When Shawty's opened in 2005 the most commonly ordered drink was actually the latte. Since then however the flat white has taken over all over New Zealand. The superiority of the flat white being further confirmed by its rapid popularity throughout the world. The most acclaimed cafe's in Europe and the United States are now embracing the Kiwi delicacy that is the flat white. With the flat white comes a pride that extends over our islands, soars over the cook straight, stops at the Tasman and sticks it tongue out at Australia.

You are what you Order
I'll have a double shot flat white thanks mate, none of that foamy shit, and no sugar.
And she'll have a vanilla latte with trim milk and an one of them artificial sweeteners.

    “There are definitely stereotypes. You just have to listen to the way people take the piss out of the “yuppies” who order their coffee with soy and decaf” Gus
Stereotypes and elitism seem to go hand and hand when it comes to the culture of espresso coffee. In the last week my father has been teasing my step mother about her recent move from flat whites to mug mochas. She insists she was sick of drinking bad espresso coffee's and drinking a mocha is a safe option. Still he taunts her daily asking when she is going to start drinking real coffee's again.
    I know a little bit about coffee stereotypes, in fact I fancy myself a bit of an expert. Based on the way a person takes their espresso coffee I can tell a lot about a person. Take this one guy, for example, who is a med student at the university of otago and frequents Dispensary cafe during his study breaks. Said med student approaches the counter, runs his hands through his hair, adjusts the collar on his fake college hoodie and without making any eye contact with me, orders a long mac with an extra shot. What I can tell about this guy is that he is a great big douche bag.
    I interviewed Barrister of 4 years Youri Brouwer and he shared his belief that some stereotypes stemmed off a perception of feminine and masculine drinks. Drinks that are stronger suggest an endurance needed to consume them and usually endurance is associated with masculinity.  When I interviewed Barista Shahan Verberne she expressed a strong concern for men who drink soy for instance, because it often contains a lot of estrogen. "I say to my boyfriend, baby I'm not going to love you when you have bigger boobs than me!".
    As a barrister myself I have experienced first first hand the pride with which someone orders their coffee. Be it with 2 sugars, trim or soy milk or cinnamon on top. You're coffee preference is a product of your life and from where I stand behind the coffee machine, people wear it like they wear their hair cuts. In many ways the coffee we order is just another tool we use to satisfy our ego's.  According to Gus the elitism around coffee drinking is about trying to find your place and find out where you sit in relation to others.
     “My son once ordered me a skim milk, decaf latte as a joke. He recognized that it would insult me”, Gus

The ability to modify coffee's is what often what makes the coffee speak for the drinker. People don't just order a latte, they order it trim,  with sugar, sweeteners, rice milk, half strength, a vanilla shot, no foam, cinnamon, honey. There is just too much we can do to our coffees it doesn't surprise me that people get carried away. Shahan shared with her opinion that people who order trim, for instance, care about what people think. If their friend before them orders a trim coffee, they follow suit.
    I take the orders of up to 700 people in one day and I see the patterns and trends. Different people order different kinds of coffee depending on the time of day, who they're with and the simply the mood they're in but never the less  I believe stereotypes  to be alive and well inside of the cafe's of New Zealand. An anonymous contributor however disagreed with me, she argued the  truth about these stereotypes based on her experiences, reporting: “Plenty of men ordered lattes with caramel, lots of women liked their short blacks. I'm sure some people do make their coffee choices based on how they want to be perceived just like people do with any choices they make, but most were I feel just ordering what they liked or suited them”. Despite this nearly everyone I surveyed told me they identified with the stereotypes I presented them with. I did however realize why my anonymous contributor has chosen not to be named when she said “If a barista is rude to me i'll make my coffee order as annoying as possible and just have a wee laugh to myself” Hmm.                                         
    I tested the way my great army of Facebook admirers responded to the most common stereotypes I found during my research online. Mocha drinkers are immature. People seemed to agree, Physic's student Danielle commented “If you don't like coffee on its own then why get a mocha? Just get a hot chocolate” and ex Mocha drinker Kayla said “I used to get Mocha's because I didn't really want coffee but I wanted to fit in with people”. Wellington University student Chrissy alerted me to something I hadn't considered “Hipster's drink mocha's ironically” *                                            
    People also related to the stereotype that old people drink cappuccino's. I asked artist Sam Sharpe why he thought that was and he told me that a cappuccino was an easy coffee to remember for older people who typically don't know what they want.  The cappuccino was reportedly one of the first milk coffee's to come about in the 17th century and therefore the name is most highly associated with espresso coffee.
    Adding milk to coffee softened the taste immensely which may be the reason behind the next stereotypes I approached my friends with: Long black drinkers are ruthless bastards. Facebook had mixed feelings but most related long blacks to the high end of the elitist hierarchy.  Rachel shared an experience of a long black drinker: “I had a really stereotypical long black person the other day - probably drove a porsche and was all about his hair cut” My dad had some idea's of his own too and I couldn't help wondering whether his description was largely based on an egotistic fantasy he had in his head, as he is a long black drinker himself...
    “Someone who drinks a long black probably looks a bit street, cool hair cut, label jeans; he probably knows coffee. If a long black drinker doesn't ask for extra hot water, then I know they're a real coffee drinker.”

    People of Facebook also agreed that “Women drink latte's” although one guy proudly announced “I drink those bad boys” I asked him if he considered himself a little feminine and he said no, but his girlfriend quickly interjected saying she did! Oh dear.
Finally I asked my multitudes of Facebook worshipers to respond to this: “Even though I'd rather have a hot chocolate, I'll order a coffee in a social situation” , this provoked precisely the response I was looking for. One person commented, “It's hard not to when everyone else does” another criticized this, “No! Why would you order a coffee just to fit in? What a waste of money!!” and asserted their personal autonomy on the matter, “Social norms have no bearing on what coffee I drink, i'll order what I like” It was clear I had hit the nerve of the young non-conformists on my friends list but it was enough to assure me that espresso coffee culture was a mainstream phenomenon equip with its very own extremists, followers and non conformist hot chocolate drinkers.

    After obsessing over the finer points of culture, pride and hipsters and consuming a few too many coffee's myself I came to conclude that espresso coffee was indeed a culture and a vice. Did the culture result in the vice or is it a case of the chicken and the egg? Never the less they feed off each other to the point where both the espresso coffee and the espresso coffee drinking sit side by side on a mighty pedestal. I cannot argue with culture, coffee is certainly the be all and end all. In the wise words of actor Charlie Sheen, “I'm dealing with fools and trolls and soft targets. It's just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee. I don't have time for these clowns”









Interviews:

Jacqui Margetts (Auckland)

Youri Brouwer (Twizel)

Joel Berryman (Dunedin)

Shahan Verberne (Dunedin)

Troy Sheridan (Twizel)

Ian Guthrie (Twizel)




And with additional thanks to:

Rachel Eggleton

Danielle Stead (and her boyfriend, Hugh)

Kayla Sheridan

That douche bag that orders a long mac with an extra shot

Sam Sharpe

Sam Sharpe's library

Chrissy Hamill

Those who wished to remain anonymous

My small army of facebook followers

Google

Non-conformist hot chocolate drinkers everywhere, and

Charlie Sheen.