Imagine polishing off your flat white and then having a nibble on the cup itself. Imagine that cup is made of sweet biscuity pastry. Now imagine the inside of the tart is coated in chocolate, so it melts into your mouth as you finish the coffee.
Sounds delicious and fun, right? You are not wrong. The $4 'piefee' is the brainchild of Tasteful Bakehouse, an unassuming little bakery that turns a swift trade on pies, chicken and chips and sandwiches on Auckland's Karangahape Road.
The coffee is poured into specially baked tart casings - the kind you'd normally see encasing those fruit or custard tarts that are standard fare in many New Zealand bakeries. The casing is extra thick, with a chocolate coating to protect the tart.
Attempts to modify coffees have been widly mocked on social media, from a Melbourne cafe's 'deconstructed' coffee to the avolatte, a joke taken all too seriously online. But this could be the success to the avolatte's failure.
If you like your biscuit crunchy, you'll have to drink the coffee quickly before eating the biscuity casing, baker Chamnan Ly explains.
Otherwise, take your time, allow the liquid to soak in a bit and enjoy a coffee-infused biscuit.
You can also eat the biscuit as you drink the coffee, he says.
The baker, who is known among friends and colleagues as Ly, says he is always trying out creative new ideas in the kitchen.
The original piefee was developed in February, but it wasn't an immediate success.
"I almost gave up", he told Newshub, "but then people came to try".
Now he says, a lot of people have come to try the piefee. In fact, it's been so successful he'll be releasing a new edition in a larger, thicker cup which won't need the foil casing of the original.
"It's great... It's strong coffee, but the feedback says the coffee is reasonable. The cup was small so we can't put much [coffee] in. The coffee is great in the bigger cups," he said.
At the moment, the piefee is selling for just $4 - the price of a regular coffee at many cafes.
"It takes a lot of time," Ly says, explaining that every cup is made by hand, so the current special price can only be temporary.
"We will work out the fair price," he says.
Next time you're in the neighbourhood, consider popping in for one of the Tasteful Bakehouse's special pies. There's even one 'happy pie' - a bacon and egg pie that grins up at you when you cut it open.
Newshub.
