Especially select

New Zealanders have a love of coffee, wine, water and an extraordinary, “relentless” particularity for those beverages, for dogs, sport, even driveways and beech trees, writes Peter Miller for Seattle news site Crosscut. “Water and wine is a wonderful combination of good fortune to these New Zealanders,” Miller continues. “They have both in true profusion, bright and clear, and they know well to take care of them. At L’Affare, the coffee shop in Wellington, it is like a pub with coffee only and not an inkling that perfect foam is prissy. Even out in the country, the coffee was wonderful and straightforward. The bakery in Hokitika, on the West Coast, looked like Iowa in the ’50s and the staff looked like the same Iowans, but the coffee machine was Italy 2010.”