The Grants' Bulgaria Blog.

Hi all, Stu here.

Those of you who are aware of our slight fondness for coffee might have wondered: what will Stu and Elly do without their (housemate’s) shiny espresso machine? How will they cope without that amazing home-roasting set up? Who will Stu bore with endless commentary on the particular flavours to be found in the coffee today??

Fear not, dear readers. For I am here to bore you with such details right now!

Our Bulgarian coffee adventures started on the morning of our departure from Tasmania, when, instead of frantically packing those last forgotten items, I was to be found downstairs roasting the 2kg of coffee beans we would be taking with us. Lovely blend of Peruvian, Mexican and Ethiopian beans, I believe!

But could such a coffee obsession to be distracting from our purpose in Bulgaria? Well, I was thrilled to be informed that – especially in the early stages of adjustment and culture shock – having a hobby or activity that you can enjoy even 17,000km away from home is essential. Phew! Thank goodness for that justification.

During the 7 weeks that our home-roasted beans lasted, we sussed out what the coffee situation in Haskovo was like. We were amazed by the sheer amount of coffee consumed here! By all cultural groups! Coffee is drunk all day, every day, whatever the occasion. This I like.

The style of coffee is quite different. In Australia we were used to drinking flat whites (that is, 30mL of espresso with steamed milk). In Bulgaria, milk is bad! (Just check out the photo…) It is expensive and often sour or tainted in some way – so black coffee is the usual style. The most commonly available style of coffee is espresso – that is, 30-50mL of concentrated coffee – which is taken with sugar and smetana (powdered cream). From a hole-in-the-wall style cafe, this will cost you 25-35 stotinki (20-30 cents) – at a cafe, around 1 leva (85 cents). In Turkish/Millet homes you will normally be offered traditional Turkish coffee, which is a similar amount of equally concentrated coffee brewed on a stove and served in often beautiful cups, complete with a layer of coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup (you soon learn when to stop drinking so as to avoid drinking this!).

Afflicted as we both are with total coffee snobbery, how did we adjust to coffee in Bulgaria? Er, suddenly might be a good answer to that. We arrived in BG at about 6am, suffering jet-lag and a strong desire for caffeine! David felt likewise – having gotten up early to collect us from the train station – and so our first stop was for coffee and a bit of breakfast. It was there that Elly drank her first ever straight espresso. At home, this would have been unthinkable. Espresso is a very difficult drink to prepare and if you don’t quite get it right the results are a bitter or sour cup. But all of a sudden we were in another country and the style of coffee made sense. All our snobbery went straight out the window – that mode of being a coffee fanatic appears to be firmly rooted in our cultural milieu. That’s not to say that the coffee here is bad, either – just different.

The style of cafes here is worth a mention. They’re amazing! It’s quite common for people to drop in on several cafes a day here because:

1. they’re everywhere,
2. they’re cheap,
3. the waitresses don’t glare at you if all you order is two coffees! And,
4. they’re very nice places to be.

One cafe in particular has become a favourite. It’s called Версай (Versailles – that French palace) and it’s all outdoors and goes on forever. They have very comfortable lounge-style chairs set around huge glass-topped outdoor tables. There are huge elm and oak trees shading the whole area, and it’s a very comfortable place to just chill out.

As for coffee at home, once the beans we brought with us ran out, we spent a few weeks searching for fresh local beans. We were quite surprised to find that a number of places were selling single-origin coffees (that is, coffees sourced from a particular location, rather than blended stuff). This was surprising because in Australia the places that sell according to origin are those that are a little more educated about what makes a great coffee. One place in particular became our new coffee bean shop – they sold a fairly fresh “Moka” (probably Ethiopian) bean which we quite liked. We also learned some Bulgarian in order to ask for the right amount of un-ground beans! The main problem has been finding stuff that’s still vaguely fresh.

Thus… last week, some dear friends sent another kilo of amazing coffee beans as Elly’s birthday present. I must admit that I’m enjoying that particular present at least as much as Elly is!

All this coffee-ness isn’t just for fun though. And I don’t mean that in a taking-coffee-a-bit-too-seriously manner… I mean that roasting coffee (which some friends and I got into in a big way last year) is something I would love to be able to pursue as a career. It seems strange to be considering that while we’re having a taste of long-term mission, but there you go! A beverage as inherently sociable as coffee has to offer a whole range of ministry opportunities!

This has been Stu Grant, reporting from Haskovo, Bulgaria.
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Tags: Bulgaria, Coffee, food

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 5:01 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.