Bravo scored highly on taste but the coffee was soured by poor front line service. The Med scored poorly on taste and value for money.
Consumers do well to seek bang for their coffee dollar. The survey reveals that there is no standard cost, size and quality in coffee served in local cafes.
The cost of a regular flat white varied from the cheapest, $3.50 at Grindz, to the most expensive, $5 at Bravo. This price variance of $1.50 equates to $7.50 a week or a saving of $390 a year (based on buying a coffee five days a week, 52 weeks a year).
There was a huge variance in the cup size that the cafes categorised as "regular" - varying from the smallest volume, 280ml at The Med, to the largest volume, 400ml at Bravo.
The cost did not directly equate to cup size - the Med's cup of 280ml at $4, was 50 cents more expensive than the 300ml serving at Grindz.
Taste can be dependent on the brand of coffee used, which has been recorded in the survey. Taste also depends on the skill of the barista making the coffee. Karajoz coffee representative and barista coach Justin Hoyland said: "Taste depends on the craft of the barista operating the machine".
The Med's owner Joanne Brown said: "We invest in high-quality baristas who know how to operate a manual machine as opposed to minimum wage operators who are just pushing buttons on an automatic machine."
Despite Ms Brown's claim that this affects the quality of the coffee, the coffee in our survey in the Med rated poorest on taste.
Barista Troy O'Rourke at The Terrace is currently ranked eighth in New Zealand, following the recent New Zealand Barista Championships 2012. He agreed that making a good coffee was an art.
"The barista has a lot to do with how the coffee tastes. Espresso machines are not intelligent, you have to know the right extraction method," he said.
For our survey Mr O'Rourke was making his first coffee of the day and said that even this could affect quality.
"A good coffee can even come down to how warmed up the barista's hands are. It even comes down to how he or she is feeling."
If that is true, Mr O'Rourke must have been having a good morning, because his coffee came out tops in our taste survey.
In terms of ambience, this can be subjective as everyone has their coffee haunt where they feel most at home.
Coffee lover MP Simon Bridges said that for him taste was not the main factor in where he went.
"I tend to go to a place for the atmosphere and to be honest I can't really tell much difference in the coffee taste, although Natalie can."
Grindz coffee is excellent but it is also a place that parents choose as it has excellent facilities for children.
Speed is also an issue, particularly if you are buying your coffee in a hurry on the way to work. The coffee took just over a minute at Grindz but more than five minutes at Robert Harris.
Yet there is one element of our survey that café owners cannot afford to get wrong: Service.
Robert Harris coffee was good but not amazing. However, I would go there again because of the ambience and friendly service.
Bravo coffee was my second place to The Terrace in the taste of the coffee, but the front line service, that is the staff person who served us, was not the standard I expect.
I am not in a hurry to go back again which is a pity because on the way out we chatted to Bravo's Maitre d Briony Ward and owner Jack Hogg who were the epitome of good service.
In response Nancy Hogg said: "I am really saddened that Annemarie won't be back. We have a great number of coffee cards in our club, and we get it right most of the time."
In this survey, the coffee cup goes to The Terrace for an outstanding cup of coffee made by a professional, friendly barista.
See today's Bay of Plenty Times for the full Flat White Test.
