Coffee Culture

The coffee culture in Australia is above and beyond that of anywhere I've been in the U.S. I mean, initially, the lack of Starbucks and other drive-thru style cafes in this region really bothered me. I'm an American after all and I'm very used to my convenience! As far as convenient coffee goes, the gas stations here in town (and also Subway) have these automatic espresso machines that, for $3.50 and a push of a button, will make you a short black, long black, flat white, latte, cappucino or mocha! And you know, the coffees not really all that bad. It's not even instant coffee! Alas, being American, the cup size of these coffees is painfully small for me and I'd have to buy 3 or 4 to equal one venti Starbucks and I just don't think coffee from a machine is worth $10/$12!

So, the lack of convenience out here is, well, inconvenient! But I must say that you can buy an espresso or latte just about anywhere. Even the hairdresser! I do just pine for a brewed coffee every now and again (automatic drip machine style) and the closest I can get to it is a cafe Americano (or long black) which brings me to the final realization of why the long black was called the Americano in the first place: we like our watered down coffee. lol It is really nice though knowing that absolutely any restaurant you go to will have given all their staff barista training and can make you a fresh cappuccino or latte without batting an eyelash. Even steak houses and Mexican restaurants have an espresso machine behind the counter. This is real coffee they make!

To Cream, to Whiten

Coffee creamer--or whitener as they call it here--is not very common. When I explain to Aussies what we put in our coffee, and then the extent to which it is available and the flavor choices, they are more than intrigued. I can find Coffee-mate here, but only in those tiny little cups and it is EXPENSIVE. Not worth it. The powdered version is really easy to come by and, when I first moved here, the powdered Coffee-mate (available only in the original flavor) is what I used to whiten my coffee. Most people just use milk in their coffee, and now I do too. I used to look forward to visiting home and have my creamer again but, honestly, I'm not really a fan of it anymore. When I do have it, I miss the taste of the coffee that gets lost in the French Vanilla or White Chocolate Macadamia nonsense. I like a splash of whole milk, plain and simple, these days. It's an Australianism I think will stick with me for life, right up there with the ketchup on my eggs. lol

Aussie Coffee-isms At Home

• Instant
  

Aussies love their instant coffee. I remember the first time I came to visit Chris and we stayed at the family beach house and I asked where their coffee pot was only to be told there wasn't one. REALLY?? Then he pulled out a jar of little black granules: instant coffee. Now, I'm not really a stranger to instant coffee. My grandmother calls it "sissy coffee" in the form of those General Foods International coffee mixes which were a dorm-room staple for me, and I always had some instant Folgers in my locker at work for those Saturday night shifts that would push into the wee hours of the morning. But I always saw instant coffee as something a person drinks out of necessity, i.e. when there is no other option due to space or time constrictions. Not so in Australia! I actually have a few friends who prefer instant to absolutely anything else. God bless them. ;) Auto-drip machines are not unheard of, but really are few and far between. Nescafe is an Aussie staple and, while I appreciate it for what it is, I still can only see it as a backup for when I run out of coffee and the shop is shut. Sorry Nescafe!

• Plunger

French Press, or "plunger" coffee as the call it here, is actually really incredible in its own right. This was my first go-to coffee brewing method. Now, you may be asking why I didn't just buy an auto-drip machine. Well, I did actually! But the coffee is ground differently here and it just doesn't taste right from the machine, it's always full of grounds. So then I bought my own coffee grinder, but the coffee still just doesn't taste right. I think it might be our machine, it gives a bit of a plastic-y after taste...I've given up either way. Plunger coffee is beautiful. On particularly sleepy mornings, I love being able to just dump 3 or 4 T of coffee into the plunger, cover it in boiled water and then slump on the couch while it brews on the table next to me. No additional effort required! Just push the plunger down after about 4/5 minutes and you're good to go. This is also nice when I have a friend over because I can just set the coffee on the table while we chat and have my little cup of milk and bowl of sugar ready and waiting. There's something intimate about a plunger brew, I actually quite prefer it to drip coffee now. :) You will be far more likely to come across a plunger in an Aussies home as their way of preparing brewed coffee (vs. instant) before you'll find a drip machine.

