Everybody wants to be a barista, right?  Who hasn’t had a shitty day at work and fantasised about throwing it all in to make coffee for a living?   Pouring swirly rosettes in the flat whites to the low hum of the espresso machine, as you dispense coffee and heartfelt advice to your customers, who call you by name, and skip away happily.

I have this dream.  And I know I’m not alone.  But what sets me apart from the other dreamers is that I know I’d be really really good at it.  I know this.

So when I go to have my first coffee lesson with Eileen, legendary barista and manager of the Constable St store, I’m confident that I’ll be an expert in ten minutes flat.

She’s busy serving customers when I arrive, so I stand and observe for a while before we begin our lesson.  Watching her whip out half a dozen coffees while she chats to the waiting customers only confirms my belief: she’s relaxed and efficient and the whole process looks very, very simple.

We get started.  I quickly learn that the quality of a coffee shot does not come down to the mere push of a button.  The grind size needs to be exact.  The coffee has to be tamped perfectly evenly, and with the precise pressure to allow the water to flow through the coffee consistently.  This is a little harder than I anticipated, but I press on confidently.  I get the coffee machine cranking and watch the espresso stream slowly into the cup.

“That’s pretty good,” Eileen says, when I show her my first shot.  “The extraction was a bit slow, but it’s not bad…”  At this stage Rene (the Peoples Roaster) pops into the store and tastes the shot.  I assume a modest expression while I wait for his praise.  There is only silence, and a grimace.   He refuses my offer to make him another one.  I am shocked.  But not deterred.

Eileen continues on with the science, and the art, of milk frothing.  I want to make the perfect flat white.  She demonstrates, talking all the time, and then hands me the milk jug.  I get flustered the minute the frother starts humming.  It makes strange spluttering sounds, and it takes me so long to get the milk moving in a whirlpool that I scald my fingers on the metal jug.  I try to ask for help but my ability to talk and work at the same time has vanished.  I give the milk jug a good bang and scoop the foam off the top to get to the silky layer underneath, before pouring the milk into the cup in a way that feels like it should produce a lovely heart shape.

But something goes wrong – there is no ring of crema around the edge, and within seconds tiny bubbles start to appear across the surface of the milk.  Eileen kindly remarks that my pour looks a bit like a butterfly.  What it actually resembles is a blistering angel of death.

“Well, the taste matters as much as the presentation,” she says diplomatically.  So I taste it.  It tastes bitter, over-extracted, and nothing like the espresso coffee I have come to expect from Peoples.  While I ruminate on my own failure, Eileen whips up a flat white and places it next to mine for comparison.  Hers looks beautiful and tastes delicious.

“Don’t worry.  I’ve been making coffee for eight years and I’m still learning so much,” Eileen reassures me.  “It’s something that can look quite easy, but the more you get into it, the more you realise how complex it is.”

My ego is in tatters, my fingers are in pain, and my barista fantasy is well and truly shattered.  But my respect for the talented baristas in my midst has increased exponentially, and one thing is clear: I’m going to need a new form of escapism for those shitty days at work.

(I’m fairly sure it will still involve coffee though).

Having heard rave reviews of August, the newest arrival to the Wellington coffee scene, I have been counting the sleeps to go and find out for myself.  But when the day finally comes, DISASTER STRIKES.

I wake up with a cold, and the complete inability to taste, smell, or even form coherent sentences with my croaking husk of a voice.  So I commandeer Liv from the Peoples Roastery to be my mouth, nose, and trusty sidekick for the afternoon, and together we head to 13 Garrett St to see what everyone’s talking about.

We find out pretty quickly.  August is the latest incarnation from our friends at Milk Crate, so you can rely upon the same top quality Peoples espresso and freshly baked baguettes and croissants.  But August is also making a splash in the city for its dual function as a creative and interactive space for local talent.

“We want to go beyond giving people a cup of coffee,” owner Ben Lenart tells us.  “We want to exhibit and celebrate the creative people we have around us…to give customers a unique experience.”

