Happy Birthday POBB!

For some (evidently depressing) reason, I started this blog on my birthday, so today not only marks my own birthday but also the first anniversary of the Pursuit of Banana Bread! And here I am again, blogging on my birthday… Wooo? There are some very fun statistics to look at here, if you’re into that kind of thing. But if […]

First Year Wrap Up

Well, it’s been a fun and fattening year, during which I’ve really gotten to know the good, the bad and the ugly (literally) of the Newtown cafe scene, and beyond! So let’s look at the stats. I’ve visited 138 cafes over the past year. I’m pretty proud of that effort. Overall, this is what I found: Coffee Banana Bread 34% […]

What makes a good iced latte

Summertime and the livin’ is easy. The cotton is high and the coffee is iced. If only it were that simple, but the rules of coffee and everything that goes into making a good one are different when you’re trying to serve it cold. The ice waters everything down, so you need more milk and consequently at least a double […]

Cafe Training

My toddler surprised me today as he was riding his little bike around Camperdown Park. He pointed over to Store Espresso and said “I wanna get nana bread”. How could I say no? He’s actually getting to be a pretty good judge. While there are a lot of different variables at play, he’ll always get stuck into a really good […]

The aftermath of the Sydney coffee boom

Newtown was the epicentre of the Sydney coffee boom from about 2005-2010. This coincided with my uni days, while I was living in Newtown for the first time and frequenting all these groovy little cafes started by hipsters with a passion for coffee, a hoard of retro kitsch, and the naive assumption that that was all you needed. At the […]

How I feel about non-dairy milk

Soy makes everything taste like soy. I can’t taste the coffee. All I can taste is soy. It’s much less forgiving with temperature and is very easily overheated, more often than not resulting in a soy puck – that thick layer of soy foam at the bottom of your cup once your coffee has cooled. Even top-quality soy, frothed perfectly […]

What’s in a dirty chai?

A good chai is usually an in-house blend of bold spices, steamed in a good quality non-dairy milk, served through a strainer with a cinnamon quill and honey on the side. I like to sip it using the quill as a straw and let my mood dictate whether or not I add the honey. But you can’t dirty up a […]