A cafe is probably the most ubiquitous eatery worldwide. True, it is still more a Western concept, but it seems to gain foothold easily in any part of the world. Somehow, it manages to become the hip place to hangout, host a meeting, work, study, settle your meals or just to be by yourself. Practically anything.
Well, now that most of us are in lockdown, what do we do? Why, bring the cafe home! I had this idea since eons ago. It’s actually not cheap to hang around in a cafe. A cup of coffee and a small snack sets you back $7 at the very minimum. $5 for a cup of coffee? That’s almost enough to buy 1 pound of green coffee beans which is sufficient to make 16 cups of double espresso coffee. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Fresh roasted fresh ground coffee. Choose your own beans, even Blue Mountain if you like. Beats what you get in Starbucks anytime.
I set up a corner in the home as the cafe corner (see featured photo). Try to create the kind of cafe ambience that you like. This one time investment could save you thousands of trips to the cafe (i literally go to a local cafe under 5 times a year).
Learn to make coffee at home. I do both espresso and the local kopi style. If you’re lazy, you can get a fully automatic coffee machine. Learn to make some simple snacks. One of my favourite, and actually quite easily made snack is the scone. Again, if you’re lazy, you could just buy from an online store (RedMart has some nice exotic French snacks).
With minor upgrades, you can scale up your cafe into a bistro. Just pop some frozen popcorn chicken into the air fryer, or do ten minutes of french fries frying (top it with nachos cheese and mayonnaise), and you can make your guests very happy. Served with beer of course (make your own beer too).
I guess, if anything, this pandemic is teaching us to be more self-sufficient. Nothing is going to stop me from enjoying the freshest cuppa coffee everyday.
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