KEY POINTS:
If it exists, you can find it in New York, they say. But if it's a decent cup of coffee you're after, it's going to take a bit of searching.
A New York journalist filed a piece from the 2000 Olympics complaining that you couldn't get a good cup of coffee in Sydney.
This occasioned much hilarity in the city which, with Melbourne, does the best coffee outside Italy. But the more charitable observers explained that the American was at a disadvantage: she wouldn't recognise a good cup of coffee if it spilt in her lap.
Coffee is the fuel on which New York runs. People walk and ride the subway with takeaway cups held in heat-shielding hoops. But no fan of decent espresso would dignify it with the name. In the city where it is distastefully referred to, preferably in a Brooklyn accent, as "a cup of [morning] Joe", the coffee is disgorged from great urns on the counter of every deli in town.
It might be flavoured with caramel or hazelnut, but you just know the news is all bad when you see the busboy filling the urn with the jug of weak drip-filter Kona: it's coffee, but not as we know it.
We soon gave up asking around when our queries were met with a puzzled stare and directions to the nearest Starbucks. But hopeless caffeine addicts need not despair: the city doesn't have to be crossed off your "must-visit" list.
A bit of online research before you arrive will pay off (a good place to start is cupofnyc.com), but be prepared to wear out shoe leather, too. We did enjoy Oren's Daily Roast , which has nine Manhattan outlets.
And if you're near Hell's Kitchen, go to Bis.Co Latte at 667 10th Ave near 47th St. It doesn't look like much, but the coffee is good and they make great biscotti. Ask for Holly. Tell her you're from New Zealand. She knows where all the good Italian food is, too.
