Macchiato

Formerly used only in Italy and Seattle, it includes such tongue activators as latte, lungo, cappuccino, ristretto, macchiato, mochaccino and Americano.

Kadar Al-Jahani glanced around at the rich Romans and the American tourists sipping their macchiati and cappuccini, and smiled.

This is a city obsessed by coffee. Sydneysiders can tell their arabica from their robusta, their macchiati from their ristretti, and have been known to follow their favourite barista from café to café.

Janie and I are having a couple of macchiati in Carluccio’s and discussing Judith Levine’s best-seller Not Buying It – A Year Without Shopping.

The book’s contents are for the most part the result of scribbling on napkins over numerous macchiati and espressos away from the office at different posts over the years.

Yellow cabs whizzed past, horns blared and people didn’t stop moving as they walked briskly down the sidewalks with their steaming cups of macchiato, mobile phones and iPods.

Senior Grits will splutter into their macchiati at the very idea that political bias is at play, pointing out that the latest list includes a former female head of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs (Gwen Boniface) and the ex-head of the Ontario Securities Commission (Howard Wetston).