Mexican coffee. Mexican coffee - characteristics of origin

I finally made it to Mexico.This time - in full. Thanks to work, I was able to visit the coffee part of the country, and thanks to my wife’s birthday, I was able to visit the tourist part, such as Chichen Itza and Cancun on the picturesque Yucatan Peninsula.

12 hours of flight, and having flown exactly half of the Earth, you are in Mexico City. I won’t talk about my adventures in the capital of 30 million people, especially since just a couple of days later we were plowing coffee trails in the state of Chiapas - one of the main coffee regions of Mexico.

Chiapas (Mexicans pronounce "CHI" apas) is the southernmost state of the country, long belonging to Guatemala, one of the poorest and most Indian. The Indians of Chiapas are descendants of the Mayan civilization and speak various Mayan languages.

The state capital is the small but very cozy town of San Cristobal de las Casas with a beautiful central part of the city, built in the traditional square of the Spanish conquistadors.

On one of these central streets is the coffee shop "Carajillo" of Jesus Salazar, whose guest we were during our stay in Chiapas.

Jesus is a very nice young man with progressive views on life in general and coffee culture in particular. Just look at the brand of his company - “Cafeologo”. “Coffeeologist” - “a person who studies coffee” - fresh and creative, I haven’t heard this before.

The coffee shops Jesus opens are called “Carajillo” (he also owns a coffee roasting workshop, a showroom with a tasting room, and even a small hotel).

Carajillo is a coffee drink that originated either in Cuba or Barcelona, ​​but over time has become one of the most popular throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

The classic carajillo is coffee with brandy or rum, but in Mexico it is prepared with 43 orange liqueur.

I spent quite a lot of time at Jesus's coffee shop, making Mexican coffee (more on that later) and trying different drinks.

Espresso with the traditionally pronounced acidity of Central American Arabicas, which sometimes makes my cheekbones ache, tempts me less (even with plenty of sugar). But Americano goes very well - the acid weakens with water, the coffee becomes softer and more pleasant.

Which once again confirms that different methods of making coffee (in this case, espresso and Americano) are different worlds that require different approaches and different starting coffee.

But I liked the Mexican carajillo much better than the one I drank somewhere in Barcelona. With orange liqueur instead of brandy, it is much tastier and smoother - it’s not for nothing that Jesus named his establishment after it.

Carajillo is a cute modern third wave coffee shop with lots of the right coffee details.

For example, when you are served espresso here, an empty metal cup is placed next to the cup. To avoid dirtying your saucer or table - after stirring the sugar in your drink, you can put the dirty spoon in this empty cup.

This presentation, by the way, first appeared at barista championships, where participants carefully presented empty cups to the judges, onto which they could put their dirty spoons after tests. It's great that now this is being implemented in real life.

Jesus' cups are also incredibly elegant - in a sort of black and white “Yin and Yang” style.

I forgot to say: don’t be intimidated by looking at any Mexican menu.

In Mexico City, I was taken aback when I walked into a coffee shop and saw the price of $22 for a cup of Americano. The point, it turns out, is that the dollar sign “$” here denotes the Mexican peso, and its exchange rate to its American namesake is 1:20.

By the way, the Mexican 10-peso coin with the Mayan calendar depicted on it is one of the most beautiful coins in the world - a must-have as a souvenir.

I almost forgot, I promised to talk about the combination of “tequila + coffee”. As already mentioned, a combination consisting only of such components, unfortunately, does not exist in Mexico, but there is a bridge between them with a connecting link in the form of Kahlúa coffee liqueur.

Of the several dozen brands of coffee liqueurs, Kahlúa is undoubtedly the most famous. If you ask for “coffee liqueur” in any bar in the world, this is what they will offer you.

Kahlúa comes from the state of Veracruz, already known to us, where it began to be produced in 1936. The liqueur got its name in honor of the disappeared Indian people of Acolhua. Although there is also a version that the creator of the drink gave it to him out of respect for the eastern origin of coffee beans, associating the liqueur with the Arabic word “Kahwa”.

Kahlúa is made from coffee beans and rum obtained from sugar cane. Naturally, it contains caffeine, but in very small quantities: the manufacturer indicates 10 mg of caffeine per 100 ml of drink. To be clear, 10 mg is about a fifth of what is contained in a regular cup of espresso.

Aging by number of years is an important criterion in the world of alcoholic beverages. I think this is why the manufacturer of Kahlúa uses phrases like “It takes 7 years to make one bottle of Kahlúa” in their advertising.

