Bean there, done that

As a self-confessed culture vulture, I have made it my lifelong mission to get hold of as much interesting tidbits as possible. I enjoy being a repository of trivia and useful fun facts. From little known info on Manila’s oldest buildings to stuff you may not know (but have been dying to know) about something as ordinary as halo-halo.

So you can imagine the feeling of chagrin that overcame me when, one day, as I was lounging at home with a cup of hot coffee in hand, I suddenly realized how little I know about one of the world’s favorite beverages.

Isn’t it silly that we drink coffee every day, yet we do not even know where it comes from or how it came to be? Is it pure? How are the coffee beans chosen? Who was responsible for coffee’s discovery?

With these questions running in my head, I put on my most comfortable walking shoes and took the first step to an excellent coffee-inspired adventure. And where better to start than with the coffee brand that we Filipinos have been enjoying for decades…Nescafé.

Coffee 101

I met up with Rudy Trillanes, Nescafé’s resident coffee man. I’ve been told he can satiate all my coffee info cravings. It was indeed quite an eye-opening encounter.

Like most of you, my initial concern was whether Nescafé instant coffee is pure or not. I was duly surprised to find out that it is!

As Rudy explained, coffee beans undergo roasting, grinding and then brewing. Natural processes all. To illustrate: think of a wet person running and then jumping off a cliff. Once he reaches the bottom, he is then all dry.

I also learned that it is actually quite easy to tell if you’re drinking 100 percent pure coffee. You just have to look for the three “ness” coffee-ness, roastiness and juiciness.

When it comes to coffee-ness, the nose knows it! When the aroma hits your nose, it should be clean, free of any off-tastes that include a certain “grassy” whiff. According to Rudy, if you get that, it means that there are immature or unripe beans in your coffee.

If there’s one valuable insight that I definitely stored in my memory bank, it’s this: good coffee starts with good coffee beans.

So, if you’re serious about the coffee you take, I would advise that you steer clear of coffee that has a woody (You’re not a termite, for crying out loud!), rubbery, rusty or moldy (This isn’t cheese, man!) taste.

Another thing to watch out for is the coffee’s “roastiness.” This refers to the degree of roasting applied to the coffee beans. The roasting is very critical. This is the cooking portion, so to speak. You wouldn’t want your coffee over- or undercooked. Roasting brings out the full flavor and aroma of the beans.

Proper roasting requires the correct temperature and roasting time. Different varieties of beans involve different levels of roasting.

But my ultimate favorite “ness” is juiciness, which is all about determining what taste your coffee leaves you with. Is it of a pleasant “sharpness” and “vibrant” quality? Because, really, your coffee should be able to set your tongue on fire with the explosion of the flavors.

And if you’ll try your Nescafé Classic, you would know that it has all the right amount of coffee-ness, roastiness and juiciness.

Coffee Intrigues, French Court-Style

I picked up a lot of interesting tidbits as I went the rounds of coffee seminars.

There’s romance…intrigue…exciting chases around the world. It sounds like a well-written spy novel. And there’s a goat! The world should be putting up monuments of that goat!

You may not know this but a goat was, in fact, instrumental in the discovery of coffee. In 9th-century Ethiopia, a goat herder named Kaldi saw that his goats got frisky when they ate a certain type of berry. The berries, it turned out, were coffee berries. It didn’t take long before monks were frying the berries in animal fat and keeping themselves up and awake during those long hours of prayer.

Coffee then reached the regions of Arabia where, as legend goes, one Arab accidentally over roasted the coffee beans. If you thought he threw the burned concoction, you have another think coming! He tried it and actually liked it! And this is that point in history when coffee was officially invented.

It does not end there, though. During the 1700s, a lieutenant colonel named Francisco Melo Palheta was sent to mediate between the French and Dutch forces. Of course, he did more than mediate. He and the French governor’s wife began a secret liaison. The extent of the relationship wasn’t exactly clear but it enabled Palheta to bring coffee to Brazil even though it was prohibited. It was said that he hid the coffee cuttings and seeds in the bouquet that the French governor’s wife gave him.

From then on, Brazil would play an important part in the history of coffee. For not only is it the world’s largest coffee producer today, it was also instrumental in the creation of the world’s leading coffee brand, Nescafé.

Here in the Philippines, we got our first taste of Nescafé during World War II. The Nescafé tin cans were one of the rations of the GI forces and they brought them to our shores in the 1940s.

All this information aside, there is still more to learn about coffee. We drink coffee all the time. Over breakfast, after lunch, for merienda, and even after dinner sometimes. It would be wonderful to learn more about something that is such an integral part of our daily routine. I, for one, am eager to learn more. I have decided that aside from being a culture vulture, I will be a coffee connoisseur.