Here Joe sits, 9 days till take off and looking at a major pile of stuff (mostly dive toys) and recognizing that the airlines are "improving security" by getting stricter on luggage weight limits. One of the items we took with on past trips is our own Starbucks coffee. I seem to remember someone discussing a local or dutch brand of coffee and raving about it. Can I save a couple of pounds for more toys by buying good DARK roast rich coffee when I get there? What is the brand....is it readily available? That's two extra pounds of velveeta if I can get coffee there?

Oh most bodacious diety Cynde.....yes it's been at least two days since I said how many days till I leave.

Everybody have a great week.....I'm sure I will (as long as I remember how long till I get to leave for vacation)

The Cheesatron
Joe

Douwe Egberts coffee is very very good and very reasonably priced on the island. Easily found in the supermarkets. Try the silver or gold packaged stuff. I never bring coffee with me and my husband doesn't start diving without a decent cup of Java. Bring on the extra cheese, Joe.

There are also some good South American and Latino-Caribbean coffees to be had. I learned my coffee-drinking from the Cajuns (no chickory there!), so my coffee can't be dark enough. I thought some of the Latino brands were pretty good. Sorry I can't remember the names (it's Monday, alas). Be sure to have the Turkish coffee at Garden Cafe.

The Douwe Egbert's is fabulously rich and flavorful...comes in all sorts of strengths and colors, too. Check it out...you will LOVE it and it is reasonably priced, as well. You might end up loading up your luggage with it for the ride home...that's what happened to me! LOL. Carole

Joe,

Thanks for starting this thread. Julia, Holly and Carol thanks for your input.

I also like my coffee strong, so I have been taking my own blend and grinder along where ever I travel for years. Only place I ever have it with chickory is at the Cafe DuMond. I would probably drink water out of the river there to justify a plate of begnets;-{)} When in Rome----

However, I do enjoy the coffee served at many restaurants on Bonaire. If one of you knowledgeable ladies/gents on this board could provide the name or color of the bag of the strongest Douwe Egbert's, I will only bring half of my normal stock and buy the D.E. at Warehouse or Cultimara.

Like Joe, that would allow me to pack a few pounds of other stuff. Unlike the "Velveenator Man", my Cheese of Choice (CoC)as is known on this board, is Cheddar, Extra Sharp by Cabot.

Tom & Others,

I first heard about D.E. coffee on this board and being a coffee addict I searched and found a place on the web in the states that sells it. Placed my order for the sampler pack and had no problems with delivery or the order. Hope including the web address does not violate the rules of the board. http://www.greatteaandcoffee.com/

As long as you don't get compensation from the web site company, it is okay to post a web link.

Besides isn't coffee a necessity of life?

Linda,

It is a necessity in my life.

By the way, to set the record straight, both Susan "T" and I pay for all of our cheese:-{)}

Tom ... the only time I don't pay for my Cabot is when I visit the shop on Rte 100 in Stowe -- all those free samples of everything Cabot!

Hi Susan,

Sure wish you and Mark had brought back some warmer weather.

Tom, I am pretty sure it goes red, silver and gold in increasing strength. The gold will get Bob out of bed and ready to dive! The silver is good as a black breakfast coffee if I have got the strengths right. Cultimara usually have a good variety.

Thanks Julia. Will give it a try. Too bad they did not have a Titanium package. You know the kind of blend which is so strong it ground and brewed itself so that the first cup would be ready when you woke up.

I checked DE on the link. What does one do with an '8.8 oz brick' of coffee? Chip off a bit for a machine?? Mortar and pestle???

It is ground coffee that is vacuum packed. It is brick shaped and solid until you break the seal.

There is a knack to opening the brick without getting coffee all over, release the vacuum by making a tiny slit so that the coffee becomes loose. Or open it over the coffee filter! Sorry if this is teaching grannies to suck eggs but cleaning up coffee before a needed caffeine hit is a bad chore!

Aha, knew it had to be sensible. Just to show my degree of expertise again, what type of coffee maker is used for this coffee??

Tom ... since we like (live on) the same cheese and seem to have the same taste in coffee if you are willing to give this a try then I will too -- usually I bring some from here from a local roaster (not GM -- that coffee is for tourists!)so that I can have my jump start.

Sorry that Mark and I could not bring back some of the warmer weather -- especially with what we are heading into at the end of the week. Clothes are washed and ready to head back next month!

Mmm, Cafe du Monde and the beignets, the only chicory coffe I've ever had worth drinking.

Linda, not only is coffee a necessity, but the Vienna Digital is now too!

Gotta love one finger coffee making first thing in the morning! No spilling the ground coffee - no dropping the glass carafe.

Since I live in the Netherlands and know DE coffee very well (when I was in San Diego last september, I thought that the coffee there was very weak, almost water with some coffee flavour ).... But I was wondering what is Vienna Digital???

I have been using a drip maker to brew my DE coffee that I got from the website and it has been fine. I suppose one could perc it as well but the drip maker works okay. Have had no problems opening the "bricks". Just make a slit at the top and scoop out what I need and put the rest back in the freezer. I too like strong coffee and usually when on the road I have to get 7 or 8 orders of expresso in a large cup to substitute for what I brew at home.