And then the “decipherment” indicates that 6 out of 7 years is the time needed to grow a coffee tree. Well, plus a year on little things for other processes. So, in this case, coffee seriously supported the alcoholic legend.

I admit, I always wondered why add coffee liquor in coffee? But after tasting this combination, all questions disappear by themselves - it’s delicious, and that’s all.

In its pure form, Kahlúa liqueur is drunk chilled, and it is also often consumed with ice.

Kahlúa is included in a number of famous world cocktails, such as the Espresso Martini, Black Russian or B-52.

But if you want to try it yourself, here are a couple of the most common options:

A) 2 parts liqueur, 3 parts Coca-Cola, ice.

B) 2 parts Kahlua, 4 parts soda water, ice, lime.

Despite the lack of a pure coffee + tequila cocktail, the Mexican coffee drink is already available - thanks to Kahlúa. More often it is called “Flaming Mexican coffee” or “Mexican waterfall flaming coffee" - "Waterfall of burning Mexican coffee."

Although the last name is longer, I like it better - it sounds colorful and unusual. In fact, it's true: Serving this cocktail of tequila, Kahlua, and coffee (and the occasional vanilla ice cream) is downright magical.

It is prepared in an Irish coffee glass, and they describe it, by the way, also in the style of “Irish coffee”: they say, “Mexican Coffee” is like Irish coffee, only instead of Irish whiskey, Mexican alcohol is added to it - tequila and Kahlúa.

The show with the preparation of a “burning waterfall” is staged not at the bar counter, but right at the client’s table. And if this also happens in the evening or in a dark hall, then the cocktail looks simply mesmerizing.

A magnificent fiery spectacle is achieved due to the fact that the bartender does not pour alcoholic drinks directly into a glass, but first sets them on fire, and then pours them through two containers, sequentially pouring the burning substance from one to the other.

As a result, it all really looks like some kind of fiery waterfall flowing very picturesquely into the glass.

A scoop of vanilla ice cream is often added to the mix, and cream is placed on top of the cocktail.

They made us “Flaming Mexican coffee” right on the ocean during my wife’s birthday celebration - an incredibly beautiful sight.

Recently, the “Mexican coffee waterfall” has become more and more common. The drink is beautiful and tasty, so I would venture to assume that its wide popularity is not far off.

Something else worth saying a few words about is Mexican tortillas. I admit, before my trip to Mexico I was terribly confused about all these “tacos” and “burritos”. From the first acquaintance with Mexican cuisine, one gets the feeling that there are about a million types of them, and Mexicans eat only them.

Rest assured, it is true: in Mexico, everything revolves around a small flatbread made from corn flour - the tortilla. It can replace a fork, spoon and knife for Mexicans: they use it to scoop up sauce or hold pieces of meat, and such a “cutlery” is quite appropriate to eat at the end of dinner. Since baked goods made from corn dough harden quickly, tortillas are always eaten warm.

The flatbread is the basis for a number of other dishes - when various fillings are wrapped in it. Mexicans call the entire range of tortilla-based dishes “tacos” - snacks.

A rolled tortilla with filling inside is called a burrito. If the filling is not placed inside, but served separately on the tortilla, it is called fajitas.

Fillings can include meat, avocado, cheese, vegetables and other fillings. For example, in Mexico City I ordered fried worms, which are considered a local delicacy. Salty and crispy - if you abstract from the picture, then they go very well. They were also served to me with cheese and tortilla.

Enchilada (“enchilada”) is also a already wrapped tortilla with filling, but baked in the oven or in a frying pan. This dish is traditionally topped with the famous Mexican mole sauce, which consists of chili peppers and cocoa. Despite the presence of pepper, mole is not at all spicy, but very mild and very filling.

Two fried tortillas filled with cheese are called quesadillas. This is my favorite creation among tacos.

Also, as an appetizer in Mexico, they often serve a plate of brown bean mush - frijoles. I kept wishing it was Nutella, but what I got was bean paste. It is served with chips - in order to curb your appetite a little while waiting for food.

I still love to eat. This is probably why the gastronomic trend constantly takes me away from the coffee topic...

Several times we left San Cristobal de las Casas and went on a tour of the coffee plantations of Chiapas. So, one day Jesus took us to his old friend and supplier, a coffee farmer with many years of experience, Don Pedro Vazquez.

There are rumors on the Internet that Mexicans drink their coffee cold. This is partly true. Only I would say not “cold”, but “cooled down”.

