I love coffee. I mean, there is precious little on this planet that I love more. I’m not too discriminating about what I drink, either; I’m ashamed to say. Coffee, decaffienated, lattes, chai, and cappuccino – I’ll drink it all.
I think it’s a psychological thing. I love to smell it, to grind it. I love every bit of it. I don’t know how many times throughout the day I wish I had a cup of coffee with me - when I’m sitting in front of a computer, or over a pad of paper, or on my back deck, or sitting outside across the table from a friend. It seems like any time is a good time for it.
I think that – for me – it isn’t so much the coffee itself I love but the psychological impact that it has of having something in front of me. The best situations are the “bottomless cup,” especially when the coffee is relatively fresh.
The problem that I find with the “bottomless cup” is that I get tired of it! I’ve read conflicting reports about how good it is for me; the sugar can hurt my teeth and can do bad things to my insides. But that doesn’t stop me.
The interesting thing is this: I want it, but my body doesn’t. My body knows when enough is enough. I usually don’t listen, but at the end of the day when my stomach hurts, I know I shold have, and swear to the next time.
In the US culture, I think the “bottomless cup” of shopping and consuming is starting to wear into our stomachs. Our economic system has been setting records of failure over the past several months, and people – me – are getting increasingly frightened. Perhaps this mass consumption is no longer agreeable to our systems. I hope this stomach ache isn’t too bad.
The Bottomless Cup
By sahara - Posted on October 10th, 2008
Chai isn't coffee. :P
I love coffee as well. I've got an entire blog about how I'm a coffee snob on here if you're interested.
I usually have tea (loose leaf, the snobbery never ends) on a regular basis. Coffee, for me, is more of an indulgence. :-)
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You're right, chai isn't coffee! i just include it in that "warm cup of something" category. :)
"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."
H.D. Thoreau
This chai...is tea? Is it at least cafinated?
I have never had it but this girl in my class...some kind of tree hugger liberal from Colorado Springs... she drinks it and one time she had a shot of expresso with it because she needed the cafine boost. The only problem was that the 'coffee guy' accidently put it in the chai. She drank it but suggests nobody ever EVER do that.
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It is a tea from India. It's supposed to be black tea made with regular, not skim or reduce-fat, milk, spices (cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and pepper), and a little bit of sugar (to bring out the spices). So, yes, it is caffeinated.
I don't know what all these different concoctions are that people have derived from it--especially chai lattes. I don't understand. Is it just chai with a shot of espresso? Is it chai with extra milk? Is calling a beverage "cinnamon spice chai" just a way of using redundancy to sell a product to non-educated consumers, or do they make it differently? Who knows!? Not me.
If I want chai (which I normally don't), I just ask for chai. It's fine the way it is without doctoring it. I don't think you can call something chai once you've changed it, it is simply a chai-like, or formerly-chai substance. ;-)
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Chai is probably made about 5 times a day in my house and on special occassions when the family gets together, they tend to have a pot of Chai before and after dinner.
We're from Pakistan, how can we NOT drink chai, it's in our blood.
Great blog and I sometimes drink coffee, but only when I am not at home because I really have not found good chai at American coffee joints.
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Fudge"It's the hard-knock life..."
When did tea get to India/Pakistan? I know that for many years the Chinese had a monopoly on tea which what caused the triangular opium/silver/tea trade between Brittain, India and China. It hasn't been all that long that India has been a tea producer.
So you will have to tell me then I or someone else could answer
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Fudge"It's the hard-knock life..."
From Wikipedia:
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (2008): "In 1824 tea plants were discovered in the hills along the frontier between Burma and the Indian state of Assam. The British introduced tea culture into India in 1836 and into Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1867. At first they used seeds from China, but later seeds from the Assam plant were used."[
I don't know very many Pakistani's but all of the Indians I've ever met just assumed that they had always had tea.
Interestingly, most of them also think that they had always had chili peppers but these came from the New World. They spread very quickly across Europe and then to Asia after Columbus discovered the Americas.
I lived in Australia for a year and since it was part of the Brittish Empire there was a lot of Indian food there and I got addicted to it. We don't have any Indian food restaurants here in my town in Wyoming so I cook it myself quite frequently. I have a really good collection of all the spices. The food would be very different without chili peppers. I am neither Hindu or Muslim (or anything else) so I often substitute pork when recipes call for lamb and beef. I believe in Goa, which is largely Christian due to the Portguese, that is a common practice so I guess I am not tooooo unauthentic.
Of course while that area of the world has borrowed from the rest of the world they are also the source of many great spices so it balances out.
Food and cooking are very fundamental to my life.
Pakistan, were once a part of India (before 1947)
I am quite thankful for the info though but I always attributed tea to the British, their gift to us, one of the very few good ones.
"A person doesn't die when he should but when he can." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Fudge"It's the hard-knock life..."
and I identify. Food is my drug of choice, and my choice to continue overconsuming is shrinking my clothing!
It's just terrible.
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude