The Storied History of New Zealand's Favourite Coffee

The flat white has long been New Zealand’s favourite cup of coffee—espresso with steamed milk, but less milk than a latte, and less foam than a cappuccino. Beyond that definition, everyone has an opinion on what makes the perfect flat white, and even where it came from.

The Aussie-Kiwi rivalry is well-known, but the addition of fighting over the invention of the flat white is somewhat recent. Back in 2015, when Starbucks added the flat white to its menu around the world, it became a hot topic.

The official Starbuck press release said that the flat white originated “in Australia in the 1980s” before migrating to the UK.

Did the flat white begin its life in Australia? According to Alan Preston, who ran a café in Sydney back in 1985, yes it did. He claims that he started offering the flat white in the Moors Espresso Bar, and that it was first inspired by a drink offered by Queensland cafes in the 60s and 70s, which they called—somewhat inelegantly—white coffee, flat.

Here in New Zealand, a few Kiwis lay claim to the drink themselves. Ex-Wellington barista Frank McInnes asserts that he made the drink up in the summer of 89, after making a cappuccino too thin, and giving it to the customer with a new name, and a few words of apology.

Many current coffee industry leaders believe yet another origin story, that of Karajoz’ Derek Townshend, who was a café culture pioneer in Auckland in the 80s, running a café called the DKD, hidden behind the Civic theatre.

Derek alleges that a friend from Melbourne came back and reported on what they were calling different coffees. According to her, a Melbourne flat white was a long black with cold milk, and it had been that way since the 60s. "I started making it [a flat white] with hot milk,” Derek says, “and I started saying to the customers, 'try this and if you don't like it I'll make you another'. Well nobody ever asked for another."

And to add one more wrinkle, there’s one more theory. Ian Bersten, founder of Sydney’s Belaroma Coffee, believes it’s more likely that the flat white as we know and love it today actually existed in England as early as the 1950s.

Bersten—who owns one of the most impressive collections of vintage coffee equipment in the world, and who is considered an expert in the history of coffee culture—has his own theory. He thinks that cheap customers in early British cafes figured out that they could ask for a flat white in order to get a bigger cappuccino for the same price.

No matter what you believe when it comes to the origin of the flat white, New Zealand still makes it better than the rest. For the best flat white in the country, try Merito coffee. Click here to visit the Merito webstore: https://merito.co.nz/collections/all