Ecuador is famous for the coffee beans it exports and its national love of Nabob.
“Ashley, cafesito!”
Every night at 6:30pm the call comes for a comforting ritual.
I adore this time of day spent with Madre, my host mother. Her son had lived with my family a decade before. This time, she’d taken me in.
I come downstairs to the kitchen table and start setting out plates and napkins.
She’s boiling water on the stove, then adding milk to heat it up. It couldn’t boil completely. That would ruin it.
Finally, she adds just enough Nabob to colour it beige. She has this mastered.
“Azucar?” Sugar? She asks, although she’s handing me a Stevia dropper bottle.
“No more than three drops or it’ll be too sweet,” she coaches. It’s true: the natural sweetener was unnaturally potent.
Often there’s a dish of panela, unprocessed cane sugar, for sweetness purists.
Drip coffee, Ecuador style
Somedays, I’m lucky. Madre prepares coffee pasado style, literally meaning “passed.”
Grounds are boiled in a pot with water and then strained through a hanging sock.
“Pasado coffee is stronger,” Madre explains. “So, it can last all day.”
Que? What? I ask.
“It can be left in a pot and reheated many times,” she says.
My tongue crinkles remembering my own desperate attempts to reheat coffee in university. They were never worth it.
Reheated coffee loses the flavour molecules that make it enjoyable, or even palatable.
That’s not a problem here. If it’s too weak, you add a bit of instant coffee. If it’s too bitter, you can drown it in sugar.
If you’re a culinary adventurer, try cafe pasado the second time around.
On the side
Cafesito is never served alone. Some days, there’s toast. Other days, there’s cheese-filled bread squashed into a toaster and warmed until crispy.
The best cafesitos come with a boiled plantain or a dulce, a sweet something.
Madre once made a side dish from babaco: a flamboyant yellow, missile-shaped fruit.
When cut, the fruit slices into star shapes with a gooey centre oozing out.
She boiled it down into a delicious compote with cinnamon and cloves.
The first time I bought a babaco, I asked Madre if I could eat it raw.
“Well, you can…” she’d answered, suggesting it wasn’t the best idea.
I took a bite. It tasted subtly like citrus, a bit bitter, and as slimy as expected.
“It’s makes a nice sparkling wine though,” Madre said after seeing my face cringe.
Like cafesito, it’s always best to taste something new prepared by the right hands.
In good company
Cafesito is a cozy evening ritual, like English tea time. You warm your hands over a cup and your heart over a conversation.
At cafesito small talk is big talk.
An hour passes as Madre and I discuss which foods we like to cook, eat, and try. Food unites humanity as the main topic of conversation. We’re hungry folks.
Heavier topics naturally emerge, like love and loss. Some days we cried and held one another, other days we laughed like children at WhatsApp videos of people falling.
Cafesito sometimes comes with the radio or news on the five inch TV in the kitchen. We could go upstairs for the big screen, but that’s not the point.
It’s background. It’s there for commentary and discussion.
One month focused on the Ecuadorian elections.
“There are two leading parties and neither can advertise anymore,” explains her son.
There’s a silent waiting period meant for reflection before the vote.
“Everyone in Ecuador is required by law to vote,” says Madre. “That’s why some houses and cars are brightly painted for candidates.”
Somehow we navigate pain, politics, and silence with ease.
What is Cafesito?
Cafesito literally means “little coffee.”
-ita or -ito can be added to nouns in Spanish to make the meaning either “smaller,” “endearing,” but also can be rude.
For instance, if your mother calls you Maricita, that’s cute. If your boss does, it’s demeaning.
Among family, it shows wholehearted affection.
That’s the definition of cafesito.
It’s a little time to appreciate the tiny happiness-es of life: being close to people, eating homemade sweets, and being heard.
And, for me, these evenings with Madre.
That’s how this coffee snob began to look forward to drinking over-sweetened, under-flavoured instant coffee.
Like Nabob, it wasn’t related to coffee at all.
But, it began to taste like home.
