Coffee

[Shadow Wolf]

I've only been to Starbucks once. Had a free coupon when it first opened up in Kokomo years ago.

 

[Kungfuzed]

I sometimes get a large Duncan Donuts coffee with cream and sugar and cinnamon with two boston cream donuts.

 

[Djamila]

I give you... Bosanska Kahva (Bosnian Coffee)!

You start with the beans - you can buy them whole, or ground up:

Then you put them in a coffee pot, like these pictured below, and fill up the pot with water - and boil it:

Once it's boiled and the coffee has spread throughout the water and made a thick, bubbling, tar-pond like substance - you pour it out into individual cups:

You sip it very slowly, while holding a sugar cube between your teeth - either in the front (formal) or in the back (casual).

Then, at the end, there's always rahat lokum (Bosnia's version of Turkish delight, they look like sugar cubes):

 

[Djamila]

I should warn any potential tourists...

When you order coffee in Bosnia, and the waitress says:

"Bosanska ili ...?" (Bosnian, or...?)

The second word is always either "s***" or "s***ty water" - our term for western coffee.

And if you go with Bosnian, never take the last sip in the cup.

1. It's full of coffee grinds.

2. It's bad luck. Bosnians always read their coffee grinds to tell their fortune and if you eat them, it's bad luck and people will gasp and you'll feel stupid.

 

[Booko]

I mostly buy the house blend coffee at one of the farmer's market here (DeKalb Farmer's market -- in case CaptainXeroid or Jensa are reading). They have a water processed decaf as well. I never drink decaf if it's processed chemically. Nasty toxic stuff.

Occasionally I splurge on some shade grown coffee, but usually it's just the Breakfast Blend or Kenyan AA from the market. I get the Ethiopian Djimma sometimes.

I started out drinking my coffee with cream and sugar. On the advice of my dentist, I dropped the sugar. I also stopped getting cavities.

In the last couple of years, I discovered the dairy allergy. I switched to soy creamer, which is actually better than cream, I think. But it's a pain in the rear to cart soy creamer all around with you to restaurants and whatnot.

Then I discovered the corn allergy. Lo and behold, most soy milk, and my creamer, has corn-derived products.

Now I just drink it black.

I've always liked coffee. I've been drinking coffee since I was at least 5 or 6. The Dutch have a gene for loving coffee, you know. It's why we invented the kaffee klaatch.

(My daughter clearly takes after the Irish side of the family, and is a dedicated tea drinker.)

 

[Booko]

And if you go with Bosnian, never take the last sip in the cup.

1. It's full of coffee grinds.

2. It's bad luck. Bosnians always read their coffee grinds to tell their fortune and if you eat them, it's bad luck and people will gasp and you'll feel stupid.

Lord, that sounds like my grandmother's coffee. Plus, you'd show up at 5 in the afternoon and she'd offer you a cup, holding out the pot -- oh, it's still good -- I made it fresh this morning!

If the spoon won't stand up in it, it can't be coffee.

Yeah, and never drink the dregs. We never told fortunes (that would be ungodly!) but your teeth would look really stupid with all those grounds. haha!

Does anyone even dare sell instant coffee in Bosnia? I would think it would be laughed out of the country. (It should be.)

 

[Booko]

I wish I could drink coffee black. It would be so much better for me than all the sugar and cream that I put it in. I blame my mother. She's always taken her coffee with lots of sugar and cream and as a child I use to sneak sips of her coffee. So that's how I got use to it.

Make yourself drink it black for a month or two. You'll wonder how you could ever stand it with all that sugar.

I once accidentally took a sip of my husband's coffee, about 6 weeks after I cut out the sugar. I couldn't run to the sink fast enough to spit it out. And I have a sweet tooth.

 

[Booko]

Also, I use Coffee Mate instead of cream. It's got a great taste....give it a try.

Uh...no, it doesn't.

And it's very toxic stuff. Read the ingredients sometime.

If you want cream in your coffee, the best bet is the real deal: heavy cream.

Half and half may taste good, but it's been chemically changed and the proteins ruined. When I was first going off dairy I could still have half and half for 6 months and got no reaction off of it. It was so chemically changed my body didn't recognize it as dairy. Weird.

 

[Booko]

If you can afford it, ordering 100% Hawaii Kona wholebean coffee (about $80 a pound) is a true coffee experience.

Our local market sells it for closer to $50/pound. Jamaican Blue Mountain (last time I looked) was selling for about $28.

I save it for holidays.

 

[Djamila]

Lord, that sounds like my grandmother's coffee. Plus, you'd show up at 5 in the afternoon and she'd offer you a cup, holding out the pot -- oh, it's still good -- I made it fresh this morning!

If the spoon won't stand up in it, it can't be coffee.

Yeah, and never drink the dregs. We never told fortunes (that would be ungodly!) but your teeth would look really stupid with all those grounds. haha!

Does anyone even dare sell instant coffee in Bosnia? I would think it would be laughed out of the country. (It should be.)

Supermarkets carry it - but only western European brands, as we don't have any of our own.

I think, though, even if you could get thick, traditional coffee in the instant variety, people wouldn't. Coffee is more than the drink, it's the whole experience.

It's having a waitress come with a copper tray, in the middle a tall, steaming copper coffee pot - really steaming, like a small fire.

Then the sound of the tray clinking on the table, the rapid clink, clink, clink as she lays the individual cups around to all the people at the table, the "tunk, tunk, tunk" of the bowls of rahat lokum.

And then she tips the coffee pot and there's so much steam it makes a soft whistle every time she starts to lift it back up after each cup is poured.

It's just the whole show of it.

 

[Booko]

Supermarkets carry it - but only western European brands, as we don't have any of our own.

The only use I've seen for instant coffee is when some Dutch relatives came to visit us, and they brought it along to spike the stuff in the restaurant.

There's a reason why Americans drink their coffee so weak, though. As with so many things about food, we go for cheap before we go for good. So for years we got the crap beans, many still green, and if you made it strong it tasted even crappier.

Same thing with tea. Lipton isn't tea. It's the dusty leavings of real tea. Nasty stuff.

Coffee is more than the drink, it's the whole experience.

I agree.

It's having a waitress come with a copper tray, in the middle a tall, steaming copper coffee pot - really steaming, like a small fire.

Then the sound of the tray clinking on the table, the rapid clink, clink, clink as she lays the individual cups around to all the people at the table, the "tunk, tunk, tunk" of the bowls of rahat lokum.

And then she tips the coffee pot and there's so much steam it makes a soft whistle every time she starts to lift it back up after each cup is poured.

It's just the whole show of it.

I know what you mean. The more traditional Persians I visit are the best place to get coffee, if they drink it. You're more likely to get Darjeeling tea, but that's excellent as well, and the tea service is beautiful.

 

[Djamila]

Turkish Coffee and Bosnian Coffee are identical in every way - even the grinds telling fortunes.

So here's a mouth-watering clip...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp2tr-Y-4QY

 

[ayani]

i like coffee very much. :yes:

i prefer it black and with sugar. or, black and with cocoa powder. mmmm. another favorite is coffee with frozen yoghurt.

and i *love* Starbucks. they have some wonderful stuff.

 

[GoldenDragon]

I love coffee so many brands I like Maxwell, of course Starbucks(thought its too expensive for me) and I like the coffe at Dunkin Doughnuts.Sometimes I also drink Seattle's Best that's the brand at the college.
For me to even sip my coffee it must have lots of cream and it must be sweet so I usually pour in 3 packs of Equal(interesting 3 equal makes it sweeter than say 5 packs of actual sugar).I don't drink it everyday but when I get the chance I like a cup in the morning on the way to the college or at the college itself.

 

[evearael]

I love coffee. I miss coffee. I recently figured out why I could never stay off of coffee for more than a month or so after I began drinking it in high school: I will get an absolutely horrific migraine every month or so and caffeine is the only thing that takes the edge off. I would binge on some venti drink with four extra shots of espresso and get relief daily for the duration and then had to continue some form of caffeine for a while after that to avoid a nasty rebound headache from caffeine withdrawl. I'm only allowed a cup of tea since I'm pregnant, so I just have to curl up in a ball and suffer.

 

[krashlocke]

I don't get it.

I can tell you all about the subtle nuances from one whiskey to another but coffee? Cream and sugar please. It might as well all be the same - with certain exceptions : Arabic coffee, Thai coffee, espresso, &c. which are more to do with how the beans are prepared than anything.

Djamila: The Bosnian coffee you descibe sounds incredibly similar to the Arabic coffee I've enjoyed, right down to the last (sludgy) sip and the fortune-telling! If they are related at all, it's delicious! Slightly mentholy to me, though...

 

[krashlocke]

There is one exception to my inability to tell the difference from one coffee to another: that disgusting fluid the machine urinates into the cup at McDonalds.

Horrible.

Wrenching.

 

[ayani]

oh. and coke blak. the best "fusion beverage" evar.

 

[cardero]

i like coffee very much. :yes:

i prefer it black and with sugar. or, black and with cocoa powder. mmmm. another favorite is coffee with frozen yoghurt.

and i *love* Starbucks. they have some wonderful stuff.

I prefer my coffee black but sometimes I will put a spot of those International cremes. They just came out with a new Chocolate Mint Truffle which is not only good with coffee but is advised to go along well with Hot Chocolate.

 

[cardero]

There's a reason why Americans drink their coffee so weak, though. As with so many things about food, we go for cheap before we go for good. So for years we got the crap beans, many still green, and if you made it strong it tasted even crappier.

I think we have lost the art of making strong coffee. Back in the old west it seems that they knew how to make good strong coffee. With the advent of coffee makers and processed coffee beans, this is probably not our great great grandfather's tin cup of thick coffee.