Coffee! We love it, like it or hate it, but so many of us need it and truly enjoy it. It is our wake up call, our reason to get out of bed, or maybe, it just plain tastes good. We make dates with friends to sit and linger over a cuppa joe, and reminisce, tell stories or share secrets. Maybe this happens at a café or in some dear friend’s kitchen. We lend its flavour to all sorts or concoctions: ice cream (my personal favourite), tiramisu (my other personal favourite), and even some savoury dishes like a good Mexican Mole, Red-eye gravy a or slow cooked beef dish. There isn’t much in my opinion that a bit of java can’t spruce up!

This photo was taken during the first snow of our first winter at the Hilltop, and published in the newspaper, with the title "Iced Coffee?"


Some of my earliest memories are of making coffee…seriously! My mother was NOT a morning person, and this was back in the good old percolator days! (Right, Avon? Feeling ‘Perky’?) As soon as I could reach the kitchen counter, I was in charge of making the percolator coffee before my mom got up. Fill the pot, exactly one scoop of Edward’s into the fiddly (and not kid-friendly) stem and basket contraption and brew! (I won’t get into the other dysfunctionalties of my family here, but children making coffee was a trend!)

In the 70’s, as a college student, I became a fan of the filter, or Melita style drip coffee from the new local coffee roasters that were turning up all over the West Coast. It started a life-time addiction with the flavour of good coffee, not just the caffeine hit I needed every morning. It started (I think, IMHO) with Peet’s in Berkely and then Starbuck’s in Seattle, selling mostly mail-order fine roasted beans. While Peet’s expanded its roasting business, Starbuck’s started doing the ‘fancy’ milky Italian espresso coffees and took the world by storm.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have travelled a lot, especially in tropical regions (well, you wouldn’t want to scuba dive in Norway would you?) So, I’ve been to coffee plantations in Costa Rica (and drank some great coffee there), had it served French Press style in resorts in Indonesia, had it served with evaporated milk, or straight, in Caribbean Islands (Honduras with milk, Cuba – straight shot), and straight with a bit of cardamom in Egypt. And, although not tropical, I loved my experience with coffees in Italy!!!

So, thinking this would be just a short photo essay about coffee, I can see my passion and knowledge taking this post by the horns! Please bear with me, while I share my experience, knowledge and passion about this delicious, addictive, cherished beverage with you!

This is our beloved coffee beast! Luigi approved when he visited!

Luigi, always the great Italian, helped with coffees during his stay! (Please, excuse the bad hair day!)

Different countries vary on their interpretations of most recipes, coffee included. I am coming at you with a New Zealand interpretation. This is how we do it here. Comments accepted – jeers not!

Unusually, while NZ stems from a heritage of tea drinkers, coffee is a true passion here. Coffee done properly, that is. No offense, but we just don't do the Grande, half-caf, half-fat, in-a-paper-cup-unless-otherwise-specified coffees here. We treat coffee like steak! You want it hot, I will make it extra hot. You want trim/skinny/no-fat milk, no problem! You'd like it in a take-away cup? I'll hide my grimace, but politely ask "How many sugars?" I'll even do decaf, but not halfway!

All espresso coffees (hopefully!) start with freshly ground, freshly roasted coffee beans. Like grapes for wine, beans vary from region to region, climate to climate and soil to soil. Then, what the roaster does with them varies, from light roast to dark roasts, and then the blends vary. We have an excellent roaster here in Christchurch – C4. They import beans from all around the world and roast and blend them here. We like their blends and style, plus we like the fact that they are consistent in their roasting. This week’s beans should taste the same as last week’s batch. We use Krank Blend for our espressos. On average, we go through about 2 pounds of beans a day – in summer up to 6, in winter, way less.

All espresso drinks start with a base of espresso. With us, it is a 30 ml shot (basically a shot glass size) of espresso, ‘extracted’ out of the machine. In NZ, 30 ml is considered a double shot. Many cafes, particularly in Australia, do ‘single’ shots or 15 ml pours. Now, we grind our beans fresh for each coffee, as this is important to the taste. It is also important that the ‘barista’, or the espresso specialist, keep an eye on the ‘pour’. There is an important balance between the grind and the extraction, or rate of flow as the hot water is passed through the ground coffee. After the coffee is ground, it is ‘dosed’ into the basket by filling the basket and gently levelling off the coffee with the side of your hand or finger (that’s why my right hand always smells like coffee!). The grounds are then compressed or ‘tamped’.

Freshly ground coffee, just dosed

Coffee basket being tamped

Again, getting the combination of the fineness of the grind and the right amount of compaction, determines the flow rate of the hot water through the coffee. And, just to make things more exciting, believe it or not, the grind can and will change with the weather (humidity), the fullness of the grinders hopper (weight) and the age of the beans. A good barista is constantly monitoring the 'drip' of the extraction and changing the fineness of the grind and the weight of the tamping to suit. The right combination results in the 30 ml of espresso coming through the machine in 20 – 25 seconds. It shouldn’t gush and it shouldn’t drip – it’s what the Italian’s call a ‘mouse tail’. The surface of the extracted coffee is covered by a thin, bubbly, rusty colored layer called the 'crema'. The crema can tell you a lot about the quality of the extraction. Little balck dots = over extracted and it will taste bitter. Pale consistant color = under extracted and it will taste less complex and rich. "Tiger strips rippling through it" = perfect!

