So today I went to the Aroma Festival. It was such a beautiful winters day for it and the crowds had flocked down to Sydney’s Circular Quay/ The Rocks to celebrate one of the things that keeps the western world turning. Coffee!

I know I am not alone in my daily need for this caffeinated beverage, and today I had my pick of some of the best and most unique coffees Sydney could muster, alone with various hot chocolate stalls and tea stalls (though really, tea at a coffee festival? A little ambitious if you ask me…).

The lines for the most popular coffee stalls run by some amazing coffee shops were huge and one could wait up to half an hour for a cup (if you could figure out where the line began). Most places sold small taster sized cups so the coffee aficionado could sample more than one stall’s frothy wares, assuming of course you had all day to wait in line.

      

After perusing the entire festival trying to decide where I would source my caffein hit for the day, I decided that rather than go for the traditional coffees, a frothy cap, or creamy late,  I would go for something more unusual. Something I would not be able to get on Monday morning at my chosen coffee shop on the way to work.

I ended up choosing a stall which was selling African style coffee from beautiful coffee pots. The women working there were beautifully dressed in white dresses and wore beautiful bright beads and they were pouring cup after cup of this unusual coffee.

Once I had my coffee I decided to find as much of a quiet spot as possible and enjoy it. And enjoy it I did. It was not your normal coffee shop coffee. It did not have fancy foam art of Barak Obama’s head or the Eiffel Tower on it. In fact it looked quite plain and unassuming, but sometimes the best thing in life do. What this coffee was, however, was thoroughly enjoyable with an earthy flavour to it and something I couldn’t quite pin down. After I had finished I decided not to seek out another coffee stall. This unique brew deserved to stand on its own.