Coffees / teas of the world

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Inspired by the GQ thread, I would be interested to know what type of coffee, tea or other brewed caffeinated beverage you drink in your part of the world - both in cafe’s (or equivalent) and at home. And why.

There are a wide range of customs and tastes around the globe that determine the type and mode of consumption.

I have learnt that in North America, drip filtered coffee is the most popular, but a place called Starbucks is starting to popularise espresso coffee (real coffee IMNSHO).

It seems that in the UK tea is so popular, that most places serve instant coffee.
From My Experience:
In Turkey/Greece the traditional coffee drink is grinds boiled in water and then poured into little cups, grinds and all. Quite nice. Though tea is most popular in Turkey.
The trendy drink in Greece is a frappe - which is nescafe and cold milk (maybe condensed?) - urghh.

In Malaysia, tea is most popular - an incredibly strong tea made with condensed milk - it is strained/squeezed in a ‘stocking’ and comes out almost red.

In North America, the impression was of people drinking watery drip coffee in insulated mugs whilst walking down the street - which seemed very strange at the time - probably a good thing if it were -20C. There are about 5000 different permutations of options for milk, flavourings and sweeteners - which makes ordering rather baffling.

In Australia, the drink in all cafes is espresso - there are various types - cappuchino, short black, flat white etc. This is a type of coffee of much better quality than drip filter/stewed. We have just had a few Starbucks open up, but I am not sure what is served.
At home people (from my experience) drink tea mainly and some instant coffee, since coffee machines cost about $200AUD.

2

A fresh Thread! I would like to use this oportunity to say that I am an Englander and I almost never drink instant coffee. it is crap. I drink quite a lot of tea, (milk, no sugar) and love ‘real’ coffee when it is offered (also milk, no sugar).
I guess us brits are lazy, so everywhere you go there’s instant coffee. The other day I went to a cafe after a night shift. I ordered a full English breakfast, spotted a full pot of coffee sat in a coffee machine, and then saw my coffee being made - instant. Uh? What is the pot of real coffee for?

3

American who feels there’s nothing wrong with good, strong drip coffee. Yummy stuff, as long as it’s adequately strong. The real good stuff, though, is expresso-type carribbean style coffee - I have Cuban coffee in mind here. Incredible stuff. Possibly even better in Puerto Rico, but who knows? I haven’t tried it.

4

Hey Grelby what is carribbean style coffee?

5

I’m with Grelby, extra strong drip coffee is the way to go.

When I read this, I thought “what kind of isolated backwater is this person from?”, then I realized you’re not American. At least in California, espresso drinks have been available just about anywhere that served coffee for 15 years.

6

Noo! We didn’t concede that :wink:

Austrailia was the place I felt served the most consistently good coffees, though the nomenclature was strange - not only did I have to know it’s height but the degree of camber.

I’ve had some great Ethiopean coffee (in the UK). Very, very strong stuff, prepared and served with great ceremony. It had a most enlivening effect on the guy I was with that night too, so I have very fond memories of it :smiley:

Germany - decent coffee, great cake.

North America. Strong filtered/drip stuff. Better than the lukewarm Lipton’s tea, though.

7

The Polish tend to drink their coffee Turkish-style as well. We don’t use an ibrik (which is a pretty damn cool-looking thing to have around the kitchen. I gots me one.) but we generally do it by simply infusing boiling water with fresh coffee grounds and give the grounds time to settle.

The Croats, Bosnians and Serbs all drink there coffee Turkish style. Another interesting feature of Turkish coffee is that it is, as far as I know, the only method in which boiling water is used. Usually, boiling coffee is a bad thing. Also, Turkish coffee is normally served very, very sweet. One heaping teaspoon of sugar for each heaping teaspoon of VERY finely ground (finer than espresso) coffee. However, on occassions of mourning, the coffee is drunk bitter.

Espresso coffee is great and the best, but I am a firm supporter of a strong, full-bodied brewed coffee. Here in Hungary, the typical espresso is made with one of those stove-top espresso makers. I don’t know what the foul concoction is that results from this process, but espresso it ain’t.

As for tea… In Poland, the usual is to serve it with lemon, although in my family we were tea and milk people. Occassionally, if we weren’t in a milky mood, we would put in a dash of sour cherry or red currant syrup.

In Uzbekistan, tea is a social institution. Wherever you go, you’re constantly being served tea, and consequently, constantly in a state of relieving your bladder. They tend to drink free-leaf green tea, and a bit of a pouring ceremony goes with the experience. You pour a cup, then pour it back into the tea pot, pour another cup, pour it back into the tea pot, and then finally serve the third cup. Usually (at least everywhere I went), tea is served with nuts, raisins, jam, apricots and other munchies. Some Uzbeks would put the jam in the tea itself. I tried it myself, and actually, it wasn’t that bad, except I like my drinks bitter.

8

China is tea - ha ha, but it’s true. All kinds even Liptons.

