Café latte has become the latest crave amongst Suva’s café circuit, according to the city’s top baristas. The defining element of a good brew, like all coffee, must be its consistency.
Originating from Italy and France (with variations in spelling and pronunciation), café latte – or latte as the beverage is commonly called here – is basically coffee with hot milk. Its appeal to seasoned coffee lovers lies in the combination of strong earthy coffee with creamy milk.
As Fiji Plus’ resident coffee connoisseur, I decided to slip into three of Suva’s popular cafés for a sip of the city’s latest addiction.
My first stop was at the Weta Coffee outlet located inside the Mobil Go-To service station complex on Victoria Parade. Their baristas are kept on their toes during peak hours dispensing coffee to the joint’s grab-and-go customers.
As the newest café on the block, Weta Coffee surfaced at the right time to fill the void when the Republic of Cappuccino (or ROC as Suva’s original coffee hub has become locally known) had to close down “temporarily” for renovation works.
Weta Coffee is a New Zealand franchise. Its operator, Mue Bentley explains why their latte is so popular:
“Our award winning coffee is the flat white. The taste is very smooth but it might be a little too strong for the local crowd. But the latte is quite creamy and milky. People here seem to prefer that taste.”
But, as Bentley explains, creating the right balance of cream and coffee is quite a technical skill and requires the right chemistry to produce the perfect brew. However, finding properly trained baristas who know just how many seconds each state of making latte needs to take is hard.
“It’s a great added skill to have because it will serve you well later in life so we are looking for young people who want to learn to serve great coffee.”
At 7am, when Suva is just waking up, Moments Café on the ground floor of the Dominion Building is arguably the busiest place in the capital. Although fairly new, Moments Café was built on years of foodie wisdom that its proprietors gleaned from their popular Cafe Thirty.
The café’s main attraction is a wholesome combination of international food and Pacific Islander taste and portions.
The success of Moments Cafe is in the consistent quality of coffee dispensed by its experienced baristas.
Latte is made with the right temperature of hot water streaming through well packed coffee in the espresso machine. Hot steam runs through milk to create the frothy cream which goes on top of the strong coffee. Theirs is a latte which always tastes the same strong creamy goodness.
It’s an addictive sort of goodness that some customers need a break from sometimes.
Snowy House at the Kundan Singh Village on Princess Road, Tamavua offers an alternative latte fix.
Made especially for decaf fans, instead of coffee their base is made out of organic ginger grown at the Grace Road Group’s farms in Navua.
It has the same contrasting taste of a strong earthy base topped with frothy full cream milk – or you can ask for leaner dairy. The same smooth taste but without the caffeine so you can have as much as you want of their signature latte.
