New Zealand coffee

If you are going to NZ, from North America, and you want to fit in then you need to know some things.

The first is that coffee, as you know it, really does not exist here in NZ. What we buy at Tim Horton’s or Starbucks is called “brewed coffee” and is not offered in restaurants or coffee shops. (You can, I know because I have seen it, do it in your own home but only with close friends.) Somehow, in the last 20 years NZ went from bad instant (last time I was here) to an espresso based culture.

Your choices in a NZ café are as follows.

Short Black

Long Black

Flat White

Latte

Tea.

If you like lattes then you are in luck because they are the same. If you don’t then you better like espresso in one form or another. Short or long blacks mean a single or double espresso. A flat white tastes to me just like a latte but I am assured that there is a difference. Since it is cheaper and stronger than a latte I am happy about it.

Don’t try ordering a double-double or demanding “real” coffee because it is bad manners and they call the police.

Other things you should be aware of.

A “chilly bin”, my most hated NZ expression, is actually a cooler (as for pop or beer). Even the newspapers use that phrase. There was a story about a guy, who survived the sinking of his boat, by holding on to his “chilly bin” and floating to shore.

Any word in English can be shortened and a “y” added on it. A Steinlager beer, for example, becomes a Steiny.

The police do random checkpoints and have every driver talk in a breathalizer. They don’t need any reason to do that in NZ they set up a roadblock somewhere and away they go.

Flip flops are suitable footwear attire anywhere including rugged trails and fancy restaurants.

Any time you can eliminate vowels then it is a good thing. Substituting a single for a couple of others is also fine. Yeah becomes Yh and Goodday becomes gitdy.

Never, never sit on a NZ toilet while flushing. Don’t why, just don’t do it.

Oh and they also drive on the other side of the road.