How to Cause Insomnia, Spanish-style
Like coffee? Spain is your place. But only if you like strong coffee. If the coffee you like is the regular American, drink-five-mugs-at-one-sitting coffee, don't touch Spanish coffee. Because if you do, it'll taste like paint stripper and one small cup will probably keep you awake for two nights. It's not as strong as the Turkish drop-of-coffee-in-a-shot-glass kind, but your eyes will still rival an owl's.
I once made the mistake of drinking five coffees on a Saturday night. I had gone out, it was cold, I didn't feel like alcohol or soft drinks or water or syrupy juices, so I drank coffee. My heart was beating the conga when I finished the last one. Suffice it to say I didn't sleep well that night and that I didn't repeat the mistake. Since then I have gotten used to Spanish coffee. I can now drink a cup in the evening and sleep well, but I won't take my chances on five cups again. My husband, however, has no problems with it. One afternoon and evening he must have drunk close to twenty cups. Let's just say he didn't go to bed till late. Like, close to six in the morning.
Walking into a bar or a café you also have to know what you want. It's not as simple as ordering a "café". One of the most common is café con leche, one half boiling coffee and one half boiling milk poured into a cup the size of a cup in a doll's tea set. It's not the kind to drink on the run unless you want burnt taste buds. It is to be slowly sipped. The bartender will serve it with an enormous packet of sugar. All coffees are served with the same enormous packet. My husband usually asks for two, because one is sometimes not enough. Then there's the café solo. The same little cup filled completely with the black liquid. Those who drink black American coffee with no sugar are not advised to drink a café solo in the same fashion. In fact, this coffee is best drunk with two packets of sugar to offset the bitter taste that will stay in your mouth for the rest of the day. If you suffer insomnia, do not drink this version past nine o'clock in the morning. The other most common is the cortado. This coffee is for those who are not quite brave enough to face the café solo. It's the little cup of black coffee with a few drops of hot milk. A true coffee drinker would say that it's the coward's way out of drinking black coffee.
Those who consider decaffeinated coffee the only way to live life also have choices. They can have a descafeinado de máquina, which is like a regular coffee and has the same ways of serving. Then there's the descafeinado con leche, in which the bartender will place a slightly larger cup of boiled milk in front of you with a little packet of decaf to stir into the milk. Generally, older ladies favor this type of coffee. And then there are the specialty coffees, such as café con hielo, which is one of the normal coffees served over ice. It's also about double the price. Then there's the carajillo, a Spanish version of the Irish coffee, made with aguardiente, brandy, or sometimes rum. And yes, café irlandés, which is made generally with Scotch instead of Irish whiskey. These alcoholic versions are generally sipped in the evening, the caffeine and the burnt alcohol cancelling each other out and the whipped cream adding the dessert calories.
Walk into a bar or café at any hour of the day and you'll see somebody drinking coffee. In the morning the drinker will probably tear a croissant apart and dip it into the coffee before eating it while they stand at the bar. It's a typical breakfast. After lunch the coffee will probably have a snifter of something next to it, raising the spirits of whomever has to return to work in the afternoon. In the evening, too, it's common to see coffee being served. It's one way to keep awake until one in the morning or thereabouts, as the Spaniards attend to their social lives.
The coffees sold in cafés are generally a mixture, mezcla. Natural coffee and torrefacto are combined to create a bitter brew. Nowhere else is torrefacto to be found outside Spain. It was first brought into being during the years of famine, after the Civil War, during World War II. At that time coffee beans became a luxury. To stretch out the supply, coffee makers toasted coffee with about twenty percent sugar. That made the coffee darker and more bitter. So, if someone usually used two teaspoons of coffee per cup, with one spoon they would get the same color and intensity. After the necessity for torrefacto disappeared, the custom remained. And now, two teaspoons are used again, and coffee is generally more bitter here than anywhere else. But Spanish taste buds have grown accustomed and now expect that puckering of lips that comes with a café solo. An outsider, however, will find it tastes so bitter it would send a fly who had sipped from a drop into a nosedive.
Anybody for a coffee break?
I once made the mistake of drinking five coffees on a Saturday night. I had gone out, it was cold, I didn't feel like alcohol or soft drinks or water or syrupy juices, so I drank coffee. My heart was beating the conga when I finished the last one. Suffice it to say I didn't sleep well that night and that I didn't repeat the mistake. Since then I have gotten used to Spanish coffee. I can now drink a cup in the evening and sleep well, but I won't take my chances on five cups again. My husband, however, has no problems with it. One afternoon and evening he must have drunk close to twenty cups. Let's just say he didn't go to bed till late. Like, close to six in the morning.
Walking into a bar or a café you also have to know what you want. It's not as simple as ordering a "café". One of the most common is café con leche, one half boiling coffee and one half boiling milk poured into a cup the size of a cup in a doll's tea set. It's not the kind to drink on the run unless you want burnt taste buds. It is to be slowly sipped. The bartender will serve it with an enormous packet of sugar. All coffees are served with the same enormous packet. My husband usually asks for two, because one is sometimes not enough. Then there's the café solo. The same little cup filled completely with the black liquid. Those who drink black American coffee with no sugar are not advised to drink a café solo in the same fashion. In fact, this coffee is best drunk with two packets of sugar to offset the bitter taste that will stay in your mouth for the rest of the day. If you suffer insomnia, do not drink this version past nine o'clock in the morning. The other most common is the cortado. This coffee is for those who are not quite brave enough to face the café solo. It's the little cup of black coffee with a few drops of hot milk. A true coffee drinker would say that it's the coward's way out of drinking black coffee.
Those who consider decaffeinated coffee the only way to live life also have choices. They can have a descafeinado de máquina, which is like a regular coffee and has the same ways of serving. Then there's the descafeinado con leche, in which the bartender will place a slightly larger cup of boiled milk in front of you with a little packet of decaf to stir into the milk. Generally, older ladies favor this type of coffee. And then there are the specialty coffees, such as café con hielo, which is one of the normal coffees served over ice. It's also about double the price. Then there's the carajillo, a Spanish version of the Irish coffee, made with aguardiente, brandy, or sometimes rum. And yes, café irlandés, which is made generally with Scotch instead of Irish whiskey. These alcoholic versions are generally sipped in the evening, the caffeine and the burnt alcohol cancelling each other out and the whipped cream adding the dessert calories.
Walk into a bar or café at any hour of the day and you'll see somebody drinking coffee. In the morning the drinker will probably tear a croissant apart and dip it into the coffee before eating it while they stand at the bar. It's a typical breakfast. After lunch the coffee will probably have a snifter of something next to it, raising the spirits of whomever has to return to work in the afternoon. In the evening, too, it's common to see coffee being served. It's one way to keep awake until one in the morning or thereabouts, as the Spaniards attend to their social lives.
The coffees sold in cafés are generally a mixture, mezcla. Natural coffee and torrefacto are combined to create a bitter brew. Nowhere else is torrefacto to be found outside Spain. It was first brought into being during the years of famine, after the Civil War, during World War II. At that time coffee beans became a luxury. To stretch out the supply, coffee makers toasted coffee with about twenty percent sugar. That made the coffee darker and more bitter. So, if someone usually used two teaspoons of coffee per cup, with one spoon they would get the same color and intensity. After the necessity for torrefacto disappeared, the custom remained. And now, two teaspoons are used again, and coffee is generally more bitter here than anywhere else. But Spanish taste buds have grown accustomed and now expect that puckering of lips that comes with a café solo. An outsider, however, will find it tastes so bitter it would send a fly who had sipped from a drop into a nosedive.
Anybody for a coffee break?
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