Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Just some links, really

InternationalObserver

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 17:30:13 +1200

The coffee in Vancouver was better than the coffee in San Francisco, last time I visited. In SanFran I was telling my relatives how we couldn't find a decent coffee place and they of course insisted on taking us to the best coffee place in the whole of San Franciso,…

kmont

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:27:42 +1200

Thanks for your coffee story we all seem to love our coffee stories around here.

dyan campbell

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:13:31 +1200

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

This is true, though the milk-and-bread is actually baby food.

But the bowls of chocolate, or warm…

slarty

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:50:52 +1200

View time on pages – pah.
Here I am in Holland talking to some guys about AI systems to do stuff, and guess what they are developing in their spare time (actually where there money comes from)?

So you wander up to one of those dynamic billboards (you know, portrait…

InternationalObserver

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:02:54 +1200

I can confirm that the coffee in Italy is exquisite. The best is served in the South, and the quality degrades ever so slightly as you travel north – but that is more in keeping with the general state of tourism. The closer you get to the south of France…

3410

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:17:00 +1200

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...

Also, according to my mate, they use the steamer and the jug not only for frothing milk…

BenWilson

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 23:34:09 +1200

"This font is funny
'average length between clicks"

Off my game, took me all day to get that one...Actually it took getting tired and my eyes blurring.

Hadyn Green

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 11:14:42 +1200

remember the DKD's Fish in a Bowl?

Yes, though I never had one. On my first date with my partner we went to DKD and she got a Fish in a Bowl. It was too rich and she couldn't drink it, but I was freaking out. "Why isn't she drinking…

Ben Austin

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:10:24 +1200

Will do. Its probably as simple as looking in the yellow pages, but where is the fun in that?

Raffe Smith

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:02:35 +1200

Ben, yeah, Monmouth supplies Flat White. I had a beer outside the pub opposite their cafe the other evening, but it was shut so I couldn`t try the coffee. It's only a couple of minutes walk from London Bridge tube stop, next to the Borough Market as you say.

I…

Ben Austin

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:56:24 +1200

Reffe, apparently Monmouth's is a pretty reliable supplier of good coffee too, not that I've seen one yet. I hear they have a stall at the Borough Markets. My local is on Portobello Road in Notting Hillish way, called Coffee Plant. They are pretty good, so far at least and…

Don Christie

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:51:38 +1200

On coffee:

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!

Someone not been to Spain then. The coffee there is the best and most overlooked.

One thing that has not caught on here is…

Don Christie

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:45:49 +1200

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

It is great to see the main news sites following the lead of Russell and co. PA sets the bar in terms of quality of writing and analysis and great comments participators to boot. I think Colin Espiner was a very…

Rich of Observationz

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:33:40 +1200

Interesting fact about Starbies in London.

In about 1999, a couple of people came back from the US having seen the ubiquity of *$s – inspired by this, they started a clone called Seattle Coffee Company and expanded quickly to around 60 shops.

*$s had already got plans to open…

Danyl Mclauchlan

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:58:26 +1200

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

I'm loving the comments section of the stuff site as Colin encounters our blogospheres local wingnuts demanding he come clean about his role in the global warming hoax and accusing him of media bias for speaking to the Prime Minister. Not…

Craig Ranapia

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:44:39 +1200

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…

Raffe Smith

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:40:02 +1200

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,…

rodgerd

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:13:02 +1200

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.

Ben Austin

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 01:31:19 +1200

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…

Michael Fitzgerald

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 00:48:50 +1200

This font is funny
'average length between clicks'

BenWilson

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:20:55 +1200

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.

Keith Ng

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 19:48:15 +1200

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.

Eleanor

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:04:22 +1200

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…

Damian Christie

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:56:49 +1200

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…

Kyle Matthews

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:37:40 +1200

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…

merc

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:19:10 +1200

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.…

BenWilson

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:10:11 +1200

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…

BenWilson

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:56:09 +1200

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…

Che Tibby

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:45:19 +1200

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?"

Andrew Stevenson

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:44:10 +1200

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

Tom Semmens

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:01:37 +1200

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…

FletcherB

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:42:38 +1200

"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…

Robyn Gallagher

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:17:19 +1200

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…

Tom Beard

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:11:46 +1200

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…

Stephen Judd

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:06:51 +1200

"the head of factual entertainment"

Tells you everything, really.

Russell Brown

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:05:06 +1200

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…

daleaway

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:03:58 +1200

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…

John Farrell

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:51:25 +1200

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.

Che Tibby

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:27:35 +1200

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.

Richard Llewellyn

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:20:08 +1200

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.

Michael Stevens

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:16:21 +1200

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…

rodgerd

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:58:39 +1200

(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…

Hadyn Green

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:38:16 +1200

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

Stephen Judd

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:33:42 +1200

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…

Rich of Observationz

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:31:42 +1200

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?)

Public Address

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:31:42 +1200

Discussion from blog post.