There are no tables or chairs in the café (which serves takeaway espresso only) and the counter is on wheels, which means that the space can be constantly adapted to accommodate the latest installation or exhibition piece.  The shop has a minimalist industrial feel; concrete floors, exposed copper pipes and the building’s original chainy-hoist thing (my words, obviously) still hanging from the ceiling.

“Last week we had a tyre swing hanging from that,” says Tom Mackie, manager and barista of August.  An artist himself, his own work is among the collection of pieces currently adorning the white walls.

While he makes us our flat whites (which Liv tells me are first-rate, though I’ll have to take her word for that), Tom tells us about some of the exhibits they’ve had since they opened their doors six weeks ago.  These include a Shannon Rush exhibition, and a group show featuring artists from as far afield as Melbourne and Sydney.

Their next project involves a 44-gallon drum of honey.  (This is very timely news for someone with a cold).  It’s in collaboration with local mead producers, Love Honey, who are going to use the space to display their honey extraction.
“They’re going to wrap the drum in a heat pack up here,” says Tom, pointing to the concrete platform behind the counter.  “Then the honey will melt down into smaller demijohns over about 3 or 4 days.  It’s going to be an amazing process to watch.”

The honey will be on display from this Friday until Monday (May 4-7), with the odd honey and mead tasting thrown in for good measure.   Don’t miss it!  I have a feeling it’s going to create quite a buzz.

(sorry.)

August is open at 13 Garrett St (next to Global Fabrics) 8am-4pm, Mon-Fri, and 10am-3pm, Sat-Sun.  Join them on facebook for updates about their latest comps and exhibits!

You can’t beat a flat white in a hip cafe, served by a barista who knows your name and understands how you like your coffee.  It’s an experience we all hold dear, even in these tough financial times.  But it’s not merely the flavour in the cup that I hold in such high regard.

What really gets me interested is its value.  The quality in the cup is directly related to the extremely wide range of factors involved at every stage of the process that got it there.  My mind boggles at the scale of hurdles there are in making a high quality cup of coffee, and (arguably) its true value is only understood when these factors are appraised during its preparation.

This quality starts firstly in the soil, where the (not so wide) variety of coffee species resides.  Coffea Arabica, the main species of quality coffee, was voyaged by conquistadors many decades ago to the mountains of equatorial countries.  There it lies entrenched in soils with a diverse makeup, set against (what were once) stable micro climates, and grown by people with their own unique cultures, traditions and farming practices.  The production techniques favored by coffee farmers at origin forever impact the makeup and flavour potential of the coffee beans.

The financial value of this ‘commodity’ is traded by brokers, bloated by demand shortages due to frosts in Brazil, diminished by weather, insect damage and currency exchange.  All the while, this simple bean is carried on the backs of men, and processed and sorted between fingers of women, or the pulse of a machine.  These beans are then stockpiled in warehouses, traded and marketed as fair/ethical/real/certified, floated between ports, and inspected by customs for bugs.

Only then are they ready for the next vital link in the chain: 16 minutes turning at 50 revolutions a minute in 200 degree heat.

Ahh…the roasting of the bean.  Thermally coaxing out the desirable flavours by balancing airflow with the volume and moisture of the beans, controlling the temperature development curve throughout the roast, allowing Millard reaction to take place and brown the multitude – until that optimum moment when the beans are liberated from the roaster.   Ambient air stalls the roasting process and cools them at the point when their flavours are most heightened and palatable to the human condition.

An exponential range of variation in quality is then introduced through the brewing process.   Grind size and uniformity, water condition, temperature, contact time, pressure, agitation; all these factors combine to seriously influence the quality of the cup being held up to the looking-glass mind of a coffee maker.

Only after years, even decades, of cultivated secrets employed and passed on to fellow confidants, do we have a set of parameters which, when followed with fervor, can produce a beverage which any of us industry people would care to approach with confidence.

As I’ve started to point out, quality in coffee is complicated and interdependent at every level, as is its value.