When we arrived at Don Pedro's, we were immediately offered coffee. The farmer's wife and daughters walked around with colorful plastic jugs and poured it into colorful plastic cups for us.

We were surprised because the coffee was almost cold. When it ended, the women came up to the bucket of coffee standing right there, poured it into their jugs, threw sugar into them and again offered us this sweet, cooled drink.

In my life I have seen a variety of containers for making coffee, but this is the first time I have seen one straight from a bucket.

There was an explanation for this. It turns out that they made coffee in a bucket not because many people came, but because farming families often prepare coffee in the morning and throughout the day. And not only among farmers - even Jesus, who lives in the city, said that his mother always did this in the morning too: she immediately prepared a “portion” of coffee in the form of a bucket, and then the family drank it all day long.

Naturally, the coffee cools down, but this does not pose any particular problems - it is hot in Mexico, and this involuntarily produces the now fashionable “iced coffee”.

Therefore, the coffee prepared for us was lukewarm - it was also prepared in the morning, about an hour before our arrival.

Don Pedro's farm is quite small - one and a half hectares, but the tour of it turned out to be very informative.

Remember when I talked about top-lopped trees in Sumatra? Short Indonesians do this to make harvesting easier. There is a similar problem in Mexico, but the Mexicans solve it a little differently.

When the tree begins to grow strongly upward, they simply tie its top to the base of a neighboring tree and harvest the crop as if it were not coffee, but grapes. That's why the plantation is full of crooked trees growing in this horizontal form.

Along the way, we had a snack on the sweet oranges that grow here (this is why I love coffee plantations even more) and moved on to the area where Don Pedro grows maragojipe.

This is a very interesting type of coffee, it makes sense to talk about it in more detail.

Maragogyp is a mutation obtained by natural crossing of several Arabica varieties. It was first discovered in the Brazilian province of Bahia near the city of Maragogipe, where it got its name.

The whole world pronounces it in the English manner - “marago” J ip", but the original sound is "marago X and "pe", and all Latin Americans call it that way (or abbreviated as "ma"rago").

Maragogype is considered to be the largest coffee bean size in the world. When you look at them, you get the feeling that these are not coffee pits, but at least date pits - they are so unrealistically large.

“Marago” is a couple of times larger than ordinary coffee beans - for this it was even nicknamed “Elephant bean”.

This variety is grown in a number of Central American countries - Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, but there is an opinion that the best is the Mexican Maragojipe.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information, but I heard that marago, being a hybrid, does not produce stable offspring - partly maragogype grows from its grains, and partly a variety of ordinary Arabica. And since it will be possible to understand this only after the tree has grown (5-6 years), then such uncertainty, of course, does not play in favor of the prospects of this variety.

But many roasters (especially the old school ones) love maragogype and consider it special.

Unfortunately, even with the reputation of the largest grain in the world, as a variety it has very low yields, so the price of Maragojipe on the world market has almost doubled over the past decade.

Due to this rise in price, the demand for it has decreased, and, as in a vicious circle, the amount of coffee produced by farmers has also decreased.

Despite the obvious uniqueness of the Maragojipa, today, unfortunately, it is slowly becoming an endangered species.

But let's hope for the best.

I want to talk about another important coffee reality in Mexico. When people search for something on the topic of “Mexican coffee,” they most often end up on the colorful videos with the “Burning Coffee Waterfall” that I talked about above.

It is undoubtedly beautiful, but calling it traditionally Mexican would not be entirely correct in relation to the country’s long coffee history. After all, Mexico actually already has the most traditional way of making coffee. We are talking about the national drink called “Café de olla” (spelled “olla”, but read “oiya”).

I can’t say for all of Mexico, but the coffee states that we passed through definitely know it and everyone claims that they have been drinking coffee this way since childhood.

"Olla" translates to both "coffee pot" and "pot." It is said that in the old days, Mexicans prepared coffee in clay pots. But I only found a modern version of a cute coffee pot called a “jarra de peltre” - “tin jug”.

The exact history of the tin coffee pot could not be found, but the Mexicans told me that in some way it was the result of a technological error. It was correct to make the coffee pot steel, but the mistake stuck, and they even began to find its advantages in it - due to the softer composition of the metal, coffee began to seem tastier.

The guys at Jesus's coffee shop gave me a whole lecture on how to prepare Café de olla. Of course, the specialty coffee shop added a few modern details to the procedure (such as an elegant teapot or coffee scales), but overall everything was very traditional and simple.

