Coffee

Aloha!  Greetings from Hawaii!  I felt compelled to write this blog after being here a few days.  Australians are passionate about their coffee and I once thought Americans were too.  However after living in Australia for 18 years and visiting The USA periodically I've come to the conclusion that on balance, Americans don't know what good coffee is.  Drip coffee is horrible and most people drink it like coloured water.  It is repulsive and the garbage they give you in hotel rooms could be classified as poison.  Then if you go to order a speciality coffee from a Starbucks or a Seattle, it's made with no love whatsoever.  I just ordered a Seattle's Best and it's simply not the best.  I found the same experience when we were in New York last year.  You can't make coffee like McDonald's cheeseburgers!  It can't be from an assembly line.  There is an art to making good coffee and you can actually taste the difference in Australia from person to person who makes your latte or whatever you have from the same coffee house.  Apparently there is an Australian coffee house near the Hard Rock Cafe here and they pride themselves on making real coffee.  I'm going to go check it out.  We found an Australian coffee house in Dallas last year and it was wonderful.  I'm thinking my experience with the Aussie coffee house in Wai Kiki  will be the same. 

Beer

Happy New Year and I'm Back!  I know you've missed me!! This is one of many blogs about beer.  To start though,  Aussies are passionate about their beer.  They're passionate about how a good draft beer is poured.  I never understood this until I actually moved here.  When we were living in Seattle, we had visitors for a few days and one of them told me when we were out on a ferry ride that we didn't know how to pour a beer.  He was complaining about how flat it was and how it had no head and that it was a 'plastic' glass.   I must admit that I took 'some' offense to it.  I didn't yet really understand the big deal.  I mean beer is beer right?  So what if it's in a plastic glass and if there's no head that means more beer to drink right?  And if it's flat, it must be easier to drink right? That's what I thought.  But lets face it.  Americans don't mind drinking beer from plastic party cups or out of a can.  Generally we don't keep it cold enough at a pub and bartenders don't really have a passion for or perhaps don't know how to pour a draft beer with a decent head on it.  Usually it comes out flat and it's not cold enough. On the other hand, Aussie beer is tailor made for a hot day and it's carbonated just right and bartenders take some pride with pouring a good beer.  When we visited The States last year it only reconfirmed this.  I know Americans are passionate about beer too but this is usually with boutique micro-beers, not a good Lager.  So when you visit Australia, go to a good old school Aussie Pub and order a Schooner (I'll tell you more about that later) of New and find out what I'm talking about.  Enjoy!