Things you should know #6

Get salty with your coffee; Wellington mag runs a cynical popularity contest; Flight Attendants are grot (apparently).

May 15, 2023

Tēnā koutou whānau. I hope everyone has survived the lastest wet weather. It seems that the two constants in life are unpredictable, wild weather, and getting an email from The Magic Roast every Tuesday. Here are some things you should know.

In this week’s edition: Get salty with your coffee; Wellington mag runs a cynical popularity contest; Flight Attendants are grot (apparently).

Get salty with your coffee

Have you ever thought about adding a bit of salt to your coffee? No doubt, this is the furthest thing from your mind. But it’s a thing and it’s worth a hoon.

Science time. Your tongue is magic and detects a heck of a lot of different things in our food and drink. Different parts of the tongue detects different compounds.

There’s a part of your tongue that detects bitterness. Salt binds to those taste buds, reducing its ability to taste bitter things.

Bitter things like reaaaaaaaly bad coffee.

This article from Perfect Daily Grind goes on to say:

“The addition of salt in coffee dampens bitterness without using other additives,” [Sara Marquart] says. “Salt naturally brings out the sweetness of coffee and maintains pleasant aromas. If people are sensitive to bitterness, even in specialty coffee, adding salt is a good alternative to using milk and sugar.”

When would you use this magic tip? If you have no choice but to drink the most stale, over extracted, bitter cup of the black stuff, add some salt to save your taste buds.

Only a little bit though. Learn more by watching this James Hoffmann video.

Capital Best of Wellington 2023

Capital Magazine is back with their ‘best of’ popularity contest. It’s your annual chance to vote for the businesses you think are top of the pops in Wellington.

At its core these sorts of polls are probably okay. However they are often biased towards what is the most popular, rather than what is the best. And in a town like Wellington, we all know what that can cause…

The nominees for best coffee and best cafe are:

Best coffee

Caffe L’affare
Coffee Cave
Coffee Supreme
*Frank’s Coffee*
Good Fortune Coffee Co.
Havana Coffee Works
Mojo
Revive Espresso
Skunkworks Coffee
Three Quarter Society

Best cafe

Arobake
Bellbird Eatery
Black Coffee
Caffe L’affare
Coffee Cave
Evil Twins
*Frank’s*
House of Good Fortune
Lunch Money
Squirrel

The winner will be whomever the public thinks deserves the publicity and the limelight. Either that, or it’ll be the one with the most resourced and well organised comms and marketing team…

It’s all a bit cynical and pointless, but go and make sure Frank’s gets your vote, before 3 July.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Things you should know.

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Be careful with hotel coffee makers…

Now, this might be complete horse shite, but holy moly this story is wild.

Bon appetit is reporting that flight attendants may use hotel coffee makers, like a plunger, to CLEAN THEIR UNDERWEAR.

“According to many flight attendants, your hotel coffee pot might have been used for more than just brewing coffee. “Many senior mamas like to tell horror stories about in-room coffee pots being used to rinse pantyhose, among other things.”

In equal parts I hope this is both true and un-true. In reality it’s probably a wives tale, but oh my, how great is this!

Spruge had a few things to say about the whole thing as well.

Good times!

Have a wonderful week.

If the rain is bringing you down, keep this whakatukī close to hand:

E tūtaki ana ngā kapua

o te rangi, kei runga te

Mangōroa e kōpae pū ana

The clouds in the sky gather, but above them extends the Milky Way.