I’m sitting here enjoying my cup of dark, black coffee and had a thought. It’s been a long time since I had cream and sugar in my coffee. I had the pleasure of going to Ferran Adria’s Times Talk in NYC last September. During his talk, he brought up the point about coffee and bitterness. He asked why we put cream and sugar in our coffee, which I did. Why were we so adverse to the natural bitterness? I had no idea, and I’d never really thought about it. I guess it’s just the way I was raised.
I love bitter things. As shown in a previous post, I have quite the collection of alcoholic bitters. When in NYC, I head to Amor Y Amargo to drink as many different Amaros as possible. So, why didn’t I drink my coffee black?
Also, as a chef, I’m the first one to talk about people who blindly season (automatically adding salt & pepper without tasting the food first). But we do it with coffee. All coffee has different characteristics. Why would you add random amounds of cream and sugar without even tasting it first? Shouldn’t you at least try it before you doctor it up?
At Ideas In Food, there’s a great post about adding a touch of salt to your coffee to reduce the bitterness from over roasting. Here is a link to the post: http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2008/11/season-your-coffee.html Now, I always throw a pinch into a pot of coffee.
Just something to think about this morning.