What do you value in your daily coffee?
What defines its value , and how does that compare to wine, chocolate, bread, veges..?
Leave me a comment below!

I hope I have interested you in searching for some intrinsic value, and hope Peoples Coffee can contribute to this, even if its just in a cup.

When it comes to coffee, I like to think I have excellent taste.  But being plunged headfirst into the world of coffee has made me realise just how little I know.

Some weeks I sit at the Peoples Roastery listening to the staff discuss a coffee they had in the weekend, or their latest experiments with light roasts.   It gives me the same feeling I get travelling in a foreign country, or watching Lord of the Rings.
I don’t understand half of what is going on, but I love the exotic ‘otherness’ of it all.

But I have gleaned enough to know that the key to the coffee world lies in the mysterious art of coffee cupping.

Cupping is a very controlled way of tasting coffee.  It’s the method used by coffee professionals (and coffee lovers alike) all over the world to quantify the aromas, flavours, and quality of brewed coffee.

The process involves firstly smelling the coffee to experience the aroma, and then slurping it quickly with a spoon in order to aspirate the coffee and spray it evenly over your palate.

“There are three main reasons for cupping,” says Rene, the Peoples Coffee Roaster.  “To sample new origins for quality or defects, to improve your palate, and to figure out the flavours you can get out of a bean through controlled experimentation.”

Each different brewing method produces a flavour that influences the taste of the coffee.  So the same coffee brewed in a V60 and a plunger, for instance, will taste quite different.

The beauty of cupping is that it keeps all the brewing parameters of grind, dose, water quality and temperature exactly the same, so that any variation you taste is in the coffee itself.  This allows you to taste coffees from different origins in a comparative setting, so that you can figure out their key flavour notes, and how they compare to each other.

“I like to think of it as a chess game against yourself,” says Rene.

“Most people just know what they like because that’s what they like.  Cupping helps them connect their experience of the different tastes and aromas with useful vocabulary.   It helps them to qualify and enunciate why they like it.”

“It’s an awesome thing, “ he says.  “Everyone I’ve done it with has really deepened their love of coffee.”

But is it something just for the experts?

“Well, no.  It’s really interesting for people that love coffee to be exposed to the way coffee is evaluated and quantified by professionals; to hear the language used to describe the flavours, and talk about what created these flavours.”

“It’s not something you do half a dozen times and suddenly get the hang of,” he adds.  “It’s ongoing, something you do regularly to keep your palate honed and in touch with the coffee.”

Find out for yourself!  Rene is at Brewtown on Constable St every Thursday at 10am for a free coffee cupping session.

Making quick decisions has never been a gift of mine.  Making quick decisions before my first coffee is downright unrealistic.  So a few weeks back, after I had dithered in front of the coffee beans at the Constable St store for an unacceptable length of time, Seb asked me if I needed some help choosing my beans.  I said yes please.

He gave me a quick tutorial on the different origins and their general flavour profiles that was so illuminating, I went back a week later and asked him to do it again – this time armed with a notebook, a pen, and a caffeine-sharpened attention span.

“Choosing the right bean firstly depends on how you’re going to brew it,” he tells me.  This is the simple part.  If you’re using a stovetop or a home espresso maker, then you want an espresso blend.  Peoples offers two: Don Wilfredo, the smooth and chocolaty ‘house blend’ that Peoples uses in its espresso machines; and Tadesse Meskela, which has the same smooth caramel flavours, but with a more prominent acidity and grapefruit finish.

And if you want to try a single origin in your stovetop or espresso machine, then Seb recommends the Mexican Chiapas.  It’s a slightly darker roast than the other single origins, with a robust chocolaty flavour profile that can stand up to being pressurized.

Our single origin beans spend less time in the roaster, which means they retain more subtle flavours that are better showcased by non-pressurised brew methods, like plunger, chemex, or V60.  Peoples Coffee offer five single origins, as well as a limited release light roast that changes monthly (personally, I can’t get enough of these).