Two Flat Whites, in the making! Notice the 'Tiger Stripes' on the crema!

There! Your first coffee! A Short Black in NZ (not to be confused with a Tall Black, which is a basketball player), a Doppio (for double) in Italian or usually just an ‘espresso’ in North America.

A Short Black, in a demi-tasse cup

Now, if we ‘mark’ the short black with a little dollop of steamed milk, we now have a ‘Macchiato’, the Italian word for marked!

A Macchiato

If instead, we had extracted our 30 ml of coffee onto a small cup of hot water, being careful to let the coffee run down the back of the cup to obtain the best ‘crema’, we would have a long black (long, due to the added water, or the Italian, 'Lungo'. If, depending on who you talk to, you serve this in a larger cup with more water, or serve it with a jug of hot water on the side, you now have an Americano!

One Hot & Steamy Long Black (not to be confused with an All Black, a rugby player!)

Now, for the milky drinks. Again, we start with our double shot of espresso, this time in the bottom of a small cup and another in a slightly larger cup. Using the steam wand on the coffee machine, we steam some milk, always a bit more than we need. This takes (a lot of) practice. We are aiming to get the milk a frothy, but with very small bubbles and a glossy texture, not dissimilar to enamel paint! At the Hilltop, we steam the milk until the side of the milk jug it too hot to touch, but some cafes do use a thermometer. As the steam wand goes into the cool milk we try to develop a swirling action in the jug and gently ‘stretch’ the milk, lowering the jug as the steam expands the milk.

Once the milk reaches a good temp, turn off the wand and immediately wipe it to avoid having the remaining milk ‘cook’ on to the wand. For the Flat White (not to be confused with an All White, a player on the NZ national men's soccer team), and Latte, we are going to ‘surf’ our milk, by gently swirling it in the jug. This helps keep the airy, frothy milk from separately or rising above the steamed milk underneath. Now, we pour the milk, and when the cup is about half full, gently start shaking or wiggling the spout of the jug. This encourages the frothier milk on the top to pour out, and if you are lucky, creates an impressive pattern! Maybe a cherry, a heart, a flower, or the national symbol of New Zealand, the Silver Fern (which can and should be confused with our women's netball team, the Silver Ferns) So, both of these coffees have the same ‘structure’, they are just in different size cups. The smaller, Flat White and larger Latte, are both 30 mls of espresso topped with about 80% steamed milk and the top layer being ‘flat’ froth. Flat Whites do not seem to be found outside of NZ/Australia, but are probably beginning to turn up in Europe as our ‘baristas’ from down under travel. The Latte, another word for 'Caffe au ‘lait', or coffee with milk, seems to be pretty universal. In NZ, many people serve or offer their Lattes in a glass. I like mine this way, because then I can see the ‘structure’.

Latte in a glass, with good structure and a 'silver fern' on top!

A Flat White with a Flower (or Rosetta Pattern)

Cappuccino, anyone!? We start with our 30 ml of espresso in the larger cup and steam our milk much the same way, but ‘stretching’ it a bit further. I usually give the jug a ‘thunk’ or two on the counter top to make the bubbles more consistent. Again, different baristas will have different styles, but I use a spoon to ‘pull’ some of the frothy milk off the top of the jug until the cup is about two thirds full. I let the jug rest for a moment (usually while I am extracting for the next coffee order). By now the milk has separated with the steamed, more liquidy milk on the bottom. I now use my spoon to hold back the froth and let the steamed milk ‘float up’ the frothy stuff, forming a nice domed top (as opposed the the ‘flat’ flat whites and lattes). So, the structure of the cappuccino is 30 mls or pretty much one third coffee, 1/3 froth (poured second but it winds up being the top layer) and one third steamed milk. Now, would you like chocolate or cinnamon on top? Cappuccino’s are the only coffee that is typically served with chocolate or cinnamon on top. Unlike the descriptive names of the other coffees, ‘cappuccino’ is a reference to the Capuchin monks, who wear light brown, hooded robes with their pale faces showing through. In Italy, Cappuccinos are ONLY sipped in the morning, with the other types of coffee being favoured in the afternoon.

A Cappuccino with chocolate on top. Notice the 'brown hood with the pale face poking through', just like a Capuchin Monk!

And, lastly, another popular drink is the cappuccino-hot chocolate hybrid, the Mochaccino! The ‘mocha’ is made exactly the same as the cappuccino, but instead of steaming milk, we add chocolate to the milk and make a frothy hot chocolate to top off the coffee. Yum!

A Cappuccino and Mochaccino Ready to Roll!

There are lots of other great, but possibly less traditional ‘Italian Espresso’, additions we can make. We have vanilla, caramel and hazelnut syrups that we offer as an addition to our coffees. We can also add peppermint to hot chocolate. Then, of course there are the Caribbean (Rum and Tia Maria) and Irish (Irish whiskey and Bailey’s Irish Cream) Coffees. And, of course there are the non- coffee drinks, like Hot Chocolate, Chai (a spicy tea based drink made with steamed milk, steamers, traditional teas, green teas, infusions.... Ooops! I'm rambling!