The guy threw a few spoons of brown (cane) sugar and a couple of cinnamon sticks into the coffee pot. They say that in some states they do not add cinnamon, but add a little orange zest.

He then filled the coffee pot with water and lit a fire under it. After a few minutes, this water infusion of cinnamon and sugar begins to boil, the guy turns off the heat and only then throws a couple of spoons of coffee into the coffee pot.

The lid of the coffee pot is closed and the coffee is infused for a couple of minutes. That is, in this case it was not boiled, but, as we say, it was steamed.

Before pouring coffee into a cup, sometimes a cloth or gauze is placed on it to filter out the residue (it’s called a “sock”).

I don’t really like cinnamon, but in this case there was a little bit of it, and it didn’t so much act as a spice, but rather added a pleasant sourness to the taste.

When the guy poured coffee into the pot, he colorfully presented it to us as “a blend of 5 varieties of organic coffee.” Naturally, in the old days, peasants did not make any blends, but a few words need to be said about “organic”.

Mexico has long been considered the world leader in organic coffee production. No certificates were issued here, but the local coffee was “organic” in the most correct sense - “natural”.

This was not because they were chasing status or certification, but simply because farmers in poor coffee regions did not have enough money for fertilizers (this, after all, is a serious cost item in coffee production). Due to the lack of fertilizers, productivity was lower, trees died more, etc. But the coffee turned out to be very natural.

This is how we tried traditional Mexican coffee.

Today it’s hard to believe that one of the world’s best resorts on the Yucatan Peninsula was once a small and inconspicuous fishing village.

Cancun combines everything you need for a perfect vacation: snow-white sand, azure sea, mild climate all year round, amazing nature, ruins of ancient Mayan cities and endless entertainment.

If you look at the Riviera Maya from a bird's eye view - a hundred-kilometer coastal strip stretching from Cancun, it resembles the shape of a huge number 7. This long coastline is home to many hotels and restaurants, and every tourist will find entertainment to their liking.

I think I have already visited many resorts in the world, but Cancun really creates some kind of unreal feeling of paradise. Here all the colors somehow become richer: the sea is bluer, the sand is whiter, the trees are greener.

Then there were the pyramids. In Mexico they are scattered throughout the country. The highest is in Cholula (the 2nd tallest in the world after the Cheops pyramid). We also saw a huge pyramid (with a hard-to-remember Indian name that translates as “City of the Gods”) near Mexico City.

By the way, there are even two of them - the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. The views from both are simply fantastic. If you are in the Mexican capital, you should definitely go there.

Well, and, of course, the pyramid in the legendary Chichen Itza, included in the list of the new seven wonders of the world. Many, by the way, think that “Chichen Itza” is the name of the pyramid. No, this is the name of an entire ancient city, the political and cultural center of the Maya.

The pyramid itself is called Kukulkan - “Feathered Serpent”, after one of the supreme deities in Mayan mythology.

In addition to the pyramid, Chichen Itza also has an observatory and the largest ball-game “stadium” created by the Mayans. There is also the “Sacred Cenote” - a natural well 50 m deep, which served for sacrifices (including human ones). The amount of treasures recovered from there by researchers was second in value only to Egyptian finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Cenotes are generally a unique phenomenon. The Mayans called them “the gateway to the kingdom of the dead” and considered their waters sacred.

Before traveling to Mexico, I found an interesting story on the Internet. The point was that here " There is a custom of throwing coffee beans into tequila for fortune telling. Usually, 3 grains are taken for this, each corresponding to one secret desire. Whichever grain floats up first, the wish will come true. And if the grain sinks, it means that your desires will not come true.»

I asked all my Mexican friends: no one in Mexico had even heard of such a story. But all the Mexicans to whom I presented it liked the topic very much, so, lo and behold, they will create a real tradition based on this legend.

Despite the fiction, in Cancun I still decided to try the same thing for myself. He poured tequila into a coffee cup and threw 3 beans into it: he wished for health, money and love.

Love came out first.

And I know why. I dedicated my trip to Mexico to my wife, with whom, after raids on coffee plantations, we went to Cancun to celebrate her anniversary.

My wife is always with me on all trips and affairs, she is my translator and photographer, my ideologist and the strictest judge. My wife is my inspiration and my soulmate. She is the second grain in our family's coffee berry, which we have been growing together for 30 years.

“The older you get, the less you want these cheap intrigues, empty performances and hysterics. All you want is a cozy house, a delicious dinner and a person who knows how much sugar to put in your coffee..."

I think this is said about me.