OTP’s Guide to the Best Coffee In The World
Photo by: CoffeeGeek
Americans guzzle 122.6 trillion cups of coffee a year and we’re not alone in loving our liquid-crack. Trade imperialism (a.k.a. screwing poor people royally) sucks. We’re here to break down some bean essentials and help you fight the power and get your cup o’ joe straight from the source. Use OTP’s Guide to the Best Coffee in the World to get wired on the right stuff.
Photo by: The Caribbean Photo Archive
Coffee comes from a plant and only grows where there’s lots of rain and the climate is hot as balls for part of the year. The inarguable home of Coffea arabica (Latin for Venti, bitch!) is in the highlands of Ethiopia. Legend has it that Kaldi, the sheepherder, noticed his sheep laughing like Beavis after eating the berries of a certain shrub. After his sheep wrote three declarations of independence, learned nuclear physics and ran off a cliff, he decided to see what it was all about. In the millennia or so that followed, Kaldi’s magic plant spread like fairy dust around the equator. Sheepherding was never the same.
Your caffeine booty-call has a less appealing West African sister, Caffea canephora. She’s bitter, but puts out more kick. This makes her good for cheap blends and quick fixes. Today, Central Africa has taken to cultivating both types of beans, but pure Arabica vs. canephora is still an east-west split. If you prefer smooth, bold flavors in your coffee, stick to the arabica beans. If you’re curious about this bitter bitch, book yourself a hostel in Moshi, Tanzania and take a trip to Makoa Farm at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. Sip your brew with the Chagga people in the rainforest and once you grow a solid pair, climb their gorgeous mountain.
Photo by: amorelicious
The Arabs were the first people to drink the magical brew that had Africans (and their sheep) kickin’. Leave it to the Arabs, who did the same with smoking, to fiddle with toasting and grinding until they discovered perfection. Middle Eastern culture became rampant with fiends who sold, traded and copiously drank the stimulant all over Europe and Asia, putting the world on speedial. Try their concoction (known as Turkish Coffee) in Amman, Jordan, a city as friendly and beautiful as its skyline. Famous for frothy, four-times-boiled brew with grounds settled at the bottom of the pot—don’t you dare stir it before pouring! You’re all set if you have a Double-Apple Narghile at hand—because “tobacco without coffee, [is like] a sultan without furs.”
The export of coffee came nowhere near dethroning tea in Asia, but imperialist European douchebags realized they could grow the plant in the south (hot as balls, lots of rain). Indonesia is the most famous coffee-growing region in Asia, though South India, Vietnam and Thailand all have their stock in the coffee pot as well. Easy for revved-up soccer moms to pronounce, beans from Sumatra and Java have become household names.
A certain Asian bean gained world popularity due to it’s crazy ass method of production. We’re not talking finely ground or percolated, we’re talking shit. The Luwak is a weasel-like-fox-thing that lives in trees and eats coffee cherries, shitting out the pits the next day. These, percolated in the Luwak’s digestive juices, are considered a delicacy and are the most expensive grind in the world. If you don’t mind a little poo in your brew, get to Indo and go to some of the places that produce it to get a cheap or free taste.
Any discussion about coffee that excludes Latin America is incomplete, puto. While Brazil takes the espresso-dipped coffee cake for highest production in the world, most other Latin American countries produce damn fine coffee. Guatemala and Colombia are two top picks. When you’re there, don’t be afraid to down it black, a la criolla. The coffee is brewed in a pot of water and isn’t as finely ground as espresso, so it’s more like a cup of drip. Thanks to marauding Euro-trash of years past, espresso is popular as well and the Café Cubano is a sweet, nectary example. While you’re down south, stop in Manizales, Colombia to have a post-siesta café with the locals. With coca, mate, cacao and café, we’re not sure how Colombia got so big on naps, but know that when you get home, your travel stories will be sped up tenfold.
In addition to these top picks, Hawaiian Kona coffee is mind-blowing.
Corporate giants screw local farmers by offering their goods at lower prices, wiping out farmers’ chances to compete with the big business coffee cup. When you visit one of these places, you’ll get an eye-opening idea of how much work it is to farm coffee (that weasel works overtime crapping out coffee). Stateside, various companies, like Crop to Cup, are dedicated to bringing you the best coffee, with a good amount of karma. Appreciate where your coffee comes from every time you get a fix (even if you have to pay a buck more for it). All clear? Now, go get cracked-out with the best of them!
Unbridled reality, bitches!
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I just spent five weeks in Nicaragua, miss the delicious black coffee that I swilled gluttonously each morning. Nicaragua produces two percent of the world’s coffee, a solid percentage for a country of six million.
“(that weasel works overtime crapping out coffee).”
couldn’t agree more. I once volunteered in a kopi luwak farm in Lampung, Indonesia and it was both amazing and sad experience. i mean, hey, those weasels got insomnia for digesting coffee every single day!