While you enjoy your cup of coffee, consider how people in other parts of the world may be drinking their fresh brew. In Scandinavia, they likely combine a fresh egg with their coffee grounds, and in some parts of Thailand, the coffee beans are extricated from elephant dung.
Click start to play today’s Spell It, where you can spot the word “coffee”.
Here are five unusual ways people consume their coffee, from around the world:
1. Scandinavian egg coffee
The Swedes and Norwegians invented this method of brewing coffee in the mid-1800s to improve the flavour of the suboptimal coffee that was available at the time. It involves cracking a whole egg into coffee grounds with a little water, and then mixing everything up. Coffee drinkers then add boiling hot water to the mixture and let it steep. The egg is used as a clarifying agent, to absorb the tannins and impurities that usually create a bitter, unpleasant flavour, especially in low-grade coffee beans.
2. Kopi gu yu
Literally translating to “coffee butter” in Hokkien, this kind of coffee was introduced by Hainanese coffee shops in China in the 1930s. The practice involves adding a slab of butter to coffee, along with condensed milk, to give it a caramelised flavour and cut the harsh notes of Robusta coffee beans. Today, in places like Singapore, instead of adding butter directly to the cup, the beans are first roasted in sugar and butter to caramelise their exterior and achieve a mellow taste.
3. Elephant dung coffee
You may have heard of kopi luwak – coffee beans that are digested by an Indonesian feline called the Asian palm civet, and then picked out from their faeces. In Thailand, a similar practice exists, but on a much larger scale, involving elephant dung. Because elephants are herbivores, their digestion process involves less acidity and the resulting Black Ivory Coffee is supposedly incredibly flavourful. It’s also one of the rarest and most expensive coffees in the world.
4. Cheese flavoured coffee
Another unique coffee from Sweden, this delicacy – kaffeost – is flavoured with Leipäjuusto bread cheese. The thick cheese has a thick texture and salty taste. Swedes and Finnish people are known to drop chunks of it into their mugs, allowing the release of fats, oils and salts into the coffee, and converting it into a savoury, potent drink.
Which is your favourite kind of coffee? Play today’s Spell It and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.
