Tea and coffee traditions.

[syrene Registered Find all posts View Profile Close syrene]

Seattle coffee

We don't like any flavored coffees either, but stock up on coffee from Finland and/or Sweden any chance we get. Don was told he shouldn't have any caffeinated beverages so he went to decaf. however I have to make his coffee with two tablespoons to each cup water or its not strong enough!
When we were in China, with his Baptist family tree bunch, the chinese served beer with both lunch and dinner. Wonderful meals by the way. The tea you paid extra for. Needless to say the little old lady aunt who had arranged for the group trip was outraged. She had been born in China and raised on tea, and never drank spirits.

Syrene

[Claire Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Claire]

Coffee....never tea!

I've read June's information about coffee with great interest. I remember my Swede-Finn grandparents loved coffee. I don't remember ever seeing tea or drinking tea in their house. The coffee was always fresh and hot. My grandfather would sometimes pour it out into his saucer and sip his coffee from the saucer while holding a sugar cube in his mouth. I'm sure my grandmother made coffee at least 3 times a day! No surprise that I am a coffee addict now.

[Cooper Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Cooper]

Not only tea...

Speaking about tea today: I heard it from a friend of mine in Finland that there is a very special kind of brew (or, rather, it is a herbal hot drink) called "mate". Probably I am not correct in spelling. Then you will correct me.

This is a drink made of herbs that grow in the South America (Argentina, Paraguay) and it is famous for its ability to heal the headache, fatigue and depression.

I tried several kinds of this drink (in fact, they are mixtures of herbs), some do really have a refreshing effect.

[sune Registered Find all posts View Profile Close sune]

The secret in the coffee we drink here in Finland is in the roasting of the beans. You can get the equivalent i Sweden but nowhere else. And personally I can't stand espresso.

As to Cooper's question about instant cooffee: We do not consider instant coffee coffee in Finland. It is a sore excuse for coffee.

Before the days of percolators and coffee machines the coffee was brewed in a pot. You measured the water in cups into the pot and measured two teaspoons of coffee for each cup and two for the pot. Then you waited until the coffee boiled and took it off the stove. Then you had to pour one cup of coffee and put it back again to clear the pipe of the pot from coffee grind.

Then you put peaces of eggshells into the coffe to help i clear. You had to wait a few minutes for the coffee grind to settle and then you could drink it.

In the Larsmo archipelago north of Jakobstad it was common for the locals to use sea water for cofee, it contains very little salt (abt. 0,4 percent I think). However they got used to the salty flavor, so they uset to add a little salt when they had coffe made from normal drinking water. I have heard that they put salt in the coffee in Lapland too. If you're not used to it it tastes like I-do-not-care-to-say-what.

By the way you can't get a decent cup of tea in a cafe in Finland. All you get is a cup of hot water and a tea bag. I believe the Russians are far ahead of us as tea is concerned.

Sune

[Cooper Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Cooper]

Tea and coffee.

Dear Sune,

Thanks for the lead.
You are certainly right about the hot water and the tea-bag in a cafe. It is not only in finland that you get this in a small cafe.

To make real tea is a long (sorry, rather a long) story, with pre-heating the pot, putting a certain amount of tea in it, adding some hot water, etc. I do not speak about technicalities like what the temperature of the water should be or how long you have to wait till you pour the pot full, or how much tea is to be put for a cup.

This can be made either at home or at a very good cafe or even restaurant.

I do not dare say that the Russians are far ahead in this direction as there are Russians and Russians, as there are Finns and Finns.
Do you agree?

[sune Registered Find all posts View Profile Close sune]

I certainly agree. There are all kinds of people in every nation. Every place has got it's fair share.

But there are cultural differences. In Russia you have generally a better sense of tea than we have in Finland. After all, you invented the samovar.

An even if we have a certain "cofee culture" in Finland you can none the less get a brew that is not fit for drinking. It is widely suspected that some of the cofee you get att road stops comes directly by a pipe line from an oil refinery.

Sune

[Cooper Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Cooper]

Not only tea and coffee.

Dear Sune,

I can not argue your point about the "tea-culture" as when I am in Finland I always prefer to drink coffee. (Just like in Turkey).

But I notice that many new ideas about tea or tea-kind drinks i received from my friends in Finland.

Am I right that the name Borge stans for Porvoo, too?

[vernlindquist Registered Find all posts View Profile Close vernlindquist]

As a kid growing up in a neighborhood of Swedish-Finns who were my grandparents' friends, I was taught how to drink coffee by one of the older couples, Victor and Ida Frost. They had a small cup on the shelf in their dining room just for me. Gramma Frost would spoon the cream off the glass bottle of milk and then fill my cup about half full of cream. Then Grampa Frost taught me to hold the sugar cube between my teeth and draw the coffee through it. It was always a special treat to have coffee and some of her braided cardamon coffee bread. What a special memory.

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

drinking coffee

As a child I remember watching my elders drinking coffee. Sugar was either in cubes or oblong - if it was oblong, there was a little clipper type of tool they used to cut the oblong sugar into a smaller piece. They poured some coffee into the saucer (saucers were deeper than what we have now) and then they sipped the coffee through the sugar cube. I used to think that was the greatest thing to do and hoped I could do that when I grew up.

I have my Aunt Ruth's little copper coffee pot in which she cooked her coffee when she lived in Finland. I'll attached a picture showing the same type of pot, along with the box of sugar cubes, cup and saucer. I also have cups and saucers just like those in the picture. Notice the napkin which was usually tucked into the handle of the cup. My relatives still serve coffee this way.

June

[Cooper Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Cooper]

Coffee traditions.

Dear June,

Thanks for the picture! It is great that many of the traditions survive.
When I was in Helsinki last summer I bought the same antique copper pot.
But we make coffee in much smaller "turkish pots".
You also have them, probably.
I will have to find a picture and send you, too.

[Gwenda Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gwenda]

Having just read all 24 messages about tea and coffee, eggshells and salt and pepper I`ve been racking my brain trying to think of something intelligent to add. Sorry, but I am all out of intelligence at 11.07 pm. I prefer tea though myself (Australian/British tradition and all that). Have disliked coffee ever since I gave up smoking 18 years ago and my taste buds returned! However, just lately have started to enjoy it again (coffee I mean, not the smoking!). Right now though, I am desperate for a hot chocolate because coffee will keep me awake.

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

coffee

I was reminded of something my father told me about growing up in Finland in the early 1900s. He lived on a farm and they got their sugar from a peddlar who drove a horse and wagon around the farms, selling coffee, sugar, trinkets and cloth. He said the sugar came in the form of a large cone and they scraped the sugar off as they needed it. When I visited Topelius' home in Nykarleby, they had a sugar cone on display so I was able to get an idea what it looked like.

Someone just asked me about using egg in the coffee so I checked my Swedish cookbook and it said the Scandinavians preferred using the steeped method for cooking coffee. They put the coffee grounds and cold water into a pot, adding 1 teaspoon of slightly beaten egg for each 2 tablespoons of coffee used. Bring very slowly to boiling, stirring now and then. Remove from heat and pour 1/4 c. cold water down the spout to settle the grounds. Strain coffee into a server. I remember seeing relatives adding the egg along with egg shell into a big blue enamel coffee pot and then pouring water down the spout when the coffee was cooked. I wonder if anyone makes coffee this way now? I had several cousins who were considered gourmet cooks and they swore that was the only way to make good coffee - even on picnics they made it that way. My relatives in Finland use Mr. Coffee to make their coffee. No one used a coffee pot on the stove. I have my old percolator but haven't used it for years.

June

[sune Registered Find all posts View Profile Close sune]

Re: Not only tea and coffee.

Originally posted by Cooper
Am I right that the name Borge stans for Porvoo, too?

Yes, Cooper, Borgå is the Swedish and original name for Porvoo. I means "the river by the castle", because there was an old castle or fort here before the town was built.

Sune

[Hasse Admin Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Hasse]

Coffee making today...

It is interesting to read about different ways to make coffee, with or without eggshells, in the traditional coffee pot, traditions etc., etc.

I would argue that most of us people in Finland today are making our coffee more or less the same way. The method could be described as "press the idiot button" and let the machine do it. All our friends use and have used these coffee brewers for years and I seldom see anyone cooking their coffee in the pot. In shops even the pile of different coffee grinded types indicate that "for filter" -type coffees sell more than "for pot".

I believe this has to do with the lack of time we all experience nowadays. In the morning coffee is a must in most homes - and we perhaps use one single minute to make the coffee, ie. measure the coffee, pour fresh water and press the button. The rest of the morning to-do's follow a tight - minute-by-minute schedule. Making the morning coffee has to be a quick procedure in todays homes.

My mother often says that the pot coffee is better, but for some reason she always makes the coffee the "filter" -way. Maybe filter coffee isn't that much worse after all?

In our family we also have a capuccino/espresso machine - of the type measure the coffee, pour the water ....eh.... sounds familiar - yes - and press the button. But it takes too much time...so it is seldom used.

The kids seem to enjoy the "flavoured coffees" you can buy in the new coffee shops. Even our youngest who doesn't drink coffee at home tend to sit over a latté in these coffee shops with her firends.

Traveling has taught us that there are more nice coffee types to enjoy that "our" traditional Paulig -roasted Finnish style coffee filter-or-pot. French "mélange" mixed milk/dark roasted coffee tastes good in Paris, far better than their "café noir" which imho is a real eye-opener in the mornings. Subsequently I myself often enjoy a large cup of "café au lait", milk coffee when in a coffee shop in Helsingfors.

The instant coffee jars are found in many homes, but they are used as the last resort if you run out of real coffee. Usually the "better before" stamp on these jars are dated in the last milennium - maybe this is why coffee sometimes tastes oli refinery as Sune wrote...

[Cooper Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Cooper]

Tea and/or coffee

Originally posted by Gwenda
Having just read all 24 messages about tea and coffee, eggshells and salt and pepper I`ve been racking my brain trying to think of something intelligent to add. Sorry, but I am all out of intelligence at 11.07 pm. I prefer tea though myself (Australian/British tradition and all that). Have disliked coffee ever since I gave up smoking 18 years ago and my taste buds returned! However, just lately have started to enjoy it again (coffee I mean, not the smoking!). Right now though, I am desperate for a hot chocolate because coffee will keep me awake.

Chocolate is probably somewhat different, though of course, tasty and not too often offered. Am I right?