• Espresso

The cultured Aussies have espresso machines in their homes and they know how to use them. I'm joking about the cultured part, but really, it's not unusual for people to own an espresso machine here and use it regularly. I love going to a friend's place and, when they offer me a coffee, it comes out as this cafe-worthy creation complete with a dusting of chocolate powder across the micro-foam. I LOVE that! This is by far my favorite at-home brewing method because the result is something worth savoring. It feels special and expensive even though it costs the same to make as a regular coffee with milk, it's a really beautiful thing.

The Art of Espresso

I was considering why espresso machines aren't as common back home and I've come to the conclusion that it's because Americans do value their convenience so much. We want things as fast as possible with as little effort as possible. I also think there's this misconception that you have to spend thousands of dollars on a machine to make a good espresso or, worse, that all espresso machines actually cost thousands of dollars. (false, btw ;) ) So, in the mind of my fellow Americans, it must take more effort to brew a latte or cappucino than it does to fill the machine with water and walk away. Plus, it's got to be expensive.

In reality, I can make a latte faster than I could wait for a plunger or drip machine to brew a cup of coffee. It takes 20 seconds to pull a shot of espresso. It takes a further 30 seconds to steam the milk. So, really, it takes me less than a minute to have a latte in my hands. Cost-wise, per cup, my latte is exactly the same as my coffee with milk. The milk expands when you steam it so it feels like there's more milk there than there really is, but it's no more than you'd use to whiten a typical brew and, if you're someone who uses creamer, the milk is even cheaper than that stuff.

Effort-wise? It does take more effort to brew an espresso-based coffee. It may take less time, but, if you have a cheap machine without automatic shut-off like I do, you have to turn the dial off to stop from over-steaming the grounds and then you have to hand-steam the milk which does take practice. I used to think making espresso makes a mess, but if I clean the milk jug and wipe down the steam wand straight away, it doesn't really. I know I can't dream of converting everyone to a latte or two every morning, but I myself am really thankful that I've expanded my horizons and am able to partake in some beautiful espresso every morning. If I hadn't moved here, I'd still be drinking auto-drip Folgers with a splash of French Vanilla w/Splenda creamer every morning. I think I've come out on the better side of things. :)

Just Another Tuesday

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday ended quite nicely. :) Deb and Graham came over to see the garden and our new nightstands/lamps. Both had a go at the new Sleep Number bed too and looooved it. Yay! Beebs and I ended the day with a Mexican pizza I made (basically just nachos on a puff-pastry crust instead of chips) and then we went to bed. Or, I should say, he went to bed and I was awake until 3 am....I need to stop doing that! It wastes my whole morning sleeping the next day and I hate that.

One of the reasons I was up so late is that I have started a new book called The Hickory Staff by Robert Scott and Jay Gordon. It's a fantasy book about a bored asst. bank manager who discovers a 135 y/o safety deposit box that had stood unopened since the day it was commissioned.... until he finds the key in an antique store and opens it discovering a portal to another world inside. ooOOooo I haven't read far enough into it to know whether it's any good or not, I'm still in the plot building stage...but here's to hoping it's a good one. :)

I was really disappointed today because I was supposed to go to my friend's house for morning tea but TOTALLY forgot to set my alarm last night and overslept. She came over to pick me up and I was in bed. :( I hate this memory of mine, it's totally useless. I am cursed to be forgetting things the rest of my life, I only pray that my future children won't hate me for it....well, at least not anymore than they'll hate me for how messy I am. :)

