Does American coffee lose weight? Why do stars drink iced American coffee while Brazilians don't drink American coffee?

Professional coffee knowledge exchange more coffee bean information please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

There is no American coffee in Brazil

Just want to taste the beautiful original taste of Brazilian coffee in the country of origin, why is it so difficult!

Brazil, which I like, and the United States, where I live for a long time, are obviously not good friends.

Holders of American passports do not need visas in almost most countries in the world, with the exception of Brazil, which is extremely expensive. The Brazilian consulate just shrugged and said in soft, sweet Brazilian Portuguese, "treat him in his own way." (huh? Isn't that what Zhu Xi said? ) because Brazil, as an unimpeded big country in South America, is dismissive of the American policy of discriminating against Brazilian passport holders (what Brazilians don't know is that the United States should discriminate against all non-Americans, right? )

Brazil is one of the most famous coffee producing countries in the world. I am also a person who likes to drink coffee and drinks countless cups of black coffee every day. Naturally, I am looking forward to going to Brazil to drink coffee from the origin.

Unexpectedly, when I walked into a cafe in Rio and took it for granted to order "Caff é Americano", the clerk looked at me with empty beautiful eyes.

Huh? Don't you understand?

In desperation, I ordered a latte. However, Brazil is like many vast developing countries, because the refrigerated transport technology and equipment are limited, and the price is high, so it is usually unable to drink fresh milk, but replaced with long-lasting milk, the flavor is naturally poor.

The next day I changed to another restaurant and tried to order American coffee. Sure enough, I failed again. Even so, I drank the most typical Brazilian coffee é zinho, that is, espresso in an almost one-to-one ratio of espresso to sugar. The local cafeteria usually put a pot at the checkout counter and have a drink while waiting in line to pay the bill.

Just want to taste the beautiful original taste of Brazilian coffee in the country of origin, why is it so difficult!

In this way, a week or two passed. Suddenly one day, when I was helplessly drinking a cappuccino in the same coffee shop, I suddenly saw the local people at the next table drinking my coveted American coffee.

I immediately bounced up from my seat, ran to the counter and followed the cashier behind the high glass counter, tilted my feet and raised my head, like an angry little boy, pointed to the guest's cup of coffee and said, "that's what I want!"

In many traditional cafes in Brazil, you have to pay at the cashier and get a receipt before you order with the clerk behind the counter, so you have to think about everything you want to eat and drink, and you can't think of anything. This is really a great loss for foreigners who are not good at Portuguese, because it is really difficult to describe the traditional pastry I want to eat but do not know what to call it, so I have to start to compare hands and feet in disgrace. I suspect that the Brazilians did it on purpose. It must be interesting to see foreigners flushed, struggling and angry.

The cashier sighed and came out from behind the glass counter, only to find that she was so short. All the people standing in line behind me looked helplessly as the cashier glanced at the table where I pointed. The cashier picked his eyebrows and said, "Caf é Carioca!"

What the heck! In cafes all over the world, as long as you say "American coffee", you can easily drink a cup of espresso with hot water. The only exception is that when you hate beauty to an artistic Brazil, you call American coffee "Caf é Carioca" in order to stir up ethnic hatred.

After tossing about for a long time, I finally drank the original black coffee, picked up the cup contentedly and took a sip full of anticipation.

"mm-hmm. It really doesn't taste good. "

Later, I learned that all the good coffee in Brazil was exported, but about 1/5 of the defective beans that were of poor quality and could not be exported became domestic sales in Brazil's domestic market and became coffee that Brazilians drink every day. So if you don't add anything, you'll get the original taste of shoddy coffee.

"what a fool I am! Why do you lock your taste experience in a cup of American coffee you are familiar with when you travel to expand your life experience? "

In Rio, you still have to drink a small cup of Madai tea and a small cup of coffee é zinho on the civilian white beach of Copacabana, barefoot and carrying two thermos, one pot of Mate tea and one pot of coffee é zinho.

All Brazilian restaurants have espresso coffee. Pour a cup of coffee yourself after a full meal, because the best coffee beans are exported, and only inferior coffee is left for domestic use, so you have to add a lot of sugar to make it palatable, but over time, it has become a part of the culture. Every Brazilian will drink it as a happy end to a meal.

Strong tea from Russia

At that moment, I found that many of the so-called "traditional" eating habits are not "love", but "have to".

When I went to the house of a good Russian friend who lived in Bangkok, he casually asked me if I would like some tea. I said yes excitedly, looking forward to the traditional Russian Black Tea.

