One of my enduring memories of my service in Vietnam is that of being in a convoy way out in the boondocks resupplying a forward operation. There in the middle of nowhere, and in a potentially dangerous location, was an Australian Salvation Army Officer and his Landrover ready to serve us a cup of hot tea.
Well, we don’t drink as much tea now as we do coffee and its always nice to have a hot coffee as we travel. My preference is for a ‘Long Black’ and Jill likes a ‘Cafe Latte’ (but it must be made before 11.00 am). Nowdays, many of these coffees are provided by entrepreneurs in small mobile coffee vans that are set up in all manner of places in towns and along the highways.
I think that we have come across many of these vans by accident, but together, they make a very good story.
This one was at the entry to the town of Scone in NSW. We came across it around late morning by which time we were hanging out for a coffee. Finding it on the road side was very welcome. Not only was it nice to have a chat with the man running it, but the coffee also came in an interresting and pretty take-away coffee cup and with a chocolate ‘freckle’ placed on the lid. People our age will know what a freckle is – a 30 mm round blob of chocolate with hundreds and thousands (sprinkles) on the top.
With all respect to my American friends, the filtered coffee there has the colour, taste and texture of diluted dishwater. On our 6000 km drive through Alaska and the Yukon in 2016, we were amazed to come across a coffee shack (with espresso coffee) in the middle of nowhere. It was right at the junction of the Richardson HIghway and the road to Tok. We had the best coffee of our entire six-week trip at this place. The coffee stall was being run by a young man on behalf of his grandma who had to go away for a few days. He made such a good cup of coffee that we went back for a second one.
In the state of South Australia, the highway runs parallel to the Coorong – a series of salt lakes near the coast. They are rich in birdlife but the road is uninteresting and there are no towns for many kilometres. This coffee van saved the day with a place to rest and get revived. We arrived a few days before the owner was going to close for a few weeks for his annual holiday.
The coffee van that really reminded me of the Salvos in Vietnam was this one in a remote location along the road from Te Anau to Milford Sound in New Zealand. Cat had set up her van in a spot where there was an easily accessible parking area on a raised area at the side of the road. It was in a remote area near the famous Te Anau Downs Sheep Station, and again, a very welcome sight. She chose this location as it was an easy place to pull off the road, but more importantly, in sight of a mobile phone tower that enabled her to have an internet connection for customers to pay electronically. (Who has cash anymore?)
You can see just how well these types of vans are set up with their coffee making equipment in the photo above.
Along the coast, north of Kaikoura in New Zealnad, we came across Nin’s Bin. It actually wasn’t a coffee van, but the cafe 500 metres up the road had good coffee. I’ve snuck Nin’s Bin into this post because of its interesting family history.
Nin’s Bin was opened in 1977 by a local man, Ronald Clark and is still, fifty years later, a family run business. It’s changed over time but the nature of the business is the same as it was when Ronald first started selling cooked crayfish from his roadside caravan here, twenty minutes north of Kaikoura. Nin’s Bin’s philosophy is simple – sell fresh local sustainably caught crayfish and seafood that are cooked onsite with nothing more than fresh mineral water, except for fresh lemon and a little garlic butter. Johnny Clark, the third generaton, and Ronald’s grandson, is now operating the business.
Our award for the most ingenious and complete cafe van goes to this one in Murchison, a small town in the north of New Zealand’s south island. It operates out of an old horse float and somehow includes a pie warmer (stocked with home made pies), a chilled cabinet containing cakes and pastries and an espresso machine for making good coffee. Our stop there was well worthwhile even though it was beginning to rain.
A coffee culture has become a significant cultural phenomenon in both Australia and New Zealand. According to the National Geographic, coffee came to Australia on the first fleet in 1788, but as traditional tea drinkers, it was almost a century before coffee became part of Australian culture. Moving into the 1870s, coffee became popular due to the fashionable rise of Parisian coffee shops and the lobbying of the Temperance Movement – a movement of Christian women who protested anti-social drunken behaviour. The coffee industry has grown from independent cafes since the early 20th century and after the arrival of immigrants from Europe..
In just a short time, our coffee culture has become very different from the tea drinking days that my parents enjoyed. In their day, a cup of hot tea was an integral requirement for a conversation. Coffee only became more prevalent later in their lives. I remember, about thirty years ago, taking my mum and dad on an overnight trip that I was making for business. A cafe in a country town made mum a cafe latte using instant powdered coffee. She quickly exclaimed that it was the best cup of coffee that she had ever had in her life.
That standard of coffee making would fail miserably today and the coffee vans along the highway are easily living up to our higher expectations.
