bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2016), pp. 44–45
Many items we eat and drink have a storied past, political importance or trade significance.
This column explores one food, drink or ingredient at a time.
COFFEE. Ah, coffee, the Provider of Brainpower and the Maker of Mornings. Going without it in the morning would be unthinkable for me and “suboptimal” for those around me. I happen to think it’s better than sliced bread ever was – but bread’s a column for another time. Coffee is the world’s second most popular beverage, after tea, which proves that no one is perfect or they’d be drinking coffee too.
Coffee is said to have been discovered in Ethiopia a thousand years ago or more, when a shepherd noticed his goats had extra pep after eating coffee cherries, the fruit from which the coffee beans are harvested. From the sheer brilliance of whoever decided to collect, clean, roast and brew those seeds, we now savour our daily brew.
There are two types of commercial coffee bush: Robusta and Arabica. Robusta is easier to grow, more disease resistant, and higher yielding. The problem? It doesn’t taste as good, so it’s mostly used for the kind of coffee that comes pre-ground in huge tins in the grocery store. Instead, we prefer the more delicate Arabica bean that will only grow at 2,000 feet above sea level or higher. Go figure.
Most coffee is produced in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia. African coffee tends to taste earthy and rich (my preference), while South American tends towards the floral. I’m not as familiar with the Asian coffees from Vietnam, Indonesia and elsewhere, but would certainly welcome the tasting notes of those who are posted nearby! A few other types you may have heard of are Blue Mountain from Jamaica, as well as Kona and Ka’u from the Big Island of Hawaii, which is my favourite of all. The roast affects both flavour and caffeine level – the darker, the more caffeine has been burned off. The mighty bean is big business. According to a 2013 study by the Coffee Association of Canada, 65% of Canadians had drunk coffee within the previous 24 hours of taking the survey and 78% in the previous week. The United States consumes slightly less than we do at 59% and Europe drinks the most in the world. Guess which country consumes the most? No, not France. And not Italy. Finland!
With this popularity comes ethical issues like labour exploitation and the environment. The more I researched for this article, the more complicated the issues became. Following a coffee price crash at the end of the century, countries that had invested heavily in producing coffee found themselves with an unprofitable but labour-intensive crop. So paying farmers and farm labourers less (or sometimes nothing at all) is a problem in many parts of the world. Likewise, land clearance for coffee cultivation and the use of pesticides to ensure the productivity of crops present challenges to the environment. It’s worth looking into with whomever you buy from.
Iced Coffee Recipe
Iced coffee recipe: Combine I cup ground coffee and 4 cups of cold water in a jar. Cover and shake. Leave out overnight and filter it in the morning to remove the grinds. Put the concentrated coffee deliciousness back in the rinsed jar and keep in the fridge up to 2 weeks. When you want to drink it, fill a glass with ice, pour in the concentrate and add a few tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk (such as Eagle brand). Drink it with a straw on the patio in the sun!
For those of you who choose to indulge without the caffeine (though I can’t imagine why you would choose to forego the Elixir of Life), you may be familiar with the term “Swiss Water Decaf”. That’s a company name as well as a process. The Swiss Water Decaffeination Method is a method of extracting the caffeine from coffee using water rather than chemicals that can be used on both conventional and organic beans. And it’s done in Canada! Coffee beans get shipped from abroad to Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company in Burnaby, British Columbia. The beans are processed to remove 99.9% of the caffeine and are then re-shipped.
To get the most out of your bean, I have a few tried and true tips. First, buy and use it as fresh as possible. Obvious, right? Raw (green) coffee beans can remain good for many years, but once you roast it, it has a very limited lifespan. In my experience, it stays fantastically delicious for about a week after roasting, then quickly declines no matter how well you re-package or store it. If you’re lucky enough to be able to get locally roasted coffee, ask when it was roasted.
Then buy whole bean instead of the ground stuff. Ground coffee has an increased surface area, allowing more oxygen contact to make it go stale faster. Grind just what you need, when you need it. Second, don’t put hot coffee into a cold cup: ceramic, metal or otherwise. If you rinse it with hot water first, you’ll avoid the acidity that the hot coffee + cold surface combo causes. Third, don’t drink your coffee piping hot. Let it cool slightly before you enjoy it; I don’t know why it tastes better like that, but it does. Then put your coffee grounds in the green bin or garden to improve the soil and reduce waste. I’ve been told they reduce slugs/snails around the base of plants and increase the acidity of the soil, which tomatoes, blueberries and many other crops like…
Lisa Bitto is a political FS Officer and an avid baker, cook and food geek since her mother first refused to bake her cookies and she took matters into her own hands. She usually chooses her vacation destinations based on the food.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2016), pp. 44–45. Read the rest of this issue →
