Coffee Connections: 4 Unique Coffee Beverages Around the Globe
Across the globe, people consume coffee as part of their daily rituals. In North America, people love their lattes, Americanos, and drip coffees. Specialty preparations like Chemex and Siphon coffee are also becoming more popular as the culture proliferates. At Nguyen Coffee Supply, we're working hard to integrate the phin brewing method as part of daily American coffee culture. There are countless methods of preparing coffee and even more ways to make them into drinks. In this post, we’re sharing some of our favorite coffee preparations from around the world.
Cuban Espresso Coffee
Cuba or Miami are well known for their cafecitos. The drink consists of Cuban espresso sweetened with brown sugar that’s whipped in to create a frothy consistency without the addition of milk. This tiny beverage is often brewed with a dark roast and yields a pull that is both sweet and strong. Like Vietnamese coffee, cafecitos aren’t really cafecitos unless they’re made with Cuban coffee beans.
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto/KucherAV
cafe bombon
In Spain, people like to drink café bombón. Originating in Valencia, this drink has spread throughout the country as a popular pick-me-up. Consisting of a 1:1 ratio of brewed espresso and condensed milk, this preparation is very similar to Vietnamese cà phê sữa đá despite the two countries being thousands of miles apart with vastly different culinary histories. We like to think of it as a baby cà phê sữa đá – it packs a very sweet, very strong punch.
Photo courtesy Cocina Facil
Türk Kahvesi
Moving farther East, we arrive in Turkey where the coffee is brewed grind and all. Coffee beans are ground into a very fine powder that is brewed and consumed unfiltered. Resulting in a highly caffeinated beverage, Turkish coffee is traditionally brewed via placing the cup in a bed of hot sand that heats the liquid and creates froth and body. As the liquid begins to boil over, the coffee is taken out and this process is repeated to create the desired consistency. These days, not many people prepare their coffee in hot sand, so boiling the coffee in pots is usually the method of brewing. Regardless, frothing the coffee via multiple boils creates a unique drink that is hard to come by.
Photo courtesy Death Wish Coffee
On our last stop on this international coffee beverage tour, we arrive in Southeast Asia where coffee is not just brewed, it’s pulled. In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, kopi tarik is created and consumed en masse. To prepare this drink, brewed coffee made with beans often roasted in fat is mixed with sweetener and transferred from one container to another from a considerable height and distance, giving the appearance that the liquid is being pulled. It’s believed that this method of preparation gives the coffee a distinctive taste, and it definitely provides more froth and body to the final beverage. When prepared well, kopi tarik has froth, even mixing, and moderate temperature as the pulling cools the hot liquid down.
Whether you’re a latte kind of person or a drip enthusiast, we hope you’ve learned some new preparations for coffee beverages and that you’ll try them for yourself. Our beans make great foundations for any and all preparations.
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