March 24, 2010

Kopi Legendaris Semakin Tua Semakin Mantap - Kopi eva

Kopi Eva, Bijinya Tahan Hingga 10 Tahun

Sejak didirikan tahun 1954 hingga sekarang, R. Mich. Tjiptomartoyo (86) yang biasa dipanggil Pak Cip masih terlibat secara langsung menangani Eva Coffeehouse yang ia dirikan di dataran tinggi Ambarawa, Jawa Tengah. Lulusan sekolah dagang Belanda ini masih tekun melakukan audit keuangan secara manual di belakang meja kasir. Tanpa bantuan kacamata, ia mencatat perubahan harga bahan baku sambil sesekali menyapa pelanggan setianya. Dibantu lima anak perempuannya, ia mengelola warung kopi sejak pukul 06.00 WIB hingga 21.00 WIB.

Lokasi strategis Eva Coffeehouse yang terletak di jalan raya yang menjadi penghubung Semarang dan Jogjakarta menyebabkan banyak orang yang tengah ada di perjalanan singgah untuk berisitirahat. “Biasanya mereka juga butuh tempat istirahat dan buang air kalau sedang di tengah perjalanan. Makanya kami menyediakan banyak toilet,” kisah Maria Budiastuti (50), generasi kedua kopi Eva.

Strategi itu bisa jadi berhasil, karena hingga kini banyak sekali rombongan turis yang menuju Borobudur, Magelang atau Yogyakarta dari Semarang atau sebaliknya mampir untuk meregangkan otot dan minum kopi. Turis yang datang tak hanya turis domestik. Banyak juga rombongan turis mancanegara yang datang untuk menikmati kopi Eva yang legendaris. Kopi Eva yang diminum panas-panas sangat cocok dengan udara Ambarawa yang dingin. Apalagi dari ruang serbaguna Eva Coffeehouse yang biasa digunakan untuk menyambut tamu rombongan, pengunjung bisa menikmati pemandangan kota Ambarawa dan kebun kopi milik Cip. Ia pun menyediakan berbagai macam suvenir bagi turis yang ingin membeli buah tangan khas Jawa Tengah.

Kesuksesan kopi Eva, tak lain karena kedekatan Pak Cip dengan beberapa pejabat penting di masa perjuangan kemerdekaan Indonesia, saat ia tergabung dalam Brigade 17. Karena efek kedekatan itu, banyak di antara mereka yang memasok kebutuhan kopi untuk institusi yang dipimpinnya dari kopi Eva.

Sayangnya, setelah pergantian pejabat, tak banyak institusi yang masih membeli kopi darinya. Hanya beberapa pabrik dan perkantoran saja yang masih memesan kopi Eva. Selain itu, Cip tidak mendistribusikan kopi Eva ke luar kota karena alasan biaya. “Terlalu mahal, jadi kami hanya mengirim kalau ada yang memesan atau ke pabrik yang sudah jadi langganan. Lagipula enggak ada resiko kopi enggak laku dan dikembalikan,”.


Kopi Eva, selain dijual dalam bentuk siap minum, juga dijual dalam bentuk bubuk, biji, bahkan sirup. Sirup kopi Eva dikemas dalam botol dan bisa disajikan hangat atau dingin. Setelah dibuka, simpan saja botolnya dalam lemari es. Rahasia kopi Eva ada pada proses pencucian biji dan obat yang digunakan agar biji kopi takkan dimakan serangga meski disimpan hingga 10 tahun.

Hingga sekarang, kopi Eva masih menggunakan biji kopi dari kebunnya sendiri. “Kalau kurang kami beli dari kebun tetangga. Sejauh ini sih selalu kurang,” kata Cip. Selain kopinya yang sudah dikenal hingga mancanegara, andalan mereka adalah Tahu khas kopi Eva dan Gudeg Manggar yang dibuat berdasarkan resep rahasia mendiang sang istri.

Sama seperti kopi-kopi klasik yang lain, Cip mengaku tak banyak keuntungan yang ia dapat. Apalagi, ia hanya mengandalkan penjualan di Eva Coffeehouse. Harga kopi per gelas masih ia jual Rp 5 ribu, sementara kopi bubuk Rp 20 ribu/seperempat kg, dan sirup kopi Rp 25 ribu/botol. Dengan harga semurah itupun masih banyak yang meminta harga kopi tak dinaikkan. Banyak pihak yang mengajak kerjasama ditolaknya untuk menghindari kecurangan bisnis yang berakhir pada kerugian.

Untuk mempertahankan pelanggan, Cip hanya berusaha mempertahankan rasa kopi Eva. “Jadi kalau dulu ada orang waktu kecil dibawa orangtuanya minum kopi Eva, sekarang dia ke sini sudah membawa cucu tapi rasa kopi Eva masih sama”. Lalu bagaimana ia mempertahankan rasa kopi Eva selama puluhan tahun? “Itu rahasia kopi Eva!” ujarnya sambil tertawa.

Dewi Sita/Nova diambil dari tabloidnovadotcom

How to Make Vietnamese Coffee (Ca Phe)



Vietnamese coffee is like nothing else. I developed a taste for it when I was living close to a small Vietnamese lunch counter. Normally, I ordered a cup of American coffee with my meal. One rainy evening when I was the only customer in the place, the owner stood by my table while I ate, talking about this and that and the other. When it came time for my coffee, he smiled and said, “You try my coffee tonight.” In an agreeable sort of mood, I – well – agreed. Sublime does not do the flavor justice. Nor does mere description. If someone had told me that Vietnamese coffee is very strong coffee mixed with sweetened, condensed milk, I could no more have imagined the flavor of Vietnamese coffee than if someone had told me that ice cream is frozen milk with sugar and flavoring added.

In the early part of the 20th century, Vietnam was a major exporter of coffee. Originally brought to the hilly interior of the country by the French, it rapidly became a major cash crop. Those wