 | ||
| | ||
         
|
Laos Essential Artistry Posting Page
Sunday, October 5, 2008
 I'm sitting here at home, enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning after our first rain of the season on Saturday sipping one of my favorite Lao Mountain Coffee blends, Elephant Express. As far as I know we're the only business here in the states selling Lao Mountain Coffee and while it's gotten rave reviews in Asia, it's relatively unknown here in the states and we're hoping to help market another one of the treasures of Laos. I'm currently working on our itinerary when we go to Laos in December and I have to be honest, I really miss Laos just about as much as my wife, and she's from Laos and her entire family is in Laos! Being in Laos is so different from our hectic lives here in the states, and just like here at home, I like to start my day with Lao coffee. But I have to be honest, even if I had the opportunity to choose between a cup of Lao Mountain Coffee or the traditional coffee the Lao drink (Café Lao), I would readily choose Café Lao when I am in Laos. It's not made with Arabica beans and there are no specially-trained baristas or Starbuck's type coffee houses, usually it's just your typical street vendor or open-air stall selling the coffee and usually some fried doughnut-like pastry the Lao like to eat with their coffee. What makes drinking coffee in a Southeast Asian country like Laos unique is that they use condensed milk instead of half & half or fresh milk. For two reasons, there are few milk cows and little fresh milk to be had outside of major cities (and it's expensive) and most Lao don't have refrigerators to keep the milk refrigerated even if they had access to it. So, it's condensed milk or nothing at all. And believe it or not it grows on you and it's usually all I have for breakfast and then in late morning we'll have some kind of noodle soup, fer, khao soay, or khao piak. I've included a video here of one of my favorite little coffee "shops" in Luang Prabang by he Mekong River where you can see Lao coffee being made. Sometimes they call it bag coffee because of the bag filter they use and you can see the layer of condensed milk they add to the glass (no coffee cups for most Lao) before pouring in the coffee. I have to admit I love Lao coffee and it's a magical time for me when I can sit outside in a stall like this, savoring my very Lao, Café Lao, and soaking in the early morning activities of the Lao wherever I might be. It's not a connoisseur's coffee, but it's one of the highlights of being in Laos, at least for me! And it's only about 50 cents for one glass! The photos below are of the original owners of the coffee shop in the video. They were so friendly and proud of the wide variety of people who came by their shop, which included a lot of falang (foreigners) and they kept guest books where people could write comments and it was amazing to see the global connections that happened at this little coffee shop. Unfortunately about four years ago the man felt a sharp pain in his stomach one afternoon, they took him to the local hospital and he was dead by the next morning. Men have a life expectancy in Laos of about 55 years...  We're definitely looking forward to going back to Laos in December for three weeks and I just had to share my memories of traditional Café Lao. But, I have to admit I also love drinking Lao Mountain Coffee which is now featured in all of the best restaurants and cafés in Laos and if you want to experience the best in Lao coffee, try one of the four Lao Mountain Coffee blends we carry, Elephant Express, White Parasol, Naga, and the very best, Peaberry Coffee. by: Laos Essential Artistry 
|
Previous Posts
Archives
|
| | |||||
| |
|  | |||
| |||||
1 Comments:
I write coffee, the varieties and distribution in the world, and other stuff of coffee. Your information about coffee from Laos helped me so much. thanks
kalosi.blogspot.com
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]