seven rules of Sydney amora safari

Love is a pain especially when it comes to life and death.  Craving for love has mercilessly sent me to hell for so many times that I promised myself a do-not-return.  

I moved to Sydney two years ago.  The first life-saving mission after landing in the city was to search for my love, the most desirable dark beverage on the globe - COFFEE!  To survive in the new environment, I planed to locate drinkable coffee in a short period of time.  (clock was clicking!!) I needed a strategy, a few simple rules to determine if a shop is worth risking my taste buds before walking in.  Here were my rules:

1. Don’t bother if there is no que (quite obvious right?), but don’t go in when there is a long que. (the mass produced is usually not as delicate as the hand crafted)
2. Never trust coffee in good restaurants or 5 star hotels.   They are too busy with serving foods or housekeeping to cup a good coffee.  I skip “food” courts for the same reason.  
3. A good location doesn’t assure you a nice cup.  (why would I bother to make good coffee if I owned a shop in a lobby of office building?  traffic would be busy regardless!)
4. Be brand conscious but not brand blind.  Good brand doesn’t necessary make a good coffee, while crappy brands guaranty you a terrible drink.  (no commercial.  figure out your favorite by yourself.)
5. Robust and clean machines.  I can’t image a good cup coming from a messy grinder or a tiny domestic coffee machine.
6. a passionate but not a “cool” barista.  The former knows what s/he is doing, while the latter knows how s/he is performing.  (for the similar reason, I don’t walk in a coffee shop where a charming girl is making coffee!  Mum said never trust pretty girls, and my heart-breaking experiences told me that she was right...)

last but not least, never trust any words on internet... uhhh.... so you shouldn’t trust mine either!