I'm not a big coffee drinker. By that, I mean that I don't and won't likely ever drink a cup of coffee black; it must have milk and it must have sugar. I couldn't tell you if one was "good" over another because I usually numb the bad flavor with milk and sugar making it palatable.
I do know though, that I don't like Starbucks coffee. Oh, I go there and will buy their latte, but I don't love it. It often tastes "burnt" to me. I don't know if there is an official coffee lovers term for that flavor, but to me, it just tastes wrong.
Back in May we delivered a load to Queens, the Fresh Meadows neighborhood, and while there, I met up with one of my blogger friends; someone I've "known" for almost three years but had never met. Since our load was delivering a mile from her house, I called her to see if she could get together.
She had time so we all got together and went for dinner. Actually, we picked up dinner from a Dominican restaurant in her neighborhood and took it back to her place to eat. It was delicious! I don't even know what we had, she ordered it, but it was fantastic. While waiting on the food at the restaurant, we popped into a little grocery next door and I saw a jar of instant espresso. I was thrilled!
Making espresso in my little espresso machine had become a bit of a pain in the ass. I don't have room on my counter to leave the machine out all the time, so every time I wanted to make some, I had to take out the machine and all its little pieces, make my coffee and froth the milk (which was sort of a pain in the ass and didn't come out as frothy as I liked anyway) and then I had to clean everything and put it away. WAY too time consuming.
Enter Café Bustelo.
Now I just boil my water in my hot pot (it boils almost instantly!), make my 4-6 oz. of espresso, warm my milk in the microwave in my mug, then froth it with one of these. Which, by the way, is probably the best twenty dollars I've ever spent. It whips my milk into a frenzy, getting it foamier than any barista at Starbucks ever has. And it's easy. Once my milk is light and airy and practically foaming at the rim, I pour in my espresso, add sugar and get ready to have the easiest latte ever made.
In Key West this weekend, Ed made a discovery; Bustelo Cool Cafe Con Leche in the photo above. If I don't make an iced latte myself, I sometimes buy this and pour it over ice. It's yummy. But now that I've found the Bustelo Cool....well, it's just yummier. Of course, I'll probably never be able to find it.
Cafe Bustelo ground coffee for a coffee pot is easy to find in almost any grocery store, but I can never find the instant. I actually had my friend from Queens buy me some and mail it to me at home; it'll be waiting for me when I get there. In the meantime, I have my instant Medaglia D'Oro espresso (which I just found out is also a Cafe Bustelo product) to tide me over.
My friend Paul uses Cafe Bustelo ONLY as his emergency backup espresso. Since he's way more Italian than me, I'm going to take his suggestion and try some of the other brands he told me about, even the pricey ones, as money is no object when it comes to a good latte. I may not drink it black, but if I'm going to indulge, I want to find the best product.
And when Gil sent me this picture, which is the same pot my father used to make espresso in, I decided that I'm going to use that once in a while also. My mother still has it, so I'll be getting that when I go home too.
The hundreds of miles a night I drive will now become that much easier since I'll be on an espresso buzz the entire time. Who needs energy drinks when you can have a latte??
* Yes, I know this is not an Italian product....but I'm referring to espresso itself. That's very Italian in my book!
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5 comments:
Who moi?
I have a super cheap version of the aerolatte (my mom got it at some sort of surplus store) and I *love* it :D
But when do you add the Diet Coke to the cup?
I love that photo!
I gotta try Bustelo cool! You deserve the best cup of espresso in da world!
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