Astoria

What feels like a normal cafe is topped by excellent service! There was a slight delay on one of our dishes and the manager gave us free coffees and fries. Where do you find such generosity? Blown away by this service and will become a regular here do sure! Also, the scrambled eggs are amazing!

At eight thirty on a Thursday morning in late September 2015 I began the search for a decent cup of tea in Wellington.
 I’m a little tired of coffee. Don’t get me wrong I love it, but its… well … overexposed. Its kinda like the Lord of the Rings, in fact the two seem inextricably linked, with marketing folk branding our city as the little coffee capital where Hobbits sip Aero press, filtered, syphon drip nicuraguan while sitting outside cafes in northwesterly gales. 

Although Wellington coffee culture presents itself as reasonably sophisticated, I don’t think it really is, we have relatively few different coffees that are single origin, organic - most are roasted by companies for mass market publication. 
At the end of the delivery line is the bearded young man, or unbearded young lady, either with tatts (a sure sign of coffee quality-I mean it), behind the espresso, manipulating their tamp and grind artistically, to the gasps of adoring espressoholics at a few cool cafes. 
Unfortunately most cafes in Wellington are very average. The presence of an Italian (or at least one with an Italian name) espresso machine is no guarantee of quality. But the best are very good, the worst abysmal. And although Hangar, Custom, Memphis can present a few different single origin beans and the occasional tasting note, the numbers aren’t large. You can’t go into many cafés (that I know of) and get a flat white from a choice of a dozen or so origins (Hangar is perhaps the best for range at the moment), and anyway the subtle distinctions may well be destroyed by the occasionally inept disinterested, person behind the machine. As well, for some consumers, coffee is simply seen as an alternative, fashionable, legal-high as opposed to a branch of gastronomy.

More complex, and just as interesting, is tea. Some of our good tea shops (t-leaf, T2, and the internet Tea-Total for example) list dozens of delicately varied single origin teas from around the world, as well as blends and flavoured teas for those who need training wheels (there are parallels with craft beer culture).

Why are there no cafes (wrong choice of word) with a dozen or so different single origin teas? Not flavoured / herb teas but real teas, single estate black teas, a variety of green teas, aged Pu-ers etc. If Wellington Hobbits really want to grow up as sophisticated connoisseurs shouldn’t they not only know what a good coffee is, but also develop some sophistication towards the complexity of single origin teas and perhaps blends.

How bad or good is tea in Wellington? Maybe it would be worthwhile finding out. I don’t pretend to be an expert, probably quite inept really, but at least someone needs to have a go.

Many of my friends say that buying tea in cafes is pointless, thinking the tea brewed at home is so much better. Perhaps therefore its psychological – we have tea at home and coffee out, and that’s that. Can a café-bought tea be just as satisfying as coffee?

So, asking the question, at 8.30am Thursday in late September 2015, my journey began … at Astoria.

The cafe was half full, and very self consciously (feeling I was going to sound wimpy in a place of coffee culture) asked for “An English Breakfast Tea ... please … and a ham and cheese roll.”

What surprised me was how quickly it arrived. Tea it seems requires little preparation, and no artistry on the part of a barrista. No longer than sixty seconds after ordering I was on my way to the table.

The tea was from the Enzo Orient Tea Company, which sounds flash. Enzo was putatively an Italian emigre who brought espresso to New Zealand and features on the labels of L’Affare coffee. This was in fact L’Affare tea, which according to google is owned by Cerebos. Enzo “yearned for the brew of espresso” but I’m uncertain whether he knew anything about tea.

Astoria had a range of teas from Enzo the emigre, but only one unflavoured black tea (English breakfast). There was an Earl Grey, a green tea and the other eight or so were flavoured (so of course is Earl Grey).

Astoria is a lovely café, no question … nice, cosy European feel, amber lighting, burgundy and yellow walls with duck egg blue ceiling, concrete floors, the sounds of coffee being knocked out of its portafilter and enough clatter and conversation to give the place a nice buzz. Its invariably busy through the day, business meetings, clandestine meetings, folk reading the paper – and me drinking an English Breakfast Tea.

