More great cafe cities

culinary cultures — By Bob Riel on March 16, 2009 at 7:01 am

If you recall, I recently wrote about some of my favorite cafe cities around the world. Well, now World Hum has come out with the very same story. Hmmm, maybe I should have submitted my idea there first? In any case, they have an intriguing list that includes some overlap with my choices (Rome, Vienna and Buenos Aires) as well as four other worthy cities, two of which I haven’t yet experienced. Here is an excerpt from World Hum’s take on those last two cities – Melbourne, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand.

Melbourne- Australians are fiercely independent when it comes to their java, and Melbourne’s residents even more so. Perhaps the best proof of Melbournian pride in the city’s independent coffee culture came in 2008, when Starbucks was forced to close 16 Melbourne outlets (and scores more throughout Australia) after failing to make robust enough inroads into Australia’s entrenched coffee culture.

Wellington- No surprise that New Zealand’s arts and culture capital is also the most atmospheric city in the Land of the Long White Cloud for enjoying a classic Kiwi coffee drink such as a long black (New Zealand speak for a double shot of espresso over hot water). In the 1950s, there was a bonafide movement by immigrants and locals in Wellington to promote European-inspired coffee culture as an alternative to New Zealand’s rugby racing and beer leanings. Now windy Wellington boasts a roster of esteemed local roasters…And Wellington is said to have more cafés per capita than New York City, so finding a good café, as they say in New Zealand, is “easy as.”

Check out the World Hum article for their entire list. That makes 11 fine cafe cities now between my list and World Hum’s list. What other cities do you think belong here?