Hi Stranger is a cafe at 604 Pollen Street in Thames, on the town's main strip, and holds a 4.6 rating on Google. New Zealand cafes are held to a high coffee standard, and the surest test of a good one is the espresso itself: a flat white with milk textured by hand, beans roasted recently rather than sitting in the hopper. The cabinet matters just as much — scones, slices and filled rolls show what the kitchen cares about, and what is left by mid-morning shows what the regulars think. In a small town the cafe doubles as a community room, weekday mornings belonging to locals and weekends to travellers off the highway. On Pollen Street in the heart of town, Hi Stranger sits right in that mix — a stop for coffee before the shops, or the drive up the peninsula.