Generally speaking, the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Harar origins are lighter and fruitier, compared to the more chocolaty flavours of the Mexican Chiapas, Columbian Ocamonte, and Guatemalan Huehuetenango origins.

The Harar has a deep flavour of sun-dried fruit (think, apricots and berries), compared to the grapefruit and honeysuckle elements of the Yirgacheffe.  The Mexican and Columbian origins both have delicious bittersweet chocolaty flavours, but the Mexican is more “nutty,” while the Columbian is distinctive for its more prominent citrus acidity.  The Guatemalan origin has malty and acidic flavours that could almost be described as savoury.

And if you want an awesome coffee without the caffeine hit, then try the Honduras Decaf.  “It’s a bit more tangy and lively than the Mexican, but with the same smooth caramel flavours,” says Seb.

Don’t be put off if you don’t yet know which flavours you prefer.  I guarantee you, the process of finding out will be a delicious and enlightening experience.  And once you’ve experimented with different beans in different brew methods, you can start throwing geeky coffee statements into casual conversation, like “I find that the honeysuckle elements of the Yirgacheffe get a bit lost in the stovetop” or “I think the malty flavours of the Huehuetenango are better showcased in a V60 than a plunger” etc etc.

Trust me, the people will thank you for it.  (And if they don’t, fear not – the people at Peoples always will.)

What’s your favourite origin?  What flavours do you look for in a coffee?  What’s the geekiest coffee statement you’ve ever thrown into a conversation?  Leave us a comment below.

If there is one word I would use to describe the Auckland coffee scene, it would be vast.

As a spoilt-for-choice Wellingtonian, it’s all too easy to write Auckland off as the land that coffee forgot.  But after spending five days trawling through cafes in Auckland city, I found that good coffee is there – you just have to know where to find it.

There are a small number of cafes that have remained relatively unchanged and consistently popular for what seems like decades.  Alleluja in St Kevin’s Arcade and Rakinos on High Street (still selling flat whites at the old price of $3.50) are among these timeless and iconic spots.  These old favourites serve up the classic espresso range, and are consistently keeping people coming back for more.

But these are rarities.  With such rapid population growth, and therefore an expanding need for nearby caffeine, there is an increasingly huge amount of choice when it comes to where to buy your coffee.

The good news is that many Auckland cafe owners are now looking to set themselves out from the crowd, expanding beyond the old school “Paniniccino” options, and raising the bar of quality coffee in Auckland.

Little b, a tiny industrial-chic joint hidden away in Newton Gully, and its sister cafe Ben on Fort Street in the CBD, are two of these stand outs in the Auckland coffee scene.   Both are owned and operated by the guys behind micro-roastery Barista Empire, and are diversifying with non-pressurized coffee, including Siphons, Swissgolds and cold drip.

Then there’s Grey Lynn’s new boutique roastery Kokako, where you can sip on your flat white while watching the coffee being roasted.  They also offer a great selection of locally sourced organic food.

The beautiful, white-washed Zus & Zo in Herne Bay serves up well-made coffee and a delicious range of open sandwiches.  There is not a panini in sight, and the flat whites are served small and strong (the way nature intended).  The mushrooms with blue cheese on sourdough will blow your mind.

Coffee Supreme’s 42 Douglas St espresso and brew bar has definitely helped bring a healthy dose of Wellington coffee influence to Auckland, both in its design eye-candy and range of brew methods.

And when you need to get your Peoples fix in the City of Sails, then head to our good friends Catroux in Westmere, and Florentine in Epsom, both cranking out quality Peoples Coffee espresso – the way Wellingtonians like it.

Where do you go for coffee in Auckland?  What’s your experience of the Auckland coffee scene?  Where would you like to see Peoples Coffee served?  Let me in on any top spots I might have missed…

I don’t like waste.  I couldn’t possibly.  That good old protestant ethic, “waste not, want not” was drummed into me so effectively as a child, that to this day I cannot leave anything uneaten on my plate without fear of locust plague or death.  And as for disposable takeaway cups, well, they are merely string telephones waiting to happen.

But there are only so many string telephones that one household can take (ask my flatmates).  Which is why I’m grateful that Peoples Coffee have taken another step up the environmental ladder and introduced a new composting system for their biodegradable takeaway cups at the Constable St store.

It’s all part of a new sustainable innovation by the Wellington City Council called “Kai to Compost.”  The name says it all really.  You pop your biodegradable takeaway cup in the compost bin at Peoples.  A Kai to Compost truck picks it up (along with green waste from cafes and restaurants all over the city), and takes it out to the southern landfill at Owhiro Bay.  But it isn’t dumped in the landfill like regular rubbish – instead it’s shredded and then heaped into long piles, called ‘windrows’.   These windrows are turned with a forklift each week, and left to biodegrade for about 100 days, until they are safe and clean enough for a child to eat.

And then, voila!  The green waste is mixed with bark and sand, and sold for use locally as compost.  Your old coffee cup is now feeding golf courses, gardens and roadsides all over Wellington.  Genius.

“This is not a silver bullet to waste problems, but it’s one more thing we can do” says Matt Lamason.  “At the end of the day, plastic will always be plastic, whereas our biodegradable cups will degrade back into organic compounds.”

A similar system in Christchurch was composting up to 300 tonnes (that’s 300 000 kgs) of green waste, per day prior to the earthquake (which has sadly put the system on hold).

“Kai to Compost has a huge capacity for green waste.  It’s currently only operating at about 10% capacity in Wellington.  The key is getting our biodegradable cups into the correct waste stream.”

That means putting it into the right bin!  You can find one now at the Constable St store.  Go on, make the effort.  If only to fend off that locust plague…

So, string telephones aside – what would you normally do with your biodegradable cups and lids?  Do you compost your cups at home?  Do you have any other creative solutions for reusing your biodegradable cups?   Tell us here!

In 2008 I spent a year roasting coffee in sunny Brisbane with my good friends, Marty Richards and Vonny Andrews, at Blackstar Coffee Roasters.

Queensland (unlike Wellington) is hot most of the year.  So Vonny started experimenting with making a cold coffee in beer bottles with crown caps, and calling it ‘cold press coffee’.  It was a coffee epiphany for me.  Simply milk, coffee, and a touch of sweet; but a serious coffee beverage.

The punters at the West End markets and Blackstar’s Roastery lapped this new beverage up.  No other 0.04ml coffee essence milk drink, corn syruped and sugared to hell, could come close.

And now, four years later and sitting on the shoulders of the Blackstar giants, we are most happy to finally launch the Peoples Coffee ‘Cold Flat White’.

The reason it has taken us four years to have a crack ourselves, is out of respect.  Many folk (including their own coffee accounts!) started imitating Vonny’s heavenly elixir, but no one ever gave credit to her recipes (which she was all too forthcoming in sharing).

It is simply this: fresh ground coffee, steeped in cold water for 12 hours, painstakingly filtered through Chemex filters, and then mixed with organic full cream milk and a dash of real Canadian maple syrup.

Like all our coffees, the brew is from our small farmer-owned cooperatives, making this one awfully good way to support organic small scale coffee producers during a lukewarm Wellington summer.

Cold Flat Whites are available now at Peoples Coffee Constable St, and Brewtown, and coming soon to Vic Books and Lamason.
And look out for the new Cold Long Black, on its way!

It’s never easy coming home after the holidays, but if there’s one thing that made it easier this year, it was the coffee (or, more accurately, the lack of good coffee elsewhere).
Now, I don’t consider myself a coffee snob by any stretch of the imagination, but after three weeks out of Wellington, I was ready to pitch my tent in the middle of Peoples Coffee, curl up on a sack of coffee beans, and never leave again.

And to make my homecoming even sweeter, I found that the little elves at Peoples had been busy brewing up a few surprises over the holidays…starting with Brewtown!

