Coffee as we know it

ba•ri•sta

(from the Italian for "bartender")

a person who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks to the public.


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My next blog reviews the top 5 Coffee Spots in the Gong - check it out here


Cafe Culture in Wollongong is not new. The town has literally been weaned on coffee since the influx of workers from Europe to the Wollongong region. I have nothing against tea, but thank heavens for that!


Before our friends from Europe arrived with their windy grinders and Mokka pots Australia were a bunch of tea slurpers, whose knowledge of coffee was only of the dry and tasteless instant variety sold in not-so-airtight tins. No wonder we preferred the leaf lees of our teas.


But did you know that coffee actually originated in Ethiopia as early as the 13th Century? It is believed coffee drinking quickly spread through Egypt, and Yemen.



Dont mess with the Sheik

My favourite account of how coffee was discovered has been chronicled in ancient manuscript known as Abd-Al-Kadir. A young disciple of the sheik in Yemen, named Omar, was exiled from Mocha ( or Mokka, in Arabic) a port town on the Red Sea, to a desert cave near Ousab. Apparently, they were pretty tough on wayward disciples back then. I wonder what he did that was so bad?


Anyway, poor Omar, exiled, starving and near death, in desperation, chewed on a little red berry found near his cave.



Disgusting


So bad in fact, resourceful Omar tried roasting the berry. The berries turned as hard as pebbles. The only solution was to throw them into boiling water to soften them. A brown liquid resulted and he sipped his way to survival. As stories of his miraculous discovery and revival from a certain death reached Mocha, he was allowed to return; along with his mocha pot, became the very first barista and was declared a saint. Not long after, coffee culture spread to Persia, and Turkey and then in the 1500s sailed across the sea to Venice, Italy.



No good for Catholics


Many high ranking Catholic bishops called it the drink of the devil, mainly due to the fact their Muslim neighbours loved the stuff and it was thought to be the "ying" to the holy catholic altar wine's "yang. " Kinda like what antimatter is to matter. A perfectly unholy concoction, and there was much controversy and calls to ban the brown brew. However, wise Pope Clement VIII in 1600, who had a direct line to God, declared, in between sips no doubt, that it was acceptible to consume and the first Western European Coffee House opened in Venice in 1645.



Methods of madness


So for about eight hundred years of human evolution, we have been making coffee. How we make it, has also evolved:


Grounds for divorce


Mocha, Moka, or Mokka pots are not too far removed from Omar and Yemen. Still used on stoves in many homes today, albeit probably on a very expensive magnetic inductive stop top!


Clever in design, a lower chamber is filled with water, coffee grounds are placed in a funnel and an upper chamber is placed on top. As the water boils, steam forces up through the grounds, liquefying them and coffee releases into the upper chamber. Not quite enough heat and pressure to produce espresso, however it produces a good home coffee. Be warned using Mokka pots is an art and very hard to get right. Italians love it.


Long suffering non-Italian, Daughter-in-laws, hate it. (so I'm told)



My plunger broke


I am speaking about what is commonly called the French Press. What an odd name for something designed by an Italian, so I will call it the Plunger method. These have been around since 1930 but really took off in the 90's. I remember a very funny ad for Nescafe where a well endowed Frenchman ( just think Manu from MKR) declares that his "plunger" broke in order to gain access to his hot neighbours place for a coffee. Problem with this, (the plunger -not the Frenchman) is that you tend to make more than one cup at a time - and the coffee in my humble opinion goes stale. And yes, admit it, we have all microwaved a cup of cold plunger coffee. Not a good idea -Yuk.


What a drip


Filter coffee, is where water gets heated and drips through the grounds into the pot below. Not a bad method - but like plunger coffee, ( and even though the pot stays hot) you make a whole pot - drink one cup and the coffee is stale by the time you return for your second.



Percolators - I cant even be bothered with a humorous line for these


Personally not a fan of percolated coffee. These contraptions heat the beans far too high in my opinion resulting in a nice smell when making, but not so good for drinking. Good if you are selling a house - that's about it.



Klingons on the starboard bow


Honestly, Espresso machines have come so far they would not look out of place on the Starship Enterprise. 

In fact I think that's exactly what Scotty is doing in every episode of Star Trek, when he exclaims "I canna giva any more Captain". He was of course attempting to make Captain Kirk a fine espresso.  Seriously though, technology, through espresso machines, has evolved coffee and made it far more palatable and smooth to drink. A fine invention.


So thats it - Coffee and its many methods solved. I hope you enjoyed this blog

My next blog reviews the top 5 Coffee Spots in the Gong - check it out here


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And thank you, wicked wayward disciple Omar, Heres to you!....   Barista! another espresso please?