The Flat White Controversy

I think I am probably the last person on the planet to have found out that the flat white - 1/3 espresso with 2/3 milk - was a Kiwi invention from either Auckland in the mid-80s, by Derek Townsend and Darrell Ahlers of long-gone DKD Espresso (Martineau, 25 February 2013); or by Fraser McInnes at Cafe Bodega in Wellington. Fraser made a skim milk cappuccino which didn't froth in 1989 and called it a ‘flat white’ when delivering it to the customer (Alves, 31 August 2017; nzstory.govt.nz, 2018).

A good description of why this lovely cuppa is termed a flat white comes from Peter Thomson (2014):

In New Zealand we use the term “flat” to describe soft drink (or soda) that has lost its fizz and doesn’t have any bubbles. So “flat” seems like a natural term for Kiwis to use to describe a coffee with fewer bubbles than a cappuccino (which was the dominant espresso beverage in NZ in the 1980s).

However, the Kiwi ownership is contested. Australian Alan Preston claims he invented the flat white at Sydney's Moors Espresso Bar, in 1985. He said that he moved to Sydney from Queensland, where cafes in the 1960s and 1970s had frequently offered "White Coffee – flat", which he renamed "Flat White" in Moors (Robertson, 28 September 2015). It seems to me that the Aussies are more likely to have the right of it, as Alan has photographic evidence of having "flat white" on a menu board, supposedly dating from the mid-1980s (but there is no certainty of the actual date of the photo, or whether the coffee was a 1/3, 2/3 mix). Also, Aussies have tended to do a ristretto rather than an espresso (Thomson, 2014).

Who knows the origins, really. Perhaps we should just go with the flat white being Antipodean: a Trans-Tasman creation which has now gone global.


Sam

References:

• Alves, T. (31 August 2017). The Contentious History of the Flat White. Retrieved from https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/new-zealand/articles/the-contentious-history-of-the-flat-white/
• Martineau, C. (25 February 2013). Was The Flat White Coffee Actually Invented In New Zealand? Retrieved from http://www.foodrepublic.com/2013/02/25/was-the-flat-white-coffee-actually-invented-in-new-zealand/
• nzstory.govt.nz (2018). Who Invented the Flat White? Retrieved from https://www.nzstory.govt.nz/stories/who-invented-the-flat-white/?utm_source=eNewsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=October&utm_content=Flat%20White%20-%20Heading
• Robertson, J. (28 September 2015). Australian disputes New Zealander's claim to inventing the flat white. Retrieved from https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/drinks/72475583/australian-disputes-new-zealanders-claim-to-inventing-the-flat-white
• Thomson, P. J. (2014). Origins of the flat white. Retrieved from https://www.peterjthomson.com/coffee/flat-white-coffee-origins/

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The Gap Between Promise and Action

A friend of mine recently created lovely neat channels on the door to the family pantry to hold Nespresso pods. While the work was fabulous, I was saddened by the implied waste. Nespresso pods are one of the most costly ways to consume coffee, and - despite my friends protesting that the pods are recycled - I am suspicious about how much recycling actually happens, despite Nestlé's green claims.

Recycling pods provides two choices: we either take the pods to a drop-off centre and the people at the centre clean the coffee out and send the aluminium for recycling; or that we clean the pods out ourselves and put the cleaned pods in with the aluminium cans with our local recycling scheme. Many people don't do either, and just chuck them out with their rubbish.

The aluminium consumed in every pod can't be turned into anything else down in our neck of the world... and people seem to drink four or five pods-worth of coffee a day. That's 1300 or 1600 pods per consumer, per year! Staggering. The website, One Million Women, state that globally 55 million pods are used per day ...and suggest that few are fully recycled (14 April 2007). Nestlé says that pods are recyclable, and their PR video looks all well and good (here), but the video script carefully doesn't say that the pods actually get recycled in New Zealand. This omission is all it takes to allow a difference between the possibility of recycling and the act of actually doing so.

Most of our 'recycling' in New Zealand, once collected, is simply landfilled because our overall quantities are too small to do anything with, and the cost of collecting it into a large enough cluster to then ship it offshore is prohibitive. China used to take a lot of our plastic, but no longer does: they have put restrictions in place as to what can be imported. To the best of my knowledge, the only thing that is consistently recycled is glass (often used for base-course - after being broken up and rumbled - on our roads). Some paper gets reused for things like egg cartons, but a lot is not suitable for reuse with our level of manufacturing and - again - logistics and cost. About half of our aluminium is intended for recycling: but it cannot be done in this country. As far as I am aware, there is no re-smelting plant in New Zealand for any type of aluminium: so aluminium intended for recycling - mostly industrial and commercial product - is shredded and goes to Australia or Japan if the cost:benefit stacks up.

From student projects undertaken into waste management which I have supervised, I know our local collection centres landfill almost everything other than glass and some paper. However, our councils wisely keep us in the habit of recycling so that when there is finally a buyer for the waste we produce, the systems are already in place, so supply will be seamless.

However, with Nespresso pods, I smell 'PR'. I suspect that pods don't get fully recycled in New Zealand. You can buy bags to post your pods back, or you can drop your spent pods off at selected florists. The coffee MAY get emptied out at the florists', but then the pods would have to be fully cleaned and the put in their recycling. Will all pod drop-off florists' put the aluminium in their recycle bin? Will their council have access to aluminium recycling collection points? Not in the South Island: apparently the Cook Strait is the most expensive piece of water in the world to cross. I would imagine that most aluminium goes to storage to wait better economic times, or to straight to landfill if the collection points are strained.

