Lately I’ve been frothing my own milk at the office. Anna gave me the frother and a French press. I’d mentioned to her one day that I’d had a not-so-good cup of coffee at work. We had been using espresso ground coffee for a French press, and if you know anything about coffee, you will know that espresso ground is way too fine for a French press (called a plunger—more Aussie lingo). Espresso grind is too fine to be pushed down completely by the mesh part of the plunger, so you end up with a lot of grounds in your what-would-otherwise-be a very nice cup’a joe.
I’d explained to Anna that I had figured out that this was why my cup of coffee really wasn’t that good, and she of course made all sorts of umm and ahh and hmm sounds and decided that I should just take her French press to the office. No, that’s not necessary, I told her. It wasn’t the plunger, anyways, it was the fineness of coffee grind.
Within minutes Anna had pulled out a green Wooly’s shopping bag and was filling it with every miscellaneous item she could see: the French press, a milk frother, an old orange, a bag of almonds and cashews, and the entire kitchen sink (which wasn’t an easy thing to fit into the Wooly’s bag).
I decided not to even fight it. It was nothing more than unnecessary, and why do we so often fight kindness anyways? Anna even stopped at Gloria Jean’s on the way to taking me to the office just to get me a bag of fresh ground (course for plungers) coffee.
About a week later, Sue, the assistant director, was making some coffee for afternoon tea and, upon opening the cupboard, exclaimed, “Why are there so many plungers in here?”
“One’s actually a milk frother,” I told her and left it at that.
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Other coffee terms I’ve learned while living in Australia:
- Flat white–a latte with all the foam from the milk strained off
- Short black–basically just a shot of espresso
It’s practically impossible to just buy a “regular” cup of coffee here. I tried to order one my first morning (literally just off the plane), and the waitress just stared at me until I realized I had only told her the size. (“And a regular coffee, please.”) I fumbled around with my menu looking frantically for whatever it was that I was missing as the waitress waited patiently (she might have been trying to analyze my accent). ”A, um, regular…” I drew out the last syllable as my eyes darted around the page “…cappuccino, please.” A while later, I got a nice frothy cup of coffee with chocolate powder sprinkled on it which, because it had melted, actually made the foam look like it had been burnt. I was hesitant to have the first drink, but it ended up being absolutely delicious.
