Want milk with that?

Sometimes it takes a guest from home to point out a transatlantic gap I had stopped noticing. Like, as my oldest friend asked me last weekend, 'what's the deal with all the different kinds of milk?'

She has a point. There is an insane amount of milk choice here. It's one thing that the supermarket, on top of fat free, low fat or whole milk, offers a range of anti-milks for the faddy or geninuely allergic. So almond milk, soy milk: we have those at home too. But here, of course, every simple choice is then multiplied by several more choices, like flavoured almond milk - and in seven different flavours, no less.

And at coffee shops or diners there's not only the usual range of milks and anti-milks, but actual cream too. On reflection it's probably ultra pasteurised crap that hasn't seen a cow for several months, but they call it cream and it looks pretty thick. It's astounding to me that cream is still brought as standard to the table with coffee. Even at 8am. Who has cream in their coffee? What is it, Christmas? A banquet? Madness. Of course you can always be restrained and have the  mysterious 'half and half'. Mysterious because I'm still not sure what the point of creamy milk is - I mean, isn't that just whole milk?

Then there's the home where you're offered a coffee and then 'Milk or half and half? Or creamer? We have vanilla, macademia, chocoloate - oh and there's this new snickerdoodle flavour they just brought out'. Too much choice, people! Plus creamer truly horrifies me. So far as I can tell it's a mixture of sugar, ultra pasteurized milk and chemicals you pour into coffee so it doesn't taste like coffee any more. I bet if banning it would put a dent in the obesity numbers way faster than Michelle Obama's Move It campaign.

If I didn't already prefer my coffee black, I think a short while in the States would have me changing my preference sooner than you can say 'espresso'.

Hot water

Lady P is not a fussy baby, but she does struggle if her milk is fridge-cold. At home we warm her bottle in a mug TLOML's Aunt made for us, which is the perfect size and shape.

Bottle warming. No-one is getting hurt by this activity.

When we're out and about, enjoying a coffee in one of Saltburn's many nice cafes we ask for some hot water in which to warm her milk. As people do. It's not an unusual request, nor an unreasonable one.

Until recently the request was always met with either a straight 'yes', or a brief discussion about the size and shape of the receptacle we need.

But this past week or so, something has changed. Now, at at least three cafes in town, the staff have clearly been briefed against the bottle warmers. They look at you with suspicion, mutter something about 'checking with the manager' and come back with a defiant 'no'.

'We can't just, like, give you a thing of hot water', said one waitress to me, as if I was a lunatic for suggesting it. 'We have to warm it for you here, where we can see it,' said another.

Why the change of heart? TLOML and I wonder. There are two competing theories.
Either - someone had a bad accident involving hot water and a baby in Saltburn and the word has gone round. Health and safety guidelines are being updated and a zero risk policy being adopted.
Or - people were bringing their own teabags and ordering hot water, ostensibly for the bottle, to steal a free cup of tea.

This being Yorkshire I'm inclined to suspect the latter.

It's no big deal, the bottle still gets warmed. But it's kind of a hassle to leave the bottle with them and then go back and get it. Lady P is going to have to get used to a chillier bottle milk in the mornings.

Cortados and mochafrappucinos

The coffee in Argentina is uniformly great. Not just the good stuff in restaurants or cafes, but even the coffee on the hotel buffet, or from the machine in TLOML's office.

Argentina coffee is served just how I like it: dark, thick, and fairly short. No ridiculous buckets of watery 'drip' filth here. TLOML likes it too - it was in Argentina that he was introduced to the cortado, which is dark, thick, fairly short and a bit milky.

In the US, cortados are hard to find, except in fancy 'artisan' coffee places. In fact, the ridiculous but good Joe serves it, which is why we go there despite it being, as I said, ridiculous.

Cortados are not hard to find in Argentina. Rather rarer are the big watery buckets I hate, and silly things like mintmochachocalattefrappucinos. Which I suppose explains the long queue outside the Starbucks in Cordoba: rarity value.

 'I hear the pumpkin ginger creamy lattes have arrived, let's go!'.

Sorry to sound like a moaning 'Occupy Starbucks' liberal in search of a fictional authenticity. After all, why shouldn't the good Argentines of Cordoba have their Starbucks too? But do they have to like it quite so much? I find it rather depressing. Personally I'll stick with the thick dark stuff, like the tourist I clearly am.

Techniques of Milk Steaming

Any one inspired by my post on Joe coffee will be glad to hear they just released their class schedule for Autumn.

I love the fact that Espresso Level 1 is a pre-requisite for Milk Steaming Level 1. They aren't kidding around...

Just a regular cup of Joe

Our nearest coffee shop, on 23rd Street at 8th Ave, is Joe. We go there quite often, because it is so close.

The line is long and the service is slow, and here is why:

In case you don't have time to watch the entire video, allow me to provide two choice quotes which I think sum up the whole Joe enterprise:
'Our baristas wll go through about a month of training just pulling espresso before they even touch or talk about milk.' Milk, the first taboo of barista training! They must think about nothing else that whole month!
'You need to look for the time at which the espresso drops: it should drop at around 6 seconds, and then run till about 22 or... um... 26 or 27 seconds.' Precise enough for ya?


This is a bag of coffee from Joe, for when we want to make coffee back at the hutch.

It costs $20. Which I suppose is marginally less outrageous than the orange juice situation. I mean, seeing as it is 'refreshing from beginning to lingering sweet finish: nectarine aromatics segue to orange gummy candy, honeyed fig, caramel, and crisp botanical notes'. Or so it says on the bag.

It is good coffee. I like it a lot. Sadly, though, neither TLOML nor I can truly taste the difference between this stuff, and Starbucks' finest. So long as it's not that watery, stewed filth they serve at Dunkin' Donuts I'm pretty happy.

Since Joe is our nearest coffee place, we're still going there and standing in line for our coffee or paying $20 to make it at home. Sigh. I have a feeling the culinary artists of New York's artisan coffee shops are wasted on us.

Walking with coffee (cont.)

More pictorial evidence of the wrongness of walking with coffee.

Although, on further consideration... if Britney Spears can manage to walk and sip, maybe I should be capable of it too.

Just a regular bucket of Joe

In London when I meet someone for a coffee, I order an americano. My coffee arrives in an oversized tea cup, is good and strong, and I drink it sitting down. Usually at a table. Simple.

Here in the country which presumably invented the americano, it is not so simple.

I learnt this the first time I innocently said 'yes' to TLOML's suggestion that we 'go and grab a coffee'.

My americano arrived in a paper cup the size of a bucket. And then TLOML lead the way out of the Coffee Bean, to walk slowly down the street. I was confused... and then aghast.

I am not used to the American tradition of walking with a coffee, I just can't do it. I'm too malcoordinated to walk and sip. Especially when I'm drinking from an enormous paper bucket.

As I result I learned that, when TLOML asks what I wanted to drink, I need first to ask him 'are we walking?' If we are walking, I'll have a shot of espresso which I can neck while he stirs his sugar into his latte. Only if we are sitting do I dare to order a longer drink.

But which longer drink? No more horrid weak americanos for me. I might as well be at a coffee morning drinking Nescafe red mug. And the size: 12oz of coffee is the norm here - 3/4 of a pint. It's too much!

My solution is to order a double espresso with a splash of water. Which makes me sound like a bit of a fusspot. And to make myself sound even more of a tosser, I have to put on a bad American accent so that I am understood, and request a 'double expresso, splash of warduh'.

Still, I stood with a colleague ordering coffee at the Big Corp cafeteria today. He asked for a large coffee, half decaf, half regular, and ice on the side. I don't feel so silly anymore...