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Coffee
Shops, Chai and Conversation
For a coffee fanatic,
travelling in Tibet, India or China means learning rich new ways to feed the
habit
Habit is not quite the right word. I like
coffee -- I mean, I love coffee. And, sure,I have a habit of drinking coffee
(at least one large cup of it) every morning and maybe again, mid-afternoon.
But coffee, or tea, for that matter, is so much more than a habit. It's
coffee shops, conversations and that little break in time when all I have to
do is drink the cupful before me.
I'm not a connoisseur. Even instant
coffee's fine with me, especially when I'm travelling and it's the only
coffee available. In China, my Ziploc bag of instant coffee is up there in
importance along with my passport and my traveller's cheques. China's
terrible for coffee drinkers, terrible for tea and coffee shops, but great
if you carry your own instant, because there is boiled water kept hot in
Thermoses, everywhere, even in the cheapest hotels.
When I'm in China, I get out of bed every
morning, mix a little powdered milk in the bottom of a large cup (I like
milk coffee), add a little instant coffee and boiled water, stir, and
suddenly I feel good about my day. If I want my coffee frothy, latte-style,
I stir the milk powder and the instant coffee together with a teaspoon of
water so that it forms a paste, then stir frantically (as if making Mexican
hot chocolate) while I add the rest of the hot water. It works well.
One time, I'd been in Tibet for five
months, and what I'd thought to be a lifetime's supply of instant coffee
started to run out. I was weeks away from a town or city, and each day, I
watched as the level of my instant coffee powder got smaller and smaller. I
knew I was in trouble. I began making paler and paler coffee. I began
drinking tea sometimes, to conserve my coffee. But finally I finished my
last spoonful, and I went coffeeless for days, surviving, but just barely.
Then, one day in Burang, a remote mountain village on the Tibet/Nepal
border, there it was, a giant can of Nescafé, alongside Tibetan nomads
trading salt and western Nepali traders trading rope. At first, I thought it
must be an illusion, but it wasn't. A gallon can of instant coffee -- put
there for me!
I must sound coffee-dependent, but I can
go without it; I can drink tea. In India, tea is called "chai,"
and I drink a lot of it. Chai usually has milk in it and milk can be so good
in India, especially when its buffalo milk, which is richer in fat.
When it comes to atmosphere, chai shops
are as good as any coffee shop, steamy in the early morning hours and lively
come late afternoon. In South India, milk tea is made incredibly frothy by
pouring it from one large cup to another, more than a metre through the air,
an arc of beautiful brown chai flying from one cup to another.
In North India, one of my favourite
pleasures is the sweet shops that cook huge quantities of milk in large
woks, cook it down all day long until the milk gets thicker and thicker.
Then the milk solids, called khoya, are used to make sweets. I like going
late in the day, or at night, in the winter, and getting a hot cup of milk,
often flavoured with cardamom. Then I pull out my little bag of powdered
coffee and stir a heaping teaspoon of coffee into the milk. So good!
A lot of people I know drink coffee
black, which is OK, but not quite the same for me. And having something
"the same" is important when it comes to drinking coffee,
especially if I'm travelling. When I'm travelling, I love reading a North
American newspaper's sports page (if I can get my hands on one). It's just
like coffee. It's familiar and it makes me feel good. I gaze across the page
with all the numbers, standings, results, transactions. For a moment, I'm
happily suspended in time.
Recently, I found a coffee shop close to
home, in Toronto, in the Spadina-Kensington Market area. It's called Canopy,
and it's relatively new. I can take my laptop and plug it in under the table
and then write away. They play good music and, of course, the coffee's good.
So I've started a little routine of walking over, breaking my day, and
having a cup of coffee. There's a Starbucks just around the corner from
where I live, and it's fine, but I like this place in the market. The coffee
is the familiar part; but coffee shops should all be different, don't you
think? It's like travelling in your own town.
ICED COFFEE WITH SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
In Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, coffee is
made in little individual stacked metal filters, designed to let the boiling
water filter slowly through the grounds into your cup; in Thailand, the
ground coffee goes into a cloth bag and boiling water is poured through it.
The coffee is bracing, hot, thick, and often smoky-tasting on its own. My
favourite version of Southeast Asian coffee is this one, served over ice and
flavoured with sweetened condensed milk.
To Serve Four:
-1/2 cup (125 mL) sweetened condensed
milk, at room temperature
-About 1 dozen medium ice cubes
-3 cups (750 mL) hot strong coffee (Lao
or Vietnamese or Thai coffee or espresso)
Place 2 tbsp (25 mL) sweetened condensed
milk in the bottom of each of 4 small coffee cups. Place 3 or 4 ice cubes in
each of four tall glasses and put a long-handled spoon in each.
If making Lao or Vietnamese or Thai
coffee using a metal filter, bring 4 or more cups (1 L) of water to a boil.
Place a Vietnamese metal filter over each cup and fill each with ground
coffee, about 2 tbsp (25 mL), depending on the coffee and your taste.
Alternatively, use a regular filter or an espresso machine. If using
espresso coffee, make it just before you serve, allowing 3/4 (175 mL) cup
per person.
If using filters, pour boiling water into
the top of each filter and cover with a lid. If using fresh espresso,
distribute the coffee between the 4 cups, pouring carefully so as not to
disturb the milk on the bottom.
Serve each guest one cup of coffee with a
short spoon, and one tall glass of ice cubes with a long spoon.
Instruct guests to stir coffee thoroughly
while very hot to blend in the condensed milk, then to pour it into the tall
glass. (The long-handled spoon prevents the heat from damaging the glass.)
Stir briskly with the long-handled spoon, making an agreeable clatter with
the ice cubes, to cool the coffee.
Sip slowly, as a treat on its own, or to
finish off a meal.
- Recipe adapted from Hot Sour Salty
Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia by
Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford. Jeffrey Alford can be reached at www.hotsoursaltysweet.com
- by Jeffrey Alford
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