Brewtown is a Peoples Coffee Pop-Up store, temporarily bringing fresh, single-origin filter coffee to the streets of Newtown.  If you haven’t yet jumped on the non-pressurised coffee bandwagon, now’s your chance, people!   You’ve already heard me raving about the purity and goodness of the mighty V60, and you can try one here, along with chemex and cold drip, at Wellington’s first brew bar to specialise exclusively in filter coffee.

Which might seem a little crazy, given that filter coffee hasn’t always had the best reputation in New Zealand.  If you’re anything like me, the words ‘filter coffee’ evoke images of American diners with checked tablecloths, ill-tempered waitresses, and the sort of lukewarm bitter coffee found lurking in office staffrooms of the nineties.

But trust me, one visit to Brewtown will change all that.  For a start, Danny the barista could not be further from a ill-tempered woman.  He’s nice, he wants to answer all your burning questions about non-pressurised coffee, and he’s got cold-drip coffee brewing in the front window that he’ll let you taste for free!  And once you’ve figured out your favourite, you can buy your own brewing tools and learn how to replicate it at home.

What’s more, the United Nations have named 2012 “Year of the Co-operative”, so Brewtown couldn’t be more timely.  All Peoples Coffee comes from small producers who are part of fair trade cooperatives.  While espresso coffee uses a blend of coffee beans, filter coffee showcases beans from a single origin, so you can taste the unique flavours of beans grown in different regions of the coffee world.
“Their coffee is a way of telling their story” says director Matt Lamason.  “Single origins are a way to promote our co-operatives, and connect consumers with our coffee farmers.”

Keep a lookout on the Peoples facebook page, because Rene (the Peoples Coffee roaster) will be doing weekly cuppings of different fair trade organic coffees, and you’re all invited.

“A Pop-Up store lets us trial something we wouldn’t normally do with a shop” says Matt.   “We want to see if Newtown is ready for filter coffee.”

So what do you say?  Are you ready to for it?  Get yourself down to Brewtown for a taste, and then tell me, tell me, tell me!  Leave us your feedback below.  I want to know how you rate filter coffee, and how you think it compares to espresso.  (But you’d better get your skates on, because pop-up stores tend to pop down again, when you least expect it…).

Brewtown is open Tue – Sat, 9am – 5pm.  You’ll find it at 12 Constable St, Newtown (right next to the espresso store).

Christmas.  It’s a time of joy and peace and elbowing your way through crowds of frantic shoppers to the tune of Snoopy’s Christmas.  That much we know.  But have you ever stopped to consider the psychological underpinnings of this most wonderful time of the year?

I have.

You see, last Christmas, I awoke to a shocking sight that no child should ever have to experience…

…An empty stocking.

Shock.  Disappointment.  Confusion.

What could I have possibly done to warrant this bewildering lack of reward?
Ever since I could remember,  I had been taught by the authority figures in my life (my parents, the television, and Santa) that if I was good, I would be rewarded.  With stuff.  It was very simple.  Behaviour, reward.  Behaviour, reward.
I was Pavlov’s dog and when they started ringing those Christmas bells, I started looking around wildly for my slab of meat.

And the bells were still ringing (louder and longer every year), but the goods had stopped coming!  Where was my stuff?  Where was my stuff?
It seemed I had unwittingly crossed some invisible threshold and “Santa” (who had just earned himself a nice pair of inverted commas) had made an executive decision to cross me off his list.  It seemed I had “grown up”.

In light of this shocking discovery, there was only one thing I could do.  And that was to reward myself with the gift I always deserve.

Coffee.

And so this is my Christmas message to you, boys and girls.

When you can’t trust that your stocking will be full on Christmas morning, there is one thing you can always count on.

Coffee.
Santa may abandon you, but coffee will always deliver.
It is the stimulus and the reward.

So this year, I won’t be listening out for sleigh bells in the snow.

This year, I’m dreaming of a flat white Christmas  (ho ho ho).

Merry Christmas from everyone at Peoples Coffee!  We hope your holidays are safe and well-caffeinated.   See you back here in January!