Coffee is making inroads, but of the instant 3-in-1 coffee, creamer, sugar variety. Starbucks is pretty popular in the trendy big cities.

9

pulykamellYeah those ibriks are charming - it would go well with a hookah. I was staying at a hotel in Turkey where you made your own coffee in the morning in a copper ibrik on hot coals - somehow i managed to boil it over onto the coals and stink the place out with burning coffee and sugar.

So is espresso more of a Californian thing?, because drip coffee is everywhere in the North. What about in the south?

Like I said - in Australia it is all espresso, I have never seen drip other than in McDonalds over here.

10

Actually, espresso tends to be associated with Seattle (home of Starbucks and a couple other chains.) Outside of nice restaurants and coffee houses, it generally is pretty difficult to find espressos in America everywhere, but that’s changing fast. I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Chicago, where espresso was perceived practicallyas a commie plot, but these days even the local donut shops serve 'em.

11

Ireland - Lyons tea… thats it.

12

You can get good results from those, but not of the quality of a proper high-pressure espresso machine. You never get a crema, for instance. When using a stove-top pot, you shouldn’t leave it on the heat so long that it starts sputtering, cos that’ll bugger up the taste. Once the coffee has started coming through to the top compartment, you can turn the heat on the stove down a little so that it comes through steadily.

13

The Russians tend to boil the coffee in a pot until it’s very stong and almost thick, then pour it into a cup, sometimes with grounds, sometimes filtered through a seive. Welbywife drinks it with a very little bit of milk, though that’s decidedly not the rule. Her parents and other family drink it straight.

14

Another Britisher checking in -

Definitely Tea (both here at work and at home)
Definitely Twinings

Variety depends on mood - currently on my desk here at work are:

Prince of Wales, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Assam, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Traditional Afternoon and Darjeeling.

our techie “tea club” here at work is pretty sophisticated :wink:

i’m very lucky in that my current girlfriend is a buyer for a large supermarket chain and one of her accounts is Twinings…

“Honey…if you really loved me you’d get me free tea…” :smiley:

15

Latte macchiato. Yum.
(Foamed milk with two shots of espresso, in case you were wondering)

16

Ahhhh, coffee. One of life’s genuine, cheap and harmless (I don’t care what they say to the contrary).

Mornings – strong drip coffee, with cream (not milk) and sugar. Sumatran Mandheling (sp?), bought at my local specialty shop (any Brooklyn Heights residents know Two for the Pot?), ground fresh each morning.

Summer days – equally strong black iced coffee, no milk, no sugar.

And also in the summer (again, Brooklyn residents may be familiar with this stuff) Manhattan Special coffee soda. Espresso coffe, carbonated, with sugar. Great.

Nights – Espresso. Plain. No sugar, no milk, no twist. Made at home or after dinner in restaurants.

Best coffee ever – I spent two weeks in Cuba once, and adopted the Cuban habit of drinking a cup of espresso about every five minutes. It gets addictive. They sure know how to make coffee.

Turkish/Greek/Arabic coffee is fine too, but hard to find around here. I might have to get one of those Turkish coffeepots.

17

I drink a lot of Chai tea with milk and sugar. I also like instant ginger tea (found in many oriental markets), Gunpowder chinese tea, and good ole Twinings Earl Grey with milk and sugar.

18

is there no one to sing the praises of mocha?

for a truly blissful experience, i would treat myself to an extra-large mocha, one that used chocolate raspberry cocoa (about a 1/4 of a cup) in the mix, from a little coffee shop where i used to work. add a splash of half-and-half and some sweetener, and i was one happy camper for the day.

i now DIY with a mix of half chocolate raspberry cocoa, half instant coffee-type beverage (preferably one with a mocha flavoring on its own).

yum.
lachesis

19

I have to admit that Twinings Irish Breakfast is what I pretty much drink all the time. Coffee has too much caffeine and is too expensive. Although, I do like treating myself to a flat white occasionaly.

Maybe the reason that espresso is not that popular in NA is the cost. Drip filter would be fairly cheap in comparison.

20

Just to clarify, California (or Seattle) might be the sentimental home of espresso in the U.S., but it’s been in Italy for a long time.

I prefer espresso to [conventionally brewed, for the pedantic] coffee, and Greek or Turkish coffee, if I can convince the establishment that I really don’t want it sweet, best of all. I drink Starbucks a lot because I travel, and it’s really the only consistently decent cup of coffee I can get around the world (and, yes, I know there a lot of people who hate Starbucks because they’re big and bad and evil and stuff, but like it or not, they do make halfway decent coffee).

I should note that I despise anything in my coffee (especially flavoured coffee). Most people who disagree with me about particular brands usually put milk, cream and/or sugar in their coffee. For instance, for Canadians, Tim Horton’s coffee? Puh-leeze! UGH! Tastes burnt, even fresh. Seattle’s Best? Wretched.