“A Turkish official in the queue told me that Australia does very good coffee, strictly off the record, which I feel like is a soft power win.”
Drilled · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
The host and Kurmelovs were talking about a reporter sent to COP31 to scrutinize the taxpayer-funded free coffee at the Australian pavilion. Kurmelovs adds what he heard standing in the coffee queue himself.
Transcript
…full. There's a lot of interest. A lot of tables are full. Interesting though, as at least from an Australian perspective, there is a reporter from News Corp Australia who has been who seems to have been sent halfway around the world to investigate the coffee queue at the Australian Pavilion.
Well, the Australian Pavilion is well known for having the good coffee at COP. This is a thing.
Well, it is, but if you go to their socials, you see these videos of rock pops with earnest people with interesting European accents and nice soups drinking lattes and flat rights provided by the Australian taxpayer, which this reporter is suggesting is a waste of Australian taxpayer money. Although I can confirm a Turkish official in the queue told me that Australia does very good coffee, and they said that strictly off the record, which I feel like is a soft power win.
Okay, obviously, I had to go check this out for myself, and it is truly something. Here is just one of this reporter's clips from Instagram. I'm at the COP31 conference here in Turkey, and this is the Australian Pavilion. Now, this is where taxpayers are paying $32,000 for this coffee machine here…
Really good. It feels like authentic arrebiata and also happy it's for free. I want to thank you to taxpayers for this coffee and for the joy it gives me.
Well, first of all, it looks lovely, and the service was great. And it's, well, it's a long line. It seems to be the perfect attraction here in the pavilions. Thank you, Australia taxpayers. We are very grateful.
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