Ordering coffee is an enjoyable experience: the smell of roasting beans, the gentle MacBook tap of table-hogging “freelancers,” and that sweet procrastinatory interlude away from whatever you should actually be doing. Sure, we’ve all endured side-eye after asking for our vanilla caramel latte to be dusted with cinnamon, but underneath that carefully distressed beanie, the barista isn’t actually judging our taste in caffeinated beverages, right?
Wrong. Well, that’s if you like to get coffee from independently owned Christchurch coffee shops.
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This week, a cafe in the New Zealand town came under fire after refusing to serve low fat milk in its drinks.
As the New Zealand Herald reports, a photo shared on a local lifestyle magazine’s Facebook page revealed a sign from Lyttelton Coffee Company cafe, reading: “Don’t do trim eh … you’re fooling ya self anyway [sic].”
“Trim” is the New Zealand term for skimmed milk (“eh” appears to be another, less easily explained, Kiwism.) Basically, Lyttelton baristas will only make your Americano with the diet-ruining, full fat white stuff.
This hardline lactose stance was met with criticism from Facebook users, who accused the cafe of being rude and “more than a bit judgemental” for not offering low fat milk options. One commenter said: “I would still go there if they weren’t blatantly flaunting an attitude that they are so much better than the customer.”
Lyttelton responded to its detractors with a post explaining that their decision to forgo trim wasn’t about living up to the worst of coffee snob stereotypes, but an attempt to cut down on waste. They wrote: “It’s not that we do not want to deliver what our customers want; it is mostly about trying to produce less waste from our business. Four hundred plastic bottles each week are no longer on my back porch.”
Of course, it is kinda about whole milk’s delicious creamy taste, too. Speaking to stuff.co.nz, Lyttelton co-owner Stephen Mateer said: “None of our staff drink trim milk and we don’t drink it and we think it builds an inferior match with the product that we roast.”
While many baristas also favour full fat milk for its texture and coffee-complimenting sweetness, some fellow Christchurch cafe owners still see the crackdown on low fat options as a little extreme.
Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, Scott McLean, whose nearby coffee shop serves full fat, light, soy, and almond milk, said: “It’s no harder for us to do a light milk option. Removing light milk from the menu is not something we would do. But it’s up to each cafe to decide what they want to serve and then for customers to decide where they want to go.”
It seems Christchurch’s hemp milk-drinkers won’t have to look far for an alternative coffee hangout.