We don't manufacture Nespresso pods in New Zealand, and the cost of return shipping would outweigh any possible benefit: even if the pod aluminium goes to Australia. The logistics and costs of getting all those pods into one place in New Zealand to then ship them to Australia would be much greater than any actual value of recycling, and I cannot imagine that a company with Nestlé's - lack of - reputation for green practices would willingly take on the cost.

As a result, I suspect green-washing and consumer PR on the part of Nestlé. A gap between promise and action.

The best recycling is one that we don't need in the first place. There is even a name for this now: pre-cycling. This is a bit like a Clayton's (here) for any of you who remember watching the TV ads when you were a short person: "the drink you are having when you aren't having a drink" could become the "the consumption you are having when you aren't consuming".

Rather than a pod machine, think instead about buying one where you grind your own beans, and only heat enough hot water for the coffee head itself. That is what our machine does (it's an Ascaso), which has been going now for thirteen years with a few minor repairs. However, if you really want to go green, apparently instant coffee has the lightest footprint - ugh! But that is a step too far for me.


Sam

References:

• Gunther, M. (27 May 2015). The good, the bad and the ugly: sustainability at Nespresso. Retrieved 7 February 2018 from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/27/nespresso-sustainability-transparency-recycling-coffee-pods-values-aluminum
• Nespresso NZ (n.d.). How to Recycle Coffee Capsules. Retrieved 7 February 2018 from https://www.nespresso.com/nz/en/how-to-recycle-coffee-capsules
• One Million Women (14 April 2017). Recycling Your Coffee Pods: Is The Nespresso Recycling Scheme Working? Retrieved 7 February 2018 from https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/recycling-your-coffee-pods-nespresso-recycling-scheme-working/
• Wikipedia (n.d.) Clayton's. Retrieved 8 February 2018 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytons

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Arabica and Altitude

I love coffee. I have just been to Brazil, the largest global producer of coffee, and went to visit a coffee farm.

We heard, while we were there, that arabica coffee is the best varietal, and that arabica grown at high altitude yielded the best coffee... but we didn't quite catch WHY that was.

So I got home and did some digging.

For a start, arabica is pronounced "arab'-ickah" (Howdjsay, 2015). Not arab-eekah'. Okay. 

So why is arabica considered the best variety? Probably because it grows at high altitude. Hang on a minute, isn't that a circular argument?

Well, kinda. Apparently the higher coffee is grown, the more dense the resulting beans are. The best grade of beans - the Strictly Hard Bean - can only be grown at high altitude, usually between 1200 and 1600 metres (3,900 and 5,200 feet). The really dense beans hold together better and, because of this, they roast more evenly. You don't get broken pieces being over-roasted, and tainting the resulting mix with that tell-tale burnt taste (umiat-ga, 2004).

It is the cooler weather of the high mountain tropical coffee-growing altitudes that makes the beans grow more slowly, creating that much more dense, harder bean containing more complex sugars and intense flavours. The higher the altitude, the better the roast and the finer the grind, further changing the taste. Hawaiian Kona coffee has a mild, low altitude flavour at 750m, while Guatemalan coffee is spicy and chocolatey at over 1500m (umiat-ga, 2004; Scribblers Coffee, 2009). 

(Scribblers Coffee, 2009, amended by Young, 2015)

Additionally, average air pressure drops from 1,013 millibars at sea level to around 300mb at the top of Mt Everest, which is 10,000 metres. At 1600 metres, the air pressure is somewhere around 20% less than sea level, or about 500mb (Coffee Geek, 2010). Coffee also can't tolerate frost, so that tropical equatorial band tends to provide the best growing conditions (Scribblers Coffee, 2009).

The arabica bean is harder to grow, and has a lower yield, but prefers land which is cheaper to buy. The big producer, Robusta is a heartier variety with a big yield, growing on lower slopes, where land is more expensive. However, high-end consumers tend to prefer arabica (Johnson, 2013).

So there we have it. Arabica: slower growing at high altitude, more intense, strong, kick-you-in-the-guts-type flavour with a consistent roast. Robusta: faster growing at lower altitude, softer, sweeter flavour, but more likely to be of inconsistent quality.

I am a bit of a Guatemala girl, myself. Pick your personal poison :-)

Sam 

References:

• Coffee Geek (2010). High Altitude effect on coffee bean growth. Retrieved 24 May 2015 from http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/general/473557
• Howdjsay (2015). How Do You Say: Arabica. Retrieved 24 May 2015 from http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=arabica&submit=Submit
• Scribblers Coffee (2009). The Effect of Altitude on Coffee Flavor. Retrieved 24 May 2015 from http://www.scribblerscoffee.com/flavor_effect_of_altitude 
• umiat-ga (2004). Coffee - What makes high-altitude coffee so attractive - and more costly? Retrieved 25 May 2015 from http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=317982
• Johnson, Jennifer (2013). Consumer taste for high altitude beans shifts opportunity to small farmers. Retrieved 24 May 2015 from http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/04/consumer-taste-beans-farmers/ 

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