# Foreign food habits you've imported **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2020, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041 "2020-04-18T10:30:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041/101 "2020-04-21T16:24:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > …As far as I’m concerned, coffee with cream and coffee with milk are two completely different beasts. You have to heat the milk like the French and Italians do in order to make adding it worthwhile, and they have to be in a ratio of 1 : 1… I agree. In fact, I think there are three different beverages: black coffee, coffee with cream (which is a ratio of about 6:1, imo) and cafe au lait, with a ratio of about 1:1. Like Acsenray, I like coffee all three ways. But only very good coffee is worth drinking black. But I always add the cream cold – it brings the coffee down to a temp I can actually drink, and I prefer the flavor of uncooked cream. I even add a little cold cream or milk to cafe au lait, just to cool it so I can enjoy it right away, and don’t have to wait 15 minutes. > [@Ludovic](#): > > …Normally, I drink black tea straight but brewed to only 60%-80% as strong as I presume everyone else brews it. I actually prefer the flavor when it is slightly weaker than even that, but then it doesn’t do anything for me caffeine-wise. Probably. I make my tea stronger than most people do. 😉 So you could probably mix mine 1:1 with water and enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041/102 "2020-04-21T17:06:41Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Like Acsenray, I like coffee all three ways. I like coffee many, many ways … although I’m not a huge fan of espresso. I don’t really understand why it’s so popular. In Italy, I had a very hard time finding “filter coffee,” because espresso is standard there. … But it’s not as delicious as coffee! > [@](#): > > But only very good coffee is worth drinking black. Meh, it depends on my mood. I’ll sometimes have less-than-very-good-coffee black if I’m wanting a zero-calorie hot caffeinated drink, for example. > [@](#): > > But I always add the cream cold – it brings the coffee down to a temp I can actually drink, and I prefer the flavor of uncooked cream. I do this too, if I’m making it myself. > [@](#): > > I even add a little cold cream or milk to cafe au lait, just to cool it so I can enjoy it right away, and don’t have to wait 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes … I’m guessing that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Again, sometimes I’m content to wait. There are moments when sitting with a delicious cup of coffee waiting for it to cool is part of the pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041/103 "2020-04-21T18:56:46Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Now I normally drink it black and strong with NO sugar. Loading black coffee with sugar is a Russian habit I could never acquire. Standing in line waiting for a coffee, I’d watch my fellow students dump five or six spoons full into each tiny cup. Yeccch! :mad: If you’re buying a coffee from a snack bar, you have to warn the vendor NOT to put sugar into it because they normally do so without asking if you want it. In Brazil, the most common way coffee is served is very hot, strong, black, and already sweetened, usually in small cups. Most cafeterias (“kilo” restaurants, where you pay for your buffet meal by the kilo) have an urn for free coffee, which you take after your meal. It’s not espresso, but cafezinho, produced by boiling coffee grounds in hot water with sugar already added. Since Brazilian coffee is grown at relatively low altitudes, it tends to be bitter, and the sugar counteracts that. While I usually have coffee with milk and sugar, if I have black coffee I prefer it this way, very strong and sweet. Turkish coffee is similar, and is perhaps where Russians picked up their habit. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041/104 "2020-04-21T19:28:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Turkish coffee is similar, and is perhaps where Russians picked up their habit. Probably. Turkish coffee, heated in little copper pots on beds of sand, is quite common in Russian cafes and snack bars. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041/105 "2020-04-21T20:31:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m not even going to go into Mexican stuff; here in Texas, there are a LOT of blurry lines- is having tamales on Xmas a Texas thing or a Mexican thing, for example? It must be Mexican. I’ve known a lot of Mexican immigrants or their children the have Christmas tamale traditions but didn’t come to Chicago by way of Texas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-food-habits-youve-imported/852041.md?page=5)