So what's brewing? Think coffee.
It's a staple in our household. I first got hooked on coffee when I was in grade school thanks to my permissive grandparents who didn't know any better but to always keep a fresh pot of the intoxicating liqour all day; pure black almost syrupy, mind you. We roasted and ground our own coffee beans and extracted the stimulant by brewing the grounds to death in boiling water. An insult to the grounds.
The coffee was then filtered through a homemade filter made from flannel or cheese cloth cut in the shape of a cone and sewn around a wire holder ring similar to a butterfly net. The coffee was kept warm in an enamel pot, sat on the dining table all day so that every colicky little boy and little girl could get high on coffee. It is a daily ritual for us - coffee throughout the day but hey, look I grew up quite normal and my faculties still intact at past 60.
Coffee enthusiasts couldn't agree on how to best brew a good cup. There's the French press - I've used mine once, it was just okay and I couldn't tell the difference in taste. Then there's the cone drip filter not like my grandmother's gadget, but made either of paper or gold? Whatever method you employ, the secret is in the water. New York tap water is believed to be ideal for brewing but others would go to the extent of using distilled water.
I'm as guilty as anyone in drinking tons of instant Nescafe during those study periods and college all nighters but I'm not proud of it. The coffee war seems endless. There's Illy, Peet's, Starbucks, Seattle's Best, Gevalia and so forth and I've tried them all. Coffee-of-the-month clubs, coffee houses, bars, shops are all part of the coffee culture we all grew up in. Perks of sorts are popular, as in complimentary Wi-Fi at Borders or Barnes & Noble's Starbucks where people sit for hours sipping one cup of coffee and not spending much. Latte this and frappe that, this is not going to last for long since most coffee shops are pulling the plug on the cheapskate laptop users.
Did you know that there is this coffee produced only in Indonesia extremely rare and the most expensive to boot? Asking price is $600 per pound and averages $30 per brewed cup. It's called Kopi Luwak. Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee and Luwak is the cat that eat the raw coffee cherries as part of their regular diet. The animals eat a mixed diet of insects, small mammals and fruits along with the outer meat of the coffee but do not digest the inner coffee beans. Instead it is excreted still covered with some layers of the cherry. The robust taste is intensified through the process of digesting the beans. So now you know!
I kid you not - they say it is the purr-fect cuppa Joe, this cat poop coffee. I'll need a mask to try it. If I didn't know what coffee cherries look like, I wouldn't have any idea what these people are talking about. My sister who lives in the mountains in the North ( Mountain Province) happens to grow coffee plants. The cool climate in the region is perfect for that. Imagine if the feral cats in the mountains eat my sister's choicest cherries and excrete them the way these mongooses or weasels do? She'll make a fortune from the turd!
So much poop-la over this Kopi Luwak but I'm not that crazy to spend that kind of money for this strange coffee. The best part of waking up is definitely not crap in my cup!
