Coffee

[realfoodrebel]

Hi there! I love my morning coffee! Two large cups before I do anything. Do most of the Alberques serve coffee early in the morning? Are places open that sell coffee early? Can I make my own coffee?

Thanks for any responses!

 

[Gillean]

If you are walking 800 km you are going to see every possible response to each of your questions. But to summarize: no, you are not guaranteed to have coffee available early in the morning and no, most albergues do not serve coffee early in the morning. On the bright side some albergues have a coffee machine and almost every village bar has a $5000 espresso machine - the Spanish are serious about their coffee - and many of them, especially along popular camino routes, are open as early as 7:00 or 7:30 rather than the normal 10:00 to 11:00 which seems more usual in other parts of Spain. I won't comment on the notion of making your own because I just don't know the answer to that one. For a guy who never drank coffee before walking a camino, I have now become seriously addicted to café con leché and am, in fact, suffering withdrawal at the moment.

 

[realfoodrebel]

If you are walking 800 km you are going to see every possible response to each of your questions. But to summarize: no, you are not guaranteed to have coffee available early in the morning and no, most albergues do not serve coffee early in the morning. On the bright side some albergues have a coffee machine and almost every village bar has a $5000 espresso machine - the Spanish are serious about their coffee - and many of them, especially along popular camino routes, are open as early as 7:00 or 7:30 rather than the normal 10:00 to 11:00 which seems more usual in other parts of Spain. I won't comment on the notion of making your own because I just don't know the answer to that one. For a guy who never drank coffee before walking a camino, I have now become seriously addicted to café con leché and am, in fact, suffering withdrawal at the moment.

Yes I now have a clearer idea of what to expect. When coffee is a daily part of a person's life it becomes kind of important. I am a serious coffee addict! Withdrawal migraines and all!

 

[Mike Trebert]

Hi there! I love my morning coffee! Two large cups before I do anything. Do most of the Alberques serve coffee early in the morning? Are places open that sell coffee early? Can I make my own coffee?

Thanks for any responses!

I'm a coffee obsessive. I took my Aeropress coffee maker and my Porlex grinder to Europe with me earlier this year. I contributed to a previous thread and got some happy responses. I'll leave you to it:

 

[Deleted member 3000]

On the bright side

Starbucks does not exist on the Camino. Actually, Starbucks does not exist in Spain except in Madrid and Barcelona. Coffee is respected, and there is no room for posers.

 

[Mike Trebert]

Question from the caffeine-soaked brain of a coffee fanatic: What's the difference between (1) Starbucks, (2) Instant coffee, (3) brown water ? Answer: None.

 

[Mark Lee]

Starbucks does not exist on the Camino. Actually, Starbucks does not exist in Spain except in Madrid and Barcelona. Coffee is respected, and there is no room for posers.

Not a Starbucks fan myself, but somebody must like the place. I've seen them all over Asia and in Europe.

 

[Mark Lee]

Yes I now have a clearer idea of what to expect. When coffee is a daily part of a person's life it becomes kind of important. I am a serious coffee addict! Withdrawal migraines and all!

Yeah, gotta have my morning cup of joe myself.
I don't like coffee from machines. Yuck. So I always waited till I got to the first town with a cafe, if the town I had stopped in for the night didn't have one open early (that can be a long 5k or so to get to one, ha ha).
One thing you will see is that when you get to your first town in the morning, the first cafe you encounter may have quite a few pilgrims in it all trying to get coffee and food at the same time. Sometimes if you look, you will see another cafe not far away, not so crowded. The first cafe always gets the morning rush crowd. Location, location, location.
The two most common choices for coffee on the Camino is cafe con leche, of course, which is similar to the cafe au lait (without the chicory) we have here in New Orleans and Cafe Americano. That is just coffee, black with no milk. I would often just ask for the Americano with just a shot of milk in it. I need that extra caffeine to get the motor running, ha ha. Good stuff.

 

[Castilian]

the Spanish are serious about their coffee

I know Colombians that complain about how the coffee is treated in Spain so I guess it's all a matter of points of view.

The two most common choices for coffee on the Camino is cafe con leche, of course, which is similar to the cafe au lait (without the chicory) we have here in New Orleans and Cafe Americano.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on coffee and I don't drink coffee myself so it may be inaccuracies on the info provided below and/or it may be incomplete.

Café con leche
Café cortado
Café solo

The café solo (just coffee) can be Americano or Expresso or some other(s).

The Café cortado varies depending on where you are. It may be coffee with just a little bit of milk (e.g.: in Castile and León) or it can be what in the places where the cortado has just a little bit of milk would be a café con leche. If the later (e.g.: in Catalonia), a café con leche is a coffee with even more milk.

 

[Mark Lee]

I know Colombians that complain about how the coffee is treated in Spain so I guess it's all a matter of points of view.



Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on coffee and I don't drink coffee myself so it may be inaccuracies on the info provided below and/or it may be incomplete.

