Oxfam's Biggest Coffee Break

One of the first things you notice after moving to New Zealand is Kiwi's love affair with the roasted coffee bean. New Zealand is one of the largest per capita coffee consumers in the world and not only are there cafes and coffee kiosks wherever you go, there are plenty of roaster's producing their own blends too. It seems most of us from the group have grown a big 'coffee tooth' since moving to New Zealand as our regular monthly children free 'coffee and cake' event is usually super popular.

Last Friday night we tried to blend into this Kiwi coffee blend craziness again - this time with a bit of Fair Trade flavour sprinkled on top.  We met at Branka's place to mark Oxfam’s Biggest Coffee Break http://www.oxfamcoffeebreak.org.nz/. This is an annual event which takes place during Fair Trade Fortnight (May 7-22), and aims at raising awareness of Fair Trade in New Zealand as well as money for Oxfam's work.

While there appear to be almost indefinite ways you could have your New Zealand cuppa - late, soy late, flat black, long black, flat white, mochocinno, cappochino, espresso - we joined with a standard homely 'coffee with milk' style. For the ones whose 'coffee tooth' still didn't come out, there was a fair trade hot chocolate and of course some homemade cakes.  We also watched "Living with Coffee", a documentary about Colombian coffee producers and NZ coffee roasters and have raised NZ$60 for Oxfam.