I used to think having a go-to name for Starbucks and similar places when ordering coffee was a little rare, but it turns out tonnes of people use one. I've been using one for years mostly because the staff can hardly understand my name at the best of times, never mind when there's noise from the coffee or ice machines. Then there'd be the slightly embarrassing moment when I'd have to spell out my name a little too loudly so they could write it on the cup. It took me a while to decide on "Kevin" - common enough that the non-English language staff will have heard of it; uncommon enough that the person in front of me in the queue is unlikely to be an actual "Kevin" (that happened one time when I was a "Chris", back when I chose a random name each time, and left me in a fluster). But I must have it easy compared to people with non-European sounding names who try and persevere with their real names.

I must have drunk more coffee in the last four years than I did in all previous years combined. Coffee is a big thing here, much more so than back home. As I'm sure I mentioned before, in our previous neighbourhood I could count more than 30 cafes off the top of my head within 500m of our apartment, and only one of them was a chain. Two of them stayed open until 10pm every night. The very fact that Australians know their coffee and cafes was one of the main reasons Starbucks had such a hard time here, having had to close most of their outlets. I used to wonder how, with so many cafes competing with each other, they could all stay in business. But walking around in the Saturday morning sunshine you can easily find all of them bustling; plates of breakfast and coffee served to tables on wide terraces, people reading newspapers or with families and friends. Lingering as long as I wanted over a perfect flat white, under a big parasol on a warm afternoon is something I doubt I'll have much chance to enjoy again and is something I will sorely miss from Sydney.

A couple of weeks ago in the weekend newspaper there was an article on Sydney-siders getting increasingly diverse/snooty with their coffee tastes and it mentioned that there were a few places now serving Kopi Lewak. One of those places happened to be a cafe/restaurant next to the train station where I go to work. After another article appeared in the free train newspaper featuring this particular cafe (complete with a guy contorting his face at having tried the aforementioned brew) I decided I'd have to go and try it. This stuff is apparently the most expensive coffee in the world, and at $9 for an espresso they weren't feckin joking. Or maybe that was for the lemon "palette cleanser" at the start. I don't usually drink espresso either but the waiter recommended that it was the best way to "appreciate its rich and subtle flavours". Yet desipte the beans having been delicately roasted after being eaten and passing through the digestive tract of a small asian mammal, I couldn't taste anything different at all, and kind of wished I'd just drank it with milk (blasphemy!). The presentation was pretty though.

One of the first little differences I noticed after arriving in Sydney were Flat White's - I actually thought that they were just cups of brewed coffee with frothy milk, but the difference between a Flat White and a latte is actually much smaller than that. One thing you're almost guaranteed whenever you get a one of these is a nice presentation, and compared to the slop served in Insomnia or one of the chains back home that passes for good coffee its far nicer. So now it seems that it's moved beyond these shores and instead of just being a curious local coffee, its made it all the way to Starbucks in London and other faffy coffee places. "The flat white comes from Australian and New Zealand and is served by a few independent coffee shops in London where many antipodeans work. It is an espresso-based drink but has less milk, and the milk is less frothy, than a cappuccino or latte." Can't believe they're actually charging more for it though. Its usually the cheaper coffee here! via mefi

It's supposed to be the middle of the winter here, but it was way too hot to wear a jacket on Saturday and even today it reached 23 degrees. I can't been it's a full year since this was on - I clearly remember this being one of the first festival things we went to after arriving. It was pretty much the same as last year except they jacked up the price on everything - $2 instead of $1 for one of the small sample cups. It didn't seem to deter people though as the Rocks was packed and there were still long lines in front of random coffee stalls. For some reason there were still people waiting patiently in line for a sample of Gloria Jeans or Toby's Estate coffee, both of which make up at least half of all the cafes in Sydney. The one extra feature of this year's festival were camels - dunno what their connection is to coffee though..

Today was the annual Rocks "Aroma Festival". A chance to walk around the Rocks area of Sydney and sample lots of coffees for only $1. We early enough (ie. in the AM) but the place was already packed. Queues formed behind all the stands, with the longest ones next to the stalls with the most exotic names ("Xocolate" had the longest). These kind of days out aren't complete without the smell of fried onions and hamburgers but to my dismay there was hardly anywhere like that. Plenty of stalls were selling sweets and chocolate covered anythings which which made do.