Bean went to the Dr. yesterday and is "in exceptionally good health." Yaaayy! He gets his little balls cut off next month which should cut back on his extreme feisty behavior as of late. ;) He has become fully intrigued by the toilet and spends a good portion of the afternoon sitting on the edge and batting at the water...until he inevitably falls into said toilet and trails the water all over the house....I need to remember to close the door to the bathroom! I've tried closing the lid on the toilet but it's the cheapo thin plastic lid that bows at the front instead of closing all the way (not purposely, it's just cheap and has bent I assume) so he STILL ducks through the gap and the front and gets into the water.... crazy kitten.
<=This picture of him is what we call his "dinner plate eyes" face. He makes this face right before he attacks something, it's too cute!! He was stalking me from around the hallway. Speaking of kittens, I got two new kitten mugs for my mug tree over the weekend which makes my Rachael Hale Kitten Mug Collection (that's the official title ;) ) complete! I have 6 mugs now which fills the whole mug tree. I now need to start my Christmas mug collection so that I'll have all 6 by Christmas!
These mugs are just TOO cute! I love the one with the little witch hat, he will be my Halloween mug. :)

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I just gotta vent on this one for a minute:

Someone said something a while ago that really irked me, like REALLY irked me. I was talking about how we'd had a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone last year for Chris's birthday and how much everyone seemed to enjoy it and that we were thinking about doing a Halloween party this year just for fun where we could eat candy and watch scary movies and people could dress up if they wanted to although I probably wouldn't....and this guy is like, "Why?"..... ..... ummmm because it's fun?? "But we don't have Halloween here, what is even the point of Halloween?" So I explained the history behind it and that it's mostly for kids but that it's fun for adults to get to be a kid again for a day and put on a show for the kids when they trick-or-treat to make it fun for them. He (rudely I might add) made it clear that he thought it was ridiculous for me to want to continue American traditions that don't exist in Australia. I tried to suggest that if he moved to a foreign country and there was like, no more Christmas or Easter or something he'd probably want to share that tradition with new friends and family in that country and he insisted that he wouldn't...(Uhh..okay, Liar.) But whatever....and then I was talking to some people at Cole's about different foods that I can't find here (namely good ingredients for Tex Mex) and someone said something about "can't you just get used to what we have here?" ::sigh:: I think it just bothered me because if I was like, Indian or Chinese or something and wanted to continue the traditions of my culture here absolutely no one would question it and DEFINITELY wouldn't suggest that I leave them behind me for fear of being called a "racist." I mean, I know that if it's hard for me here it's gotta be a basquillion times harder for people from non-westernized countries....but you'd think maybe I could get a little slack?

There are a lot of Australians (mostly older Australians) panicking over the "Americanization" of their country, so maybe this is why people can get so defensive when I mention wanting to continue celebrating my culture here. It's just SO ignorant though, it makes me want to scream. Maybe it is ignorant of me but I believe the Australian culture is still forming. There are only about 22 million people in Australia at the moment which puts them, population-wise, where the USA was in the mid 1840's. Australia's population in the 1840s was about 170k. Now, I'm not trying to say Australia doesn't *have* a culture because there is definitely a strong one here but, when you consider the sheer population boom that is upon us here in Australia, the culture *will* evolve and new sub-cultures will form. It's just inevitable. Australia will never mirror the USA entirely because the mind-set of the people, the economics and the government here are completely different than that of those in the US...Australian's Egalitarian mindset and distaste for corporate giants alone is enough to ensure that they will never become an America, that they will always be their own nation. So, people of Australia, just accept that, when your culture is based on a population of immigrants, it is going to evolve as the cultures of those people integrate into your own. It is inevitable AND absolutely doesn't mean that your identity as a nation will be lost in the mix. You aren't who you were 150 years ago any more than you will be who you are now 150 years in the future. So cut it out with the paranoia.

Long story short, me celebrating the 4th of July, Halloween and Thanksgiving isn't going to turn Australia into America AND it doesn't mean that I'm rejecting the Australian culture for my own. I'm just integrating my traditions into the traditions of this country. If you don't like it, you're not invited to the party anyway. :P bahahaha