Cafe menus are overflowing with speciality drinks, but nothing beats a basic cup of black gold.
The daily coffee order used to be so simple. Caffe latte, thanks. But now? Now it’s not even coffee. It’s a dirty chai, iced matcha or yerba maté.
Coffee’s changing. The cost of beans continues to rise, and everyone is on the lookout for alternatives. Old-fashioned espresso coffee is in danger of being shouldered aside, just as cow’s milk is making way for oat, almond and soy.
Increasingly, the hot drinks of choice are matcha (powdered green tea leaves), reflecting a generational obsession with all things Japanese, and chai (spiced milky tea) in forms not necessarily recognisable by the state of India. The turmeric chai latte has been a thing here for years now. Not my thing, but a thing.
There’s a new preference for icy-cold drinks, even in winter. Iced tea comes flavoured with fragrant lavender and honey and topped with sparkling water. Vietnamese coffee, sweetened with condensed milk, tinkles with ice.
The options are overwhelming. Today, for instance, I’m at a cafe where the menu offers coffee with four milk options, three syrup options and five iced variations.
Then it lists sticky chai, hot chocolate, golden latte, beetroot latte with cacao and ginger, iced matcha, iced chai, and dairy-free smoothies flavoured with peanut butter and chia berry jam. Yes, it is Bondi Beach, thank you for asking. And yes, it does serve cocktails from 10am, so all is not lost.
After the first three sips, it all gets too much and I have to have a double espresso.
Not wishing to look like an old fogey, I order an iced matcha latte of coconut and almond milk, blueberry juice and blueberry jam. It’s cold, refreshing and delicious. But after the first three sips, it all gets too much and I have to have a double espresso.
Well, I tried. But those of us who grew up with espresso coffee, who cleaved to counters topped with La Faema and La Marzocco machines, who thrilled to the hiss and steam and smell and sound of hot water being forced through freshly ground beans until black gold trickled into a tiny cup … we cling to it as we do the rugs over our knees.
The cafe may be evolving, but it has always been, and will always be, a place where we can get together over a drink.
What that drink might be doesn’t actually matter, as long as it makes us happy. Caffe latte, thanks.
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Terry Durack is the chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food.
