I'm a coffee snob of sorts, Don't shoot me down, but I find it hard to get good strong coffee in a cafe in America and it was one of my delights in Singapore to sup the low cost delight at least five times during my one day visit.
I think there is nothing more relaxing than letting that black liquid gold slip down your throat. I don't drink alcohol just give me coffee please.
Singapore has a coffee culture unique to the population.
The kopi tiam or coffee shop is a local institution renowned for unpretentious, sock-it-to-your-solar-plexus coffee and tea based beverages that won't make your wallet cry, even after three mammoth shots, or a round for every one in the house, for that matter.
Makes you wonder how these guys can operate, often right around the clock, serving up liquid gold, without charging you the earth for it. Best get your head out of the horse's mouth and pucker up to another cup of kopi instead…
My perfect Kopitiam experience in Singapore was the moment I had breakfast of a saucers of soft boiled eggs, and crisp slices of toast with yellow butter and Kaya, an eggy coconut jam.
Each coffee shop has a recipe for their own brand of coffee. The beans are roasted with sugar, about 60 kg of beans to 16 kg of sugar. The sugar counteracts the bitterness in roasted beans.
The main prep area consists of a tank where the water is kept at boiling temperature with a tin mug to scoop it. The serving cups are always soaked in hot water on a tray so the kopi is always served in hot cup.
The ground coffee is placed in large metal triangle coffee pots and blended with boiling water. Its then poured from a height into a coffee sock made of pure cotton. (great for us quilters)
When pouring the hot water into the sock, the foam at the top must be a creamy brown and not a dark brown and if it is dark, the beans have been over roasted.
Water is then poured into the sock till it fills up. After it drains into the bottom container, it is emptied into another container and poured back into the sock again so as to catch the finer grains of coffee that seeped through the first time!
When the cotton dries it goes hard and can't be used again.
Its blended with a small amount of condensed milk and I also noted a little evaporated milk slipped in at the coffee shop I visited.
My sheer delight.