Vienna Digital is my and now Seb's coffee maker.
You fill a tank of water and another container with whole coffee beans maybe once a week for me. The machine does all the rest with one button. Grinds, heats water, brews, presses, and discards the coffee grounds - one cup at a time. No filters and no carafes to wash just the cup you drink from. Harrie, my neighbor, showed us his similar machine and Jake gave me one for Xmas 2002. Seb housesat for us and he got hooked too.

As Linda says the Vienna Digital is great! They call it a superautomatic, and it is. My first exposure to such a device was on the Turks and Caicos aggressor, where Annette had just gotten one to make the cook's life easier, and it surely did! Of course, that one was all stainless steel, had piped in water, and the grounds went directly to a garbage can, but the same idea.

I like coffee, I like tea,
I like the java and the java likes me.
Coffee and tea, and the java and me,
A cuppa cuppa cuppa Joe
Yeah

Thanks Linda and Seb for explaining. Actually we do have some sort of machine as well.... Called Senseo, but there you have to put some coffee-pads in, with different kinds of coffee to chose from. Also very handy and very good coffee. (Senseo is the name of the machine, for the dutchies... I think everyone knows the machine over here, because of the commercials

Modern machines!!! The VD would be too easy! When working with a coffee mess I always had a cup in hand. Great for the blood pressure and nerves. Folgers' decaf coffee bags are just work enough to keep me in control. Ah well.

Since I only have access to a hot pot at the Plaza I would like to know if Cultimara has the DE coffee in premeasured filter packs that I could drop into the hot pot and hopefully get a good pot of brewed coffee or must I buy it as instant coffee??? I must confess by the end of the week I got use to the little instant packs provided at the Plaza. I may have to just go out and buy a travel coffee pot to get my day started right.....

You'll have to measure it out yourself, I think :-)

Jake

If you buy anything, buy yourself a french press coffee pot (they come as small as 1 cup size, you can get them in Star Bucks or Wms Sonoma, or less trendy places if you know what you're looking for) & use that w/the heated up water--much better way to enjoy Douwe Egberts coffee (or any real coffee, read: not instant). 1) It won't look dangerous to airport security; and 2) you won't short out your room's electricity by plugging in a US voltage travel coffee pot.

Ruth,
Great idea on the french press. I would hate to have it confiscated by the airport personnel and surely it is innocent enough. I may also contact the Plaza and see if we can rent a coffee pot for the week. 25 days and counting!!! Had 5 inches of snow Sunday and it is snowing again. No school the last two days... Can't wait for sunshine and warm weather. Planning to stop by Mangos for dinner one of the nights.
Cindy

Coffee, very important to life on our planet. .. It is for me anyway. Beware, though, recently Jan 6-Jan 20 we visited Bonaire and found the grocery store (Warhouse Bonaire, Cultimara, and the other grocery wholesale place on Kaya Industria across the street from Warhouse Bonaire) almost out of coffee. I was so surprised. There did not seem to be a lot in stock of anything. Maybe a lull in shipping of foodstuffs?? Have to agree, though that Dow Egberts does make some darn good brew. We bring an old Melita coffee cone and several filter papers to use with it. A hot pot will ensure that you have hot water too.

Happy Diving Darian Paganelli

Ditto to that Darian....we never did find the DE but we found a Venezuelan coffee (my mind fades at times, so I can't remember the name) that was "expresso grind" and it worked fine. It was in a Black Can with yellow or gold lettering


Velveeticus

Oddly enough, part of the fun of visiting a foreign country (especially one so delightful in many ways as Bonaire) is cruising through their grocery stores and buying alternate brands of food stuffs. We delight in buying coffee from the south american countries, corn flakes from Holland, Ketchup in a collapsible tube, Mayonaise (freitensauce sorry for poor spelling)from holland. To me this is rather amusing and very often rewarding. The cheese from Holland is very inexpensive in Bonaire and it is a notch above Excellent. Bring your own powdered drink mix because soda is very expensive (about 4 dollars a 2 liter bottle). Bring instant pudding mix, it is a good substitute for expensive ice cream. Milk to make it with is about 1.15$ a quart and to buy ice cream is about 5.50$ a half gallon if it is to be found. The crackers and bread you find in the Bonaire grocery stores are excellent. Cultimara bakes some great bread at a couple dollars a loaf. Next time you are in Bonaire, cruise the grocery stores like you cruise the bottom of the ocean, looking for interesting and new things. Then tell me if you do not enjoy doing that also.

Hope this helps, Darian Paganelli

Darian, supplies were low when you were here: because the shippers don't ship, because the ports close, because gov't offices & ship-handlers close...(breath) on holidays like Christmas (Dec 25 & 26), and 1/1 (and they threw in 1/2 for good measure). Our supply containers normally arrive on Thursdays (why those in the know shop & hoard Fridays), which really screwed things up last/this year, because the holidays did as well. The last supplies for 2003 arrived 12/19. At least that's the excuse for that time of the year. The other times when there's nothing here are just regular slow times or missing-the-boat-don't-stop-the-karnaval screw-ups, etc.

Ruth
Forget the coffee -hows the Salitos situation? Will there be any for end-Feb early March?