So he boiled water, took two Lipton tea bags and put them in two mugs, one for me and one for himself.

"Why? Don't Russians always prepare a pot of cold strong tea and dilute it with hot water whenever they want to drink it? " I was thinking about the picture in the movie "the Postman's White Night" directed by Andre Koncharovsky (Andrei Konchalovsky).

This Venice Film Festival award-winning work tells the story of how to maintain villagers' connection with the outside world by relying on the postman and his boat in a remote village on the other side of the Kenozoro Lake in northern Russia. All the actors in the film are real characters in the village, and the life scenes in the film are quite consistent with the daily life scenes I saw when I was working on a boat and the boat stopped at the port on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.

This young man, Pavel, who grew up in Moscow, stared at me and said, "are you crazy?" It is not because Russians like to drink condensed tea, but because they are poor, they are reluctant to throw it away after soaking, and in order to save electricity and gas, they burn a pot and soak it first! "

It is also true that if there is tea, electricity and gas, who would want to soak the tea overnight, make it bitter and astringent, and then drink it with boiled water like drinking traditional Chinese medicine?

So Pavel, who grew up in a middle-class family, drank tea like everyone else, soaked it to almost the concentration he wanted, and picked up the tea bag and threw it away.

I'll admit it when I drink Lipton tea bag, but what about the famous Russian tea?

"where are the refreshments? When Russians drink tea, don't they have to have a lot of refreshments? " I called out in a fuss. "and the jam? Doesn't Russian Black Tea want to add jam? "

The Pavel family is not like in the movie, the cupboard is opened to a large plate of cakes, scones, pies, sweet bread, biscuits, candies, jam, honey and other refreshments, moved out when drinking tea. I opened his kitchen cupboard, no different from mine, except for a few cups and a bag of sugar, nothing to eat!

Pavel looked at me with a slightly sympathetic and amused expression and said, "if Russia is as convenient as Thailand and there is a 24-hour convenience store downstairs, why buy a bunch of what you want to eat at any time?"

I opened his refrigerator and found some cans of caviar, half a box of eggs, half cream, a few cans of beer and nothing else that Pavel's mother had brought during her family visit. Like everyone else, out of the era of rationing and scarcity, this generation of young Russians who grew up eating McDonald's have long formed the habit of eating and buying as much as possible.

"what about the legendary jam black tea?" I don't give up yet.

Pavel tilted his head and thought for a moment. "the reason for adding jam is that the overnight tea is too astringent and bad to taste, so it's easier to add a little bit, isn't it?"

"so not all Russians like to drink tea like this?"

"who would love it? It was a last resort, okay? "

Russia's famous pickled apples and sauerkraut are also like this, aren't they?

At that moment, I found that many of the so-called "traditional" eating habits are not "love", but "have to".

According to Wikipedia, "du Xiaoyue Hanker's Noodle Soup, Taiwan Style", which the Taiwanese are proud of, originated from Hong Taro, a fisherman in Tainan during the reign of Guang Xu in the late Qing Dynasty. Because there are often typhoons in Tainan during the Qingming Festival and summer from July to September, wind and rain make it difficult to go fishing and make a living difficult, so the month in which the typhoon strikes frequently and is unable to fish at sea, and it is difficult to maintain a living, is called "Xiaoyue". Hong Taro carries a pole and sells pasta in front of the Narcissus Temple in Tainan City.

Therefore, Noodles, Sichuan Style's roadside tables and chairs are very small, which should be like Russian overnight strong tea, not specially designed, but a reality of last resort. But people who insist on eating Noodles, Sichuan Style at such small tables and chairs are just as ridiculous as I protested to Pavel that tea was not diluted with hot water overnight.

Mr. Baifu Ando, who invented instant noodles, sold noodles during the war. at that time, he realized that many people died of famine and starvation, not because there was no food, but because food such as noodles could not be preserved for a long time. So in the middle of the war, the noodles were already spoiled when they were transported to where they were needed, but if they were fried first, they could be kept for a long time, so that more people could not starve to death. So instant noodles are born because they have to, not because they think that instant noodles are better than fresh noodles.

Russian Black Tea, to put it bluntly, is only a strong tea that is bitter and astringent cooling overnight. It is the product of the era of food matching and fuel shortage in the past. After a long time, it has become an indispensable and irreplaceable feature. The same is true of mixed vegetable soup in Kaohsiung and Xilu meat in Ilan.