The tea came in a steel pot fitted with an interior sieve. Into the sieve the Enzo loose leaf tea had been spooned.

I waited 5 minutes given that it was loose leaf rather than tea bag. With a little milk in the cup I then poured the tea - a cup of flavourless milky water, a grey brown colour. Clearly the amount of tea was inadequate for the quantity of water. Or perhaps this is what Wellington punters actually want – if so they deserve it!

The ham and cheese roll was OK but the pale, soft, flabby bread wasn’t great, I would have preferred some sort of crust – perhaps that’s just me.

I gave the pot of tea another ten minutes and it was still thin. Possibly the water level had fallen below the sieve, I don’t know but that didn’t really matter – whoever made the tea in those 60 seconds, or dictated the quantity to add, had no idea how to make tea.

Day one … and not a brilliant start.

PS. My zomato rating of Astoria is not based upon the tea, but my experience over many visits, over many years … drinking (and enjoying) their coffee.

PPS. Eventually I do find a really good cup of tea in Wellington (one to rival coffee), but it takes quite a few goes and quite a few tomato reviews before I get to it.

For assessing the tea, I used a crude scoring system: 6 assessments, each with 0 worst, 5 best):

1. Specialist tea offerings (the variety of unflavoured teas): 1/5
2. 
2. Brew temperature (the likelihood that the tea was brewed with near boiling water): 5/5
3. 
3. Cup temperature (how much of a heat sink was the cup – a thick, cold pottery cup scores 0, a warm thin china cup scores 5): 2/5
4. 
4. Milk requirements (was I asked about milk and what type of milk): 0/5
5. 
5. Strength (too weak or strong =0, just right = 5): 2/5
6. 
5. Taste (bad=0, excellent=5): 1/5

Astoria Total 11/30

My Suggestion: Do Enzo a favour and get the tea/water ratio right.

My next stop is Soho Brown in the CBD.

Friday night drinks after work on a cooler and slightly damp evening...some would say normal Welly weather.

The snacks menu looked interesting; bit fancier than pub snacks. We had the Polenta and Rosemary Chips and normal french fries along with a couple of beers and a couple of ciders.

Can't fault the service; really friendly staff. The snacks we had were good and past experience of the menu has been good

They don't have menus to take back to the table (that we could see) so that would could be useful for groups that are sharing snacks and can't easily see the counter menu that hangs. Also would be great to have some outdoor heaters to take the chill off.

A timeless dining room with leather couches and Brentwood chairs, the menu shows an eclectic mix of modern classic cuisine as well as food origins. We enjoy outstanding House-smoked salmon served over a quinoa, seed, caper, mint and rocket salad with cumin yoghurt (20), and Zahtar chicken escalope with puy lentil, argula, mint, pomegranate and sunflower salad. Service is friendly and efficient, providing a business lunch hour haven for city workers.

Review for Astoria Cafe.
I have been a happy regular for many years at Astoria the large open spaces and excellent coffee add to its unique charm among Wellingtonians.

The staff however are the key point of difference compared to other cafes .

They are very friendly , obliging and professional especially the Managers Perrin Thomas and Steve Keith are extremely proficient and nothing is a problem their energy is amazing.

The coffee is great and I am spoilt which is why I tip .

Special acknowledgement to Josh ,Tom and Emma for the great coffee

When you arrive and are recognised by the staff from weeks ago...Great! When they remember your drink of choice... outstanding! After a while the staff become like family, focused on making good choices for you if you want them to. Thank you Wen, Alex, Olly, Sam and Josh.

One of my favourite cafe in Wellington with great atmosphere. Little busy at times which makes it difficult to find the table, but staff is very friendly. Great coffee and breakfast / brunch options.

Excellent service and coffee. The full breakfast comes with top notch house made baked beans and a truly delicious sausage; my chief complaint is that there wasn't more sausages! The bacon is meat but a little dry, and the eggs need a touch longer in my opinion, but I greatly recommend this place.

Great atmosphere, food and coffee were great. Close too town centre and shopping.

4 cheese pizza was packed with quality cheese and the crudités was also very good. Service was excellent. Great vibe and popular with after work crowd.