NEWS >> FOOD SERVICE, HOSPITALITY
The Great Kiwi Flat White - spilling the beans
Date: 29 Jan 2012
Australian 'food historian' Michael Symons decides that Wellington has the best flat white in the world.
New Zealanders argue with Australians over the origins of the pavlova because it seems their biggest claim to world culinary fame. But Aussies now have a much better gastronomic boast.
That's the flat white, which is milk coffee, perfected. It's so good that it's being taken up in London, New York and elsewhere. Trouble is, the flat white turns out to be a joint, trans-Tasman invention, too.
As an Australian food historian, I declare that it started in Australia, where it often remains weak, murky, fluffy and under-appreciated. It was then perfected in New Zealand, more particularly, in Wellington. It's impossible to find a better morning coffee anywhere. I know, because I've tried.
The flat white should soon be recognised as the single greatest Antipodean contribution to world gastronomy - so long as it's made the Wellington way.
A good flat white is emphatically a coffee drink with a double shot and a smaller cup (typically a "tulip" of 160mls). Yet the milk remains a feature, providing a sweet and velvety platform by being merely stretched, without fluffiness. Sharply defined latte art (usually a fern in the foam on top) is only one clue to a well-crafted cup.
A short black better concludes a meal. Single-origin brews can be intriguing, so that smart cafes have sprouted Clover machines and all manner of siphons. But don't be distracted, the pinnacle of the regular morning coffee remains the flat white.
When Wellington barista Dave Lamason - now owner of Lamason, New Zealand's first dedicated siphon coffee bar - made his first trip to Italy, he blogged that the pizza was everything television made out, and he would always remember a white wine at a restaurant on the coast, but "we still have a thing or two to show Italians when it comes to espresso and milk coffees".
New Zealanders only really took to espresso in the 1990s, so, with fewer bad habits, open minds and learning from the rest of the world, they got much right. Australian coffee principals, including some from Adelaide's Rio Coffee, have been flying to Wellington to "see what the fuss is about".
Moving to Wellington a decade ago, as soon as Peoples Coffee opened its tiny shop in Constable St, Newtown, I was there every morning. The flat whites were so satisfying that no-one demanded the obscenity of "a skim/ skinny/soy cappuccino, and I'll have a slice of chocolate cake". When Lamason became a Peoples backroom technician, replacement Dan Minson brought intense Tai Chi concentration, and presumably some moves, to satisfying the queue out the door, almost everyone wanting a flat white.
Returning to Sydney four years ago, I discovered baristas of that calibre almost impossible to find, so I invested instead in my own Mazzer grinder and ECM Giotto machine, and am still learning.
Yet, after all those coffees, I only belatedly realised that the flat white is truly milk coffee's fulfilment, now taking over the world.
More at www.stuff.co.nz.
