I’m Sharon Wong, a designer at Vox Media and this is my coffee confession.
I am a coffee-addict, but only for the good, creamy, not-so-acidic liquid-gold kind. I never liked coffee until my barista friend showed me the glorious tastes of a cup of well-made coffee— and now I am ruined. I can only drink the best.
Where do you get your coffee? I rarely make coffee at home for the reason that I live and work near coffee shops that make to-die-for flat whites.
The two most frequent haunts for me are:
Culture Espresso on 38th street between 5th and 6th Ave. My friends makes coffee from a roaster in Portland, Heart, that uses the best green coffee mainly from Central America, South America and Africa; roasted to the lightest degree, while fully developing complex flavours and bringing out delicate clarity.
Toby’s Estate on N 6th Street Williamsburg is the other of my haunts. Originating from my home country of Australia, they are roasters that produce high quality sustainably source coffee that have single origin beans, blends and decaf. Coffee that is both smooth and high quality but also sustainable and environmentally conscious.
How much do you drink coffee? Every Morning. Hard to kick start my day without it.
How do you like your coffee? Flat whites is my preference for coffee. Cortados a close second.
How i like my traditional Flat white: in a 1:3 ratio of espresso to milk, made with two ristretto shots of espresso topped with stretched and texturized milk. The milk is prepared by steaming air into the milk and folding the top layer into the lower layers.
To achieve the "flat", non-frothy texture the steamed milk is poured from the bottom of the jug, holding back the lighter froth on the top in order to access milk with smaller bubbles, making the drink smooth and velvety in texture. This leads to a white coffee with the crema on top still intact. The drink was traditionally served in a 150-160ml ceramic cup. The best coffee doesn’t need sugar :)
Coffee companions
I love my Keep Cup. A product that is designed and made in Australia with sustainability in mind. It helps reduce the impact of daily cups of coffee, plus… BONUS! its recyclable at the end of its life. Here’s some info from their site.
"International Paper estimates that annually in the United States. Over 58 billion disposable cups are discarded to landfill; that is, 158 disposable cups for every US inhabitant."
Consumer rubbish has increased tenfold over the twentieth century, from 92 to 1242 pounds of product waste per person per year. This means we discard approximately 14.4 times our body weight in waste annually.
Dream item you can add to your setup? hmmm… not sure… open to ideas…