Deborah Faith: Time to break free of the land of the long flat white

Opinion

Do you remember that scene in L.A. Story? Steve Martin is sitting with a group of friends at a cafe ordering a crazy round of coffees: "Make mine a double-decaff soy latte - hold the soy ... "

The neurotic conformity and precision of it all seemed funny at the time. So LA dahling.

But the world does a few spins and there I am in a Grey Lynn cafe hearing more or less the same dialogue, and it's not played for laughs. This time it's for real.

We Aucklanders love our coffee. We have even started painting our houses to match our caffeine preferences. A stroll through my local streets shows the selection: villas and bungalows all lattes and flat whites, with the occasional long black or cappuccino (passe) popping up.

What happened?

I grew up in a 50s New Zealand cream-and-white weatherboard, red or green tin roof and fence.

Like many of my generation I left the country as soon as I could and lived in London for several years. I remember returning briefly once in the 80s and being thrilled at the sunburst of colour that the Pacifica renaissance brought.

The bland suburban streets of my youth were now riotous reds, turquoise, green, magenta. For me, on a steady diet of Northern Hemisphere greys and dull browns, it was heady stuff.

All those colours, some the most weird combinations, bright flags of confidence and pleasure in the hard New Zealand light. Even tin butterflies were making their own little comeback.

It was then that I fell irrevocably in love with my own country, and with Auckland in particular.

Who could resist such a tawdry shameless hussy with her circus-coloured suburbs and her naughty protest songs, such as French Letter. I was smitten, bitten and vowed to return to make my very own orange and purple Grey Lynn villa where I would have a garden of roses, California daisies and tree ferns; to hell with Capability Brown and a tasteful colour palette.

So years later here I am, holed up in Westmere, with an energetic pup who makes me pound the pavements at least once a day. But where is all the colour? Lamington pinks now painted over with endless shades of dreary taupe, cosmos and calla lilies hurriedly uprooted in favour of river stones and yuccas. Yuk.

It's as if we have corporatised ourselves. In true New Zealand style we have taken the phrase cafe/coffee culture too literally and thought it meant everything should be coffee-coloured: our houses and gardens, our furnishings and dinner sets. Even our damn tea-towels have been infected.

Well, there's only one solution. Move aside you smoothies, fluffies and lattes. Let's all cheer for the return of the great New Zealand milkshake. Let's make it de rigueur to be seen (and heard) noisily sucking away at one of those gorgeous creamy, icy cold and brightly coloured drinks that we all still have a sneaking fondness for.

And, as we stare dreamily into their lime green or raspberry depths, maybe we'll be planning a little home decoration.

* Deborah Faith is a writer of Westmere.