Coffee in North Sydney

2009-03-02T17:15:00.000-08:00

For this, my second post in only 9 months I'd like to talk about coffee.

I love coffee, many people do, but not all. My wife, for example, hasn't had one for about 30 years, she does not seem to miss it. So, in our family I drink enough for two.

Coffee comes in all forms, most of them are dreadful, I get the impression many people will drink anything they get handed because they're just feeding a mild caffeine dependence. They actually believe that too. The popular press, the ambient noise of people's lives, the default mindset, all suggest that the more caffeine you can get in one drink, the better. Redbull and friends are all though of as high caffeine too,

Which is a complete crock of course. But in our busy lives we tend to settle on certain beliefs and then fail to re-examine them for many years. Sometimes there's a nagging feeling that we should - but these opportunities are fragile and get trampled by all the information we consume...

In my current 'job' I am however afforded the almost unique opportunity of being paid to do squat, they provided me with a laptop, and free Internet access, and nothing to do, no urge to voluntarily do anything, and the only fear I have is that my brain will rust over if i don't think of some project to do.

So in the interest of maintaining my sanity I embarked on a project to discover every coffee place in North Sydney - maybe put them all on a map?

Firstly, those of you who know North Sydney may question this goal - isn't there an espresso machine every 50 paces? Yes there is. But North Sydney is sort of like a hopeless also-ran compared to the Sydney CBD. Not that Sydney CBD is much chop either - you have to work at it if you want a stylish existence. There's that nagging doubt that Melbourne might actually be a better place - a terrible thought for a one-eyed Sydneysider to entertain, but one borne of having lived in London for a good long time. London is at the same time both the worst place to live, but the hippest and coolest stuff is happening there. New York is by all accounts even more so than London. Sydney... has a nice view.

However when it comes to coffee Sydney is up there near the top for places to buy and drink coffee. Cities can 'serve' good coffee, but you have to have the right clientele if the quality is to be maintained. If there's not enough demand for the good coffee you are going to get served weeks-old stuff.

This is because it's important that market forces be brought to bear. The customer must reject International Roast, 'Nespresso', Starbucks, Gloria Jeans and their carcinogenic foam cups, Petrol Station coffee, Burger King, vending machines, and suburban grocery markets that sell 1 cup a day. Unfortunately - in the case of most of these examples of coffee there's a lot of people who either don't know what coffee should taste like, or just dont care - they want it to be hot, and have lots of caffeine.

Contrast this with the reality of a nicely made espresso - it's hot, tastes great, gives you a buzz, but doesn't have too much caffeine. Yes, all of the flavour, none of the headaches that come with overdosing.

Now the sharp eyed amongst you may be wondering why mcdonalds isn't in that list of evil brands... thats because maccas coffee is actually not bad - they have purchasing power to get good coffee, and they have the turnover required to keep the stock from getting stale, their machines are all automatic so its not burnt, the kid operating it can still bugger up the milk and the pouring, but all in all, acceptable, but not something you'd go out of your way for.

Maccas coffee is generally better than nearly all the places in North Sydney.

Those places in the foyers of buildings - with the exception of GG's use floor-sweepings and rope offcuts I'm sure. They scald the milk, their machines a bit cheap, so your milk ends up being 50% water from the crappy steam jet, they squeeze two cups out of a one-cup basket of grounds, and they are not cheap because they're paying way too much rent and because they each have a limited amount of customers.

Now GG's - previously served yucky stuff - but have good machines and well trained baristas... but you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. Happily they did some work recently on that issue and the coffee got much better, unfortunately a fair percentage of our English and kiwi friends refuse to buy coffee off 'George' because of rugby related issues. And as for the North Sydney branch - i just didn't bother... it's someone else's foyer.

So not looking good is it? In my first week I wandered aimlessly amongst the not-very-highrise buildings of north sydney, progressively more desperate for a drinkable coffee, I even tipped out the one purchased from the foyer of my building. it was undrinkable. I began to imagine that Voodoo coffee was ok, it wasnt too burnt tasting. I was told the Voodoo in Mount St was better than Voodoo on Blues Pt Road... It was... or was it just that the girl serving it was nicer to me? Madness was beginning to set in. I walked past the Lavazza places and the Schibello places, these are probably ok as their coffee bean are not too bad, but I resisted. They were in someone-elses-foyer.

Clearly, something was wrong, I wasn't adjusting. I wanted to like North Sydney, but it wasn't happening. I pulled out a notepad and put some structure around the problem:

Good things:
1. less crowds.
2. cheaper food.
3. nice harbour views.
4. nice pubs.

Bad Things:
1. ordinary coffee.
2. less crowds.
3. cheap food.
4. not enough pubs.
5. No campos coffee.

Ah Ha! finally I knew what was wrong with North Sydney. and finally I knew how to sort it out. To Google. search for 'campos "north sydney"' result: 1 place. not zero, 1 place! eureka! maybe 2 or 3 would be best, but 1 is sufficient. I could not believe it. I ran. OK, I walked swiftly, to 90 mount st - almost underneath Voodoo coffee, tucked away, hiding its light under a bushel somewhat and there it was "The Electric Bean". Campos coffee cups piled jauntily next to the espresso machine, just next to the display of handmade chocolates, just inside the locked door with the "opening hours: 7.30-5pm" sign on it. It was 5:01pm.

Today is another world. I started my day with a large latte in a green campos cup. I am happy. I enjoyed my morning at work. at morning tea time I brought a colleague down and i had a macchiato. I was happier. I had a dark chilli chocolate on the side I was happier. I did not get caffeine overload, I did not get thirsty. I am happy. I have enjoyed the rest of the day, the sun is shining, the birds tweeting. I am sure i will bound out of bed tomorrow at 6am so i can get back to North Sydney.

It doesn't suck any more. Hmm, only one book shop.... OK it sucks a bit. All I need now is some work to do.

maybe they laced the drink with ecstacy? I will have to calm down a bit. It's a bit silly being excited by a coffee shop... no?

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Hacking NetWorker for fun and profit

2008-06-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

I should have a blog. I do have a blog now.

But does it have content? No. In the time honoured tradition of new and probable failed blogs I should have an upbeat first post - gushing with ambition about how I'm going to capture a huge readership and be lauded across the blog sphere for my witty prose. But no - just a place to post code snippets and tricks and stuff i learn from working on arguably one of the least sexy parts of information infrastructure - the backup system. But hey, don't knock it until you've contemplated a month without the trash truck coming around. Don't diss it until you've unblocked your own toilet u-bend. And if you think cutting a CD-R is backup then this stuff will probably not make it into your hot RSS feed list. But I care not.

My wife said there's this tradition of posting 100 facts about yourself in your hundredth post... If you're interested, don't hold your breath. It's going to be a while...

Legato Boy

Coffee in North Sydney

Hacking NetWorker for fun and profit