Coffee

I drink 2 cups of coffee daily and rarely after 10am so I can sleep at night. In quarantine, I had Nescafe packets which weren’t great but it was what I had and I took it in stride with everything else that was awful in quarantine.

I was told wonder stories about “magic coffee” in Melbourne and how the locals were coffee snobs. I was excited for the experience. We had to buy instant coffee for the apartment because there was no coffee maker and I needed it for emergencies. In the morning, we headed out to find the fabled coffee but found no shops open save for 7-11 and Starbucks.

A local was appalled that I drank 7-11 coffee and sent me a list of nearby shops. Nearby is relative. Since I have to walk to get coffee and I have to be at my computer by 8am, I could only find 3 options under 1.5k that opened by 7:30am.

I’ve now been to all 3 shops and ordered the same thing each time so I could compare only by location rather than have the variable of drink selection. I ordered a flat white with 2 sugars. The shop that’s furthest from me was the best. It was tucked at the bottom of a subway entrance. When I told the barista that the shop had been very hard to find, he responded that it’s better that way. As I walked away drinking my elixir, I had to admit that it was a different species from 7-11 coffee.

I found these quirky statues on my walk home.

They were representative of what I was feeling for the day.