Café con leche
Café cortado
Café solo

The café solo (just coffee) can be Americano or Expresso or some other(s).

The Café cortado varies depending on where you are. It may be coffee with just a little bit of milk (e.g.: in Castile and León) or it can be what in the places where the cortado has just a little bit of milk would be a café con leche. If the later (e.g.: in Catalonia), a café con leche is a coffee with even more milk.

Yeah, I knew there were other types available at the cafes when I walked the Camino, it's just that I mainly saw either cafe con leche served, or the cafe Americano, which I think I heard being called cafe solo as well.
The cafe au lait we have here in New Orleans is chicory coffee and a lot of milk. Chicory is a ground root added to the coffee and gives it a lit bit of bitterness.

 

[domigee]

Café con leche
Café cortado
Café solo

I had never heard of an 'Americano' so always ordered 'un café solo, pero grande' . Invariably, the reply was 'ah, an Americano!'
Ok. After a few weeks, I think I might have been in Galicia, I ordered 'an Americano' for the 1st time. The cafe owner yelled at me : 'not in my cafe you don't! No such thing as an Americano here' (in Spanish). He was not happy
I've never ordered an Americano since, my first and last time!

 

[Castilian]

Ok. After a few weeks, I think I might have been in Galicia, I ordered 'an Americano' for the 1st time. The cafe owner yelled at me : 'not in my cafe you don't! No such thing as an Americano here' (in Spanish). He was not happy

Did he have a café solo pero grande?

 

[SabsP]

Also take into consideration that the water and the internal mechanism of those coffee vending machines in most albergues are not checked on a regular base.

 

[domigee]

Did he have a café solo pero grande?

Yes he did.

 

[Seabird]

I always ordered a "café solo, doble, pero no Americano." That way I got two shots of espesso, without being watered down into an Americano.

 

[Castilian]

Yes he did

So it all went well after all. I guess you got a café doble instead of an americano though (see below).

I always ordered a "café solo, doble, pero no Americano." That way I got two shots of espesso, without being watered down into an Americano.

If you ask just for a café doble, you should get the same result (or so I think).

 

[Seabird]

So it all went well after all. I guess you got a café doble instead of an americano though (see below).



If you ask just for a café doble, you should get the same result (or so I think).

That's what worked much of the time, but after getting enough questions (and the occasional Americano), I found that adding it up front saved us both some confusion.

 

[Mike Savage]

I always ordered a "café solo, doble, pero no Americano." That way I got two shots of espesso, without being watered down into an Americano.

¡Café doble para mí también por favor! Actually "doble por favor" always worked for me.

 

[Castilian]

That's what worked much of the time, but after getting enough questions (and the occasional Americano), I found that adding it up front saved us both some confusion.

Yes, a better safe than sorry approach may make sense when ordering drinks because there are many nuances, local names, local customs...

 

[domigee]

So it all went well after all. I guess you got a café doble instead of an americano though (see below).



If you ask just for a café doble, you should get the same result (or so I think).

Oh I wasn't complaining!

 

[jim-459]

Hi there! I love my morning coffee! Two large cups before I do anything. Do most of the Alberques serve coffee early in the morning? Are places open that sell coffee early? Can I make my own coffee?

Thanks for any responses!

Yes you can make your own cup of coffee in most Albergues. In supermarkets in Spain you can buy a pack of about 10 sachets of Nescafe. I met some pilgrims from France and Wales who had a heating element that they put in a pot or pan to make a hot drink.

 

[GettingThere]

I found a lot of bar owners assumed that all foreign pilgrims would want either cafe con leche or cafe Americano - no doubt a reasonable assumption based on numbers of orders! But as i prefer a short sharp hit of black coffee I had to be careful when asking for a "cafe solo" - sometimes they would ask "Americano?" and I would say "No!", but otherwise I would just add "pequeño", with appropriate sign language, and that seemed to do the trick!

We discovered the cafe cortado by accident one day - in Navarrete if I recall correctly - I was waiting at the bar and the person ahead of me was handed a small cup, so I just pointed at that (thought I was so clever...). then when I got it and tasted it - yerk! Milk! But in fact it was perfect for my mother, who drinks her coffee with milk but found the cafe con leche too big and milky. So she ordered a cortado thereafter - I know it can be different in different areas, but mostly she got a small espresso cup of coffee with a dash of milk.

 

[AbbyDee]

Hi there! I love my morning coffee! Two large cups before I do anything. Do most of the Alberques serve coffee early in the morning? Are places open that sell coffee early? Can I make my own coffee?

Thanks for any responses!

This is information gleaned from other sources: Sometimes there is coffee, sometimes, not. Some have coffee machines that may not be cleaned regularly. There are a lot of cafes/bars that open early on the Camino for pilgrim business. One person suggested the little Nescafe(?) sachets available in the grocery stores: They weigh very little and give you that shot of "life giving caffeine" until "real coffee" becomes available.