Drinks

From the Coffee FAQ...
How to make the world's best cup of coffee?

• Grind the coffee grains from coarse to very coarse.
• Boil in a pan a litre of water (four cups).
• When the water is boiling, turn off the stove and add 8-12 table spoons of coffee (2-3 spoons per each cup).
• Add two-three teaspoons of sugar per cup (for a total of 8-12 spoons of sugar).
• Stir very slowly (the water is so hot that the sugar dissolves mostly on its own).
• Let the coffee rest for about 5 minutes.
• Strain the coffee using a metal strainer! Like the ones used for cooking. The strainer should be like the ones used by granny for making tea. The diameter is a bit smaller that a cup, with a semi-sphere shape.
• This coffee has grit in the bottom, even after being strained. Therefore do not stir the pot or the cup. If the coffee is shaked, let it rest for about five minutes. Needless to say, do not drink the last sip of coffee from the cup: it's all grit. If you want to add milk, add carnation.

Warning: This coffee may fool you 'cause it has a very smooth taste but is extremely strong. Caffeine content per millilitre is right there with espresso, but you can't tell!

This type of coffee is similar in nature to the French press. And in principle, you could possibly add sugar to the ground coffee, then pour water, and lastly press with the strainer.

A single serving is 1 1/2 ounces.

From the Coffee FAQ...
After living in Italy (Rome) for two years and living off espresso, heres how to do it.

• Get good dark roasted espresso beans, imported Italian brand if you can find it.
• Pack your strainer real full. Pack it hard. your instructions will say NOT to pack it, but don't listen.
• Don't use too much water. Espresso in Italy is as thick as syrup. Very thick.
• Add two spoons of sugar, it's a sweet, thick liquid in Italy.
• Drink fast.

If using a stove top espresso machine, clean after each use, paying attention to the seal and strainer.

1. For best results, get arabica beans that have been roasted dark ("Italian Roast" is darkest) and are oily-looking. Other roasts are for other types of brewing: espresso machines won't draw the earthy flavour of Sumatran out, for example.

2. Grind those beans until they're very fine, but not quite a powder. Put them into the appropriate piece of your machine and tamp it down (but don't pack all the grounds in tight).

3. Watch the espresso as it drips down. Does a nice layer of foam form on the top? If it does, all is well; that foam is made from the flavourful oils, and it is called crema. If not, go to the coffee roaster and demand quadruple your money back.

4. Never make more than 2oz at a time. If you're making two cups of espresso, make two separate shots. This is important. The idea is that the water rushes through and draws out only the most flavourful part of the grounds. More than 2oz and you're drawing out less flavourful stuff and diluting your espresso. If you're really hardcore, make only 1oz at a time; this is called caffe ristretto.

A single serving is 3-4 ounces.

From the Coffee FAQ...
Disclaimer: People prepare cappuccino in many different ways, and in their very own way each one of them is correct. The following recipe, which is commonly used in Latin countries, has been tasted by several of my North-American friends and they unanimously agreed that cappuccino prepared using this recipe tastes much better than the standard fare in USA/Canada.

• Start with cold milk (it doesn't really need to be ice-cold), use homo milk or carnation. 2% or skim is just not thick enough (admittedly, it is easier to produce foam with skim milk).
• Place the milk on a special cappuccino glass with a cappuccino basket. (Cappuccino glasses have a thinner bottom).
• Aerate the milk near the top, within 2cm (1 in) of the top. Move the glass down as the milk aerates. It is a good idea to have an oscillating motion while aerating the milk.
  
  • Aerating the milk in another container, then pouring in a glass and adding the foam with a spoon is sacrilege. Anybody who has done so should make a pilgrimage to San Francisco's Girardelli's. Otherwise entry to heaven will be denied (god, is after all, Italian. At least the catholic one).
  • If you need to aerate the milk on a separate container, aerate exactly the amount of milk required for one cup, so no need to add foam with a spoon.
  • Once the milk has been aerated, promptly clean the aerator with a wet rag. Failure to do so will quickly result in rotten milk flavour coming from the aerator.

    Another warning on similar lines applies to restaurant type coffee machines: leave the aerator valve open when powering the machine up and down. When the machine is off a partial vacuum is formed in the boiler that will suck milk residue into the boiler. This then coats the inside of the boiler and can cause bad smelling steam until the boiler is flushed. Some machines have a vacuum bleed valve to prevent this problem but many don't.

• Wait for the steam pressure to build up again (for some cappuccino makers wait time is near zero, for others it maybe as long as 60 secs).
• Prepare the espresso coffee, you may add it directly on to the glass if possible or use a cup and then pour it from the cup on the milk.
• According to Jym Dyer: In Italy, the milk is added TO the espresso, not the other way around, that way the milk is floating; on top, where you then add the sugar, and stir it up.

Cappuccino tastes better when is really hot, and has two teaspoons of sugar. (small teaspoons, like the ones in expensive silverware).

Then accompany said cappuccino with a warm tea bisquet or english muffin with marmalade, or alternatively with a baguette sandwich or panini.

• Use a heaping teaspoon of very finely ground coffee and, optionally, one heaping teaspoon of sugar (to taste). Use about 3oz of coffee. [Add the sugar only just before boiling point.] Turkish coffee without sugar is called sade, with a little sugar is "orta s,ekerli" and with lots of sugar is "c,ok s,ekerli".
• The trick of it is to heat it until it froths pour the froth into the coffee dup and heat it a second time. When it froths again, pour the rest into the cup.
• The grounds will settle to the bottom of the cup as you drink the coffee and towards the end, it'll start to taste bitter and the texture will be more like wet coffee grounds than a drink. As soon as this happens stop or your next sip will taste really, really bitter. Instead, turn your cup upside down on the saucer, and let someone read your fortune!

• Make very strong coffee (50-100% more coffee to water than usual), use something like Cafe Du Monde which has chicory in it.
• Pour 6-8 oz into cup and add about 1 Tbs sweetened condensed milk. Stir, then pour over ice. You'll have to experiment with the strength and milk so you get lots of taste after the ice/water dilutes it.

There is also a stronger version of Thai coffee called "Oleng" which is very strong to me and to a lot of coffee lovers.

• 6 to 8 tablespoons ground espresso or French roast coffee 4 to 6 green cardamom pods, crushed Sugar to taste Half-and-half or cream Ice cubes
• Put the cardamom pods and the ground dark-roast coffee into a coffee press, espresso maker, or the filter of a drip coffee maker (if using a drip-style coffee maker, use half the water). Brew coffee as for espresso, stir in sugar.
• Fill a large glass with ice and pour coffee over ice, leaving about 1/2 inch at the top. Place a spoon at the surface of the coffee and slowly pour half-and-half or cream into the spoon, so that it spreads across the top of the coffee rather than sinking in. (You'll stir it in yourself anyway, but this is a much prettier presentation and it's as used in most Thai restaurants.)

• Make even stronger coffee, preferably in a Vietnamese coffee maker. (This is a metal cylinder with tiny holes in the bottom and a perforated disc that fits into it; you put coffee in the bottom of the cylinder, place the disc atop it, then fill with boiling water and a very rich infusion of coffee drips slowly from the bottom.)
• If you are using a Vietnamese coffee maker, put two tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a cup and put the coffee maker on top of the cup.

If you are making espresso or cafe filter (the infusion method where you press the plunger down through the grounds after several minutes of infusion), mix the sweetened condensed milk and the coffee any way you like.

When the milk is dissolved in the coffee (yes, dissolved *is* the right word here!), pour the combination over ice and sip. Thai and Vietnamese coffees are very different.

Ca phe sua da (Vietnamese style iced coffee)
o 2 to 4 tablespoons finely ground dark roast coffee (preferably with chicory)
o 2 to 4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (e.g., Borden Eagle Brand, not evaporated milk!)
o Boiling water
o Vietnamese coffee press [see notes]
o Ice cubes

Place ground coffee in Vietnamese coffee press and screw lid down on the grounds. Put the sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a coffee cup and set the coffee maker on the rim. Pour boiling water over the screw lid of the press; adjust the tension on the screw lid just till bubbles appear through the water, and the coffee drips slowly out the bottom of the press. When all water has dripped through, stir the milk and coffee together. You can drink them like this, just warm, as ca phe sua neng, but I prefer it over ice, as ca phe sua da. To serve it that way, pour the milk-coffee mixture over ice, stir, and drink as slowly as you can manage. I always gulp mine too fast. :-)

Notes A Vietnamese coffee press looks like a stainless steel top hat. There's a "brim" that rests on the coffee cup; in the middle of that is a cylinder with tiny perforations in the bottom. Above that rises a threaded rod, to which you screw the top of the press, which is a disc with similar tiny perforations. Water trickles through these, extracts flavour from the coffee, and then trickles through the bottom perforations. It is excruciatingly slow. Loosening the top disc speeds the process, but also weakens the resulting coffee and adds sediment to the brew.

If you can't find a Vietnamese coffee press, regular-strength espresso is an adequate substitute, particularly if made with French-roast beans or with a dark coffee with chicory. I've seen the commonly available Medaglia d'Oro brand coffee cans in Vietnamese restaurants, and it works, though you'll lose some of the subtle bitterness that the chicory offers. I think Luzianne brand coffee comes with chicory and is usable in Vietnamese coffee, though at home I generally get French roast from my normal coffee provider.

Of these two coffees, Vietnamese coffee should taste more or less like melted Haagen-Dasz coffee ice cream, while Thai iced coffee has a more fragrant and lighter flavour from the cardamom and half-and-half rather than the condensed milk. Both are exquisite, and not difficult to make once you've got the equipment.