A British man on a mission to find the best flat white in the world is currently putting New Zealand to the test.
The content creator, who goes by the name Flat White Frank, has spent the last three weeks sampling brews in Wellington and Auckland. He will head to the Christchurch and Queenstown next.
The 28-year-old, who wants to keep his real name under wraps, told RNZ the best flat white he'd had here so far was at Wellington café, Frank's.
"[Frank the cafe owner] made me his house espresso, which was like amazing.
"It was like an 8 .... out of 10, and then he made me another flat white with a Colombian coffee they had, but it was a coffee that was fermented in passionfruit... it was just something else, it was insane."
'Flat White Frank' spent his 20s living in London, working in various coffee aligned gigs - as a barista, at a roastery and for a big coffee machine company. He started to pick up some content creation work and merged the two at the end of November 2024 - coming up with the concept for the social media account.
"Some people online are reviewing Guinness, they're reviewing beer, they're reviewing wine, they're reviewing food ... no one's doing coffee," he recalls.
"I was like now's the time 'cos in the UK in particular - it's a bit different here - which is what I found out, but the whole specialty coffee scene is starting to grow so ... you're getting more and more and more good coffee spots now. But people need to know where to find them.
"... I was like if I don't do it, someone else will... Someone told me once you've gotta nail your niche, so I was like, look, I'm gonna choose the flat white."
Nearly 18,000 people follow 'Flat White Frank' on Instagram, with another 12,000 or so on TikTok. He puts the interest in his videos down to simplicity - no technical coffee machine chat about gauges and the like.
"I'll drink the coffee and I'll tell you how it tastes."
Most of his sampling has been around the UK and Ireland so far, with plans to head to Australia soon - where he wants to dig into the debate that Melbourne claims to have invented the flat white: "The Kiwis are telling me it's from here. The Aussies are telling me it's from Australia, from Melbourne."
The best flat white he's had so far still stands at a cafe called Nostos, in Battersea, London. The £8 coffee was "a very boozy, fruity coffee bean and the milk was freeze distilled ... It blew my socks off".
What is a flat white? 'Flat White Frank' explains: "To my knowledge - and I think you guys agree - but it's apparently a little bit different in Australia. A flat white is a double-shot of espresso in a six-ounce cup, filled up with silky, paint-like, texturised milk".
While we might not come out on the top of Flat White Frank's leaderboard, the odds of finding a good one are greater in New Zealand he says.
"The difference is that your average coffee is better here than in London.
"... Places where you'd expect to get a bad coffee in the UK, here you'll get a decent coffee, so that's good."
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