March 15, 2013
Coffee Here, and Coffee There: How Different People Serve the World’s Favorite Hot Drink
Travelers must be accepting of all tastes and flavors encountered along the way—but it may be difficult to argue that Italian espresso is anything but superior to all other manifestations of coffee. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Brian Legate.
Few people anywhere begin the day without a hot drink. Chocolate and tea are popular morning jump-starters. Yerba maté, famously Argentinean, is gaining a reputation globally. Some people contrive creative blends of apple cider vinegar, herbs and honey. But coffee dominates the morning hour in every time zone. While the plant that produces the beans is native to tropical east Africa, two main species of coffee—Coffea arabica and C. canephora, or C. robusta—are now grown in nearly every tropical region. Brazil and Vietnam lead production, which amounts globally to more than 150 million 132-pound bags per year (PDF). Consumption is rising, and though coffee is far from being the world’s largest crop, it is now the second most demanded commodity after oil.
But for its simplicity in its raw state and its ubiquity in almost every culture, coffee takes a wide and unpredictable range of forms throughout the world. Here is a sampling, both bitter and sweet, of some of the regional renditions of the world’s favorite hot drink.
Italy. Perhaps nobody does coffee better than Italy. Though located many lines of latitude north of muggy coffee country, Italy has somehow attained the position of coffee lord and master. It’s here that the espresso machine had its birth, and it’s here that a coffee lover can enter nearly any establishment, whether a slick Neapolitan bar or a small nameless café in the remote Abruggio, and expect no less than the brown-black best. Never fear of instant coffee, for “cafe” in Italy is synonymous with “espresso.” Add milk, and the door to the frothy, creamy world of Italian coffee drinks opens wide. No doubt, we all owe our finest a.m. pleasures to Italy. Trivia: Espresso is big business and espresso machines serious investments—costing as much as $40,000.
Ethiopia. This is where it all began. Ethiopia is the heart of coffee country, native homeland to the Coffea genus, and people here have been drinking coffee for more then 1,000 years. Today, coffee—called buna—is still made and served in a traditional table-side ritual that transforms the beans from raw red cherries into toasty, steaming drink, often all before the guest’s eyes. The process can last more than an hour, as the host toasts, grinds and boils the coffee before serving.
A coffee ceremony underway in Ethiopia, where beans are toasted, ground, boiled and served in one sitting. Photo courtesy of Flickr user babasteve.
Spain. The wayfarer in Spain, rising from his bedroll on a frosty September morning and eager for warmth and company, must look no farther than the nearest church steeple. For that cross indicates that a café dwells at ground level in the plaza. There, the old men are already gathering, whether Monday or Sunday, and the silvery, steel machine is already hissing away. Go! The establishment, almost always, is called “Cafe Bar” and by 6 a.m. is buzzing with caffeine and activity. Many take their their coffee standing at the bar with a hand in their pocket. If you want milk, please don’t order a latte. Cafe con leche is your ticket. Be warned: Long sit-ins at coffee bars may still be a foreign idea in parts of rural Spain. Several years ago, in the Picos de Europa, I ordered a second coffee while letting my camera battery charge in a small café. The place was nearly empty, yet the barkeeper decided she’d had enough of me after 40 minutes. She unplugged my device, slid it across the table and pointed to the door. She all but kicked me in the rear as I hobbled out. I didn’t even have time to leave a tip.
United States. America has gained an irrepressible taste for the inky black juice of the espresso machine. But “gas station coffee,” the type that one may spot in the roadside diner by the register, ominously tea-colored and brewed hours before, is still a symbol of Americana and proudly drips from Mr. Coffee lookalikes everywhere. At the other end of the spectrum are the massive high-calorie coffee drinks innovated by Starbucks, containing varying mixes of espresso, caramel, whipped cream, chocolate, eggnog and other ingredients. The presence of such milkshake-like drinks seems to have even spurred a reaction in places. So we see, in the occasional bakery café, a note on the menu reading, “Just good, old-fashioned drip coffee,” as though we ought to be relieved.
In Turkey, coffee comes most commonly as Nescafé 3 in 1 instant coffee packets, consisting of coffee granules, dehydrated milk and sugar, among many other ingredients in fine print on the packet. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Rafiq Mirza.
Turkey. Turkey’s favorite drink is tea, called “chai,” yet coffee is available here. In Istanbul, espresso and the associated lattes and cappuccinos are commonplace, while in the countryside, Nescafé rules—usually poured from 3 in 1 packets of instant coffee, sugar and artificial dried milk. True Turkish coffee, served in espresso-like cups, can be surprisingly hard to find. Note that what the Turks call “Turkish coffee,” the Greeks call “Greek coffee” and the Georgians “Georgian coffee.” But it’s all the same stuff—thick, gritty, tar-black juice like the emissions of a malfunctioning espresso machine. It is almost always served sweet.
Greece. The favorite coffee drink in Greece is the frappe. Made using Nescafé, a frappe is a frothed-up blend of milk, sugar and Nescafé, served over ice. The drink can be had with or without sugar, but on a warm summer day in the islands, the ice is the essence of a frappe. This is at least one instant coffee rendition that’s easy to love.
Baja California. In Baja, “coffee” seems almost to mean “hello.” Nearly every other day, during my years of Baja wandering with spear and backpack a decade ago, some strange man or woman would appear out of a shack on the dirt road ahead, wave to me and call out, “Cafe?!” Thus, I often found myself seated on a broken plastic chair or an upturned fishing bucket under a tree while my host boiled water on a mesquite fire and spooned out the Nescafé. That’s right: The drink is almost always instant coffee granules, and while the coffee itself is nothing to write home about, it’s the gesture that counts in the sparsely peopled cowboy country of Baja.
Ireland. It’s little surprise that Ireland, land of cheery pubs and frosty nights, is where coffee first got really fun. The Irish coffee was invented in the 1940s and is now a cocktail served in bars worldwide. It contains hot coffee, whiskey, sugar and whipped cream, and, while traditionally an after-dinner drink, Irish coffee may be hard to argue with on a chilly morning. But Irish coffee may not suit all tastes. Years ago, a friend of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s former travel writer Stanton Delaplane reportedly said that Irish coffee ruins three good drinks—whiskey, coffee and cream.
The Irish coffee combines coffee, cream and whiskey—and in some opinions ruins all three. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Erin Rupe Sweeney.
Vietnam. Many of us aren’t fans of sweet coffee, but Vietnamese iced coffee is delicious. Coffee drinking arrived in Vietnam with the French in the 1800s, and the local palates quickly shaped their own interpretation of the drink. Fresh milk in Vietnam was not as available as it is in the pasture lands of France, and so the cafe au lait took a sharp evolutionary turn: The Vietnamese poured their coffee over sweetened condensed milk—from a can—and served the drink over ice.
Ecuador. All bets are off when ordering coffee in Ecuador. Unless you request otherwise, they may pre-sweeten the drink for you. And if you ask for a cafe con leche, what you’ll get is a mug filled entirely with steaming hot milk, served beside a jar of instant coffee granules. And if you ask your host whether they’re serving Nescafé, they may say no—but not because they’re making coffee in a French press but simply because they are serving some other brand of instant coffee, like Buendia or PresCafe. And even in a swanky countryside bed and breakfast fitted with a dazzling espresso machine, if you order a cappuccino, they might reach for the sweetened mocha packets in the cupboard. Stay vigilant. Still other times, real coffee is available in Ecuador (they grow the stuff; why shouldn’t they serve it?) offered as cafe filtrado. Pounce on it while you can!
The destiny of these unharvested coffee beans is unknown and a long way away. The fruits could wind up in nearly any country on earth, in any of dozens of different forms of the drink we call coffee. Photo courtesy of Flickr user John Pavelka.
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I can add Scotland to your list! As an American used to my morning cup or three, I was in for a shock when I spent 6 months in a place where ordering “a cup of coffee” was often met with a blank stare and a response of “what kind?” The word “coffee” just has a lot of different definitions there. Depending on where you go, you might get instant (black or white, where white might mean real milk, or some kind of fake creamer mixed in with the instant coffee), you might get Americano, a French press, or you might be told that your options are latte or cappuccino. Of course there are Starbucks and some other chains that do the standard array of flavored lattes and such, but it was hard to find drip coffee as part of a menu anywhere else. I couldn’t even find a place to buy a coffee maker for at home and ended up ordering one from Amazon at more than twice the price I’d have paid in the US.
Your mileage may vary. That was just my experience.
I always look for the place with the espresso machine. Usually, those are the establishments that can be trusted with the most important part of the morning!
Ordering coffee in Australia and New Zealand can be a challenge (and when an antipodian comes to the states it can make for an interesting experience ordering coffee). They have names like “Long black” and “flat white” for americanos and lattes.
You also get interesting coffee in the United Arab Emirates. The coffee is served in very small cups (like espresso cups) but is quite weak though nicely spiced with cardamon (and maybe some other things).
I enjoyed this post- thanks!
@victoria – The arab coffee is sort of like turkish coffee, served thick, strong and full of grounds – though they spice it with cardamom as you say, and add a drop of camel’s milk. If you say it is weak – that’s probably because they weaken it for foreigners.
Coffee is something of a ritual in south india too – where they grow some excellent arabica. Supposed to have come to India when a muslim holy man called baba budan arrived from arabia with seven coffee beans tucked into his belt, because various middle eastern countries back then had embargoed the export of coffee beans, afraid that if the beans leaked out, other countries would start to grow them and damage the monopoly they had.
In India, monsoon malabar coffee is distinctive – and came about because the British and other European traders would pack green coffee beans into sacks and store them in the damp and airless holds of their ships, on long voyages .. these days the process is much better controlled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsooned_Malabar
In Laos they make hot coffee, brewed in a conical sieve that sits in the water, and then served in a small ‘chai’ glass with condensed milk – yum! the best coffee I’ve tasted in Asia!!
Let me add Mamak style “kopi tarik” from Malaysia. Hand pulled black coffee with addition of condensed milk and if so preferred, poured over ice in a tall glass. Standard breakfast item all over the country, but sold at all hours almost anywhere in Malaysia.
I went to Kotlas in Russia a few years ago. It is a big town north of Moscow and it takes 24 hours to get there by train. One of the gifts I brought for my hosts was Maxwell House coffee, having been told beforehand that this was considered the best. Indeed it was well-received. Regular coffee from beans was hard to find there. I had to settle for the packets of instant complete with powdered milk and sugar. These packages had pictures of an American flag and a bald eagle on them. Go figure. At least the beer was good and cheap. The people were as good as people anywhere could be.
In Israel, at an Argentine steakhouse, the list of coffee types available was fairly large; it included “drip coffee”. When my colleague ordered that, the proprietor said “dirty water, ok, if you insist…” and wrote it down. :^)