Coffee, as a beverage, has many faces. We know it comes from many parts of the world and can have an amazingly different taste depending on where it is grown. Check this site out: " Historical data actually suggests the true origin of the coffee plant lies on the plateaus of central Ethiopia, across the Red Sea from Yemen. Arabica coffee trees still grow wild in these parts. Legend also has it that once the Arabians became aware of the power of the coffee plant and its brew, they shunned the idea of sharing it with the rest of the world. For this reason they parched and boiled all coffee seeds or beans that left the country, rendering them sterile. This monopoly over the coffee trade, which was almost impossible to secure, collapsed around the 17th century (an exact date is not known) when a man named Baba Budan spirited seven beans bound to his belly out of Arabia and into his homeland of India. He planted them there and they grew plentifully."
Not only do coffees brewed have totally different flavors depending on the source, the treatment it gets and the amount of roasting are also factors. You can prepare it in innumerable ways to extract the bouquet from the beans.
Some restaurants are trendy and serve an espresso (highly roasted bean) so that it tastes like burned toast with boiling water forced through it to pull out the 'flavor'. Some 'acquire' a taste for it even though it is like drinking boiled and ground up, burned rubber tires. A real restaurant drawback is that the waitstaff can never describe their coffee. Asking if the coffee is dark or medium roast is like asking for them to name the table of elements.
In the Mediterranean countries, if you are asked whether you wish coffee or tea, you might want to ask the type of coffee. Turkish coffee is a bit darker roasted than typical Greek coffee, but they are both boiled to produce a demi-tasse of mud so thick that when the small amount of liquid is drained out, the cup is turned over and the sagging sludge is 'read' by fortune tellers.
Lessons learned, let someone else at the table order coffee first, smell it and decide whether you want to order some. At times, when hot is not pleasant, it is tolerable as iced coffee. My favorite way, however, is 5 ounces of medium roast Arabica, hot, with a tad over 1/2 ounce of good scotch added, 1/2 teaspoon maple sugar stirred in, topped with whipped cream. This works well after dinner though too much trouble to prepare for myself if am eating alone.
Lastly, should it be organic or coffee for the masses? Since no one is really concerned about the masses. Since I have never tasted the pesticides and other toxins that might be in my regular coffee, I must confess that I am unable to trust any farm product I haven't seen growing, I take my chances that n
'normal' coffee won't kill me since it doesn't seem to have had a negative effect through at least the 4/5th of my life already lived.
What I need is a source for restaurant quality coffee beans that I can grind for myself. After having traveled through Costa Rica, I'm quite convinced the good stuff does not get to American Supermarkets. It is bought by a few serious buyers and we only see it in big chains of coffee houses, hotels, or the best restaurants.
No comments:
Post a Comment