Coffee: the standard breakfast drink grows up

Nation's Restaurant News, August 19, 2002

Papua New Guinea -- Making up the western half of the large Pacific island of New Guinea, this poor country produces some of the world's best coffee. At its finest, Papua New Guinea beans combine the legendary body of Sumatra--another large island, at the other end of the Indonesian archipelago--with the acidity of Central America. It is not considered as elegant as Jamaican Blue Mountain or Hawaiian Kona.

Tanzania -- Coffee from Tanzania is best known for its small, round "pea berries," which can occur elsewhere, but are more common in Tanzania. The coffee's flavor is described as clean and bright, similar to those of Kenya, but with less pronounced fruit and wine, resulting in a generally more mellow cup.

Yemen -- The port of Mocha is in this country, whose coffee is known for its wild and gamy qualities. Mocha-Java, the quintessential traditional blend, is a combination of the wild acidity of Yemeni beans and the body of coffee from the Indonesian island of Java.

Coffee from the Bayou

A coffee beverage unique to the United States is the Louisiana-style cafe au lait, which is made from coffee blended with roasted chicory.

That's the mainstay of the coffee program at Crescent City Beignets, a Houston-based chain with eight units in operation in Houston and Austin, and 25 in development in San Antonio, Dallas, Atlanta and the Denver area.

Tucker Bunch, the chain's executive chef, hails from Louisiana along with Crescent City's other owners. He says the concept's strong coffee is brewed to be mixed half-and-half with milk, and has "a totally different mouth feel" from other coffees. "It's sort of velvety on your tongue," he adds.

In addition, when Louisianans make cafe au lait, they scald the milk rather than steam it, Bunch says that scalding cooks the sugars that occur naturally in milk, giving it "a sort of caramelly, custardy flavor that really is part of the whole experience. It's a perfect combination of this sweet, rounded, neutral-acidity kind of coffee. It's just really, really good."

Bunch says each, of the chain's stores goes through 600 gallons of cafe au lait each week, and that most of his patrons are regular customers.

"Somehow, chicory coffee transcends people's everyday expectations of what their coffee's supposed to be like he says "It's no so outside of what people are looking for that they're surprised by it, though In our minds its a great cup of coffee."

FAST FACTS

* Drop coffee provides a bigger jolt than espresso, Espresso is made by quickly forcing steam through fine, dark-roasted grounds, giving the water little time to absorb caffeine. Water remains in contact with coffee grounds longer with the drip method, so it absorbs more caffeine.

* Northeasterners and Northwesterners like their coffee stronger than people in other parts of the country, according to Tim Clealand, sales manager for Gavina Gournet Coffee's institutional and gournet divisions. Northwesterners tend to enjoy lighter roasts but they still like a high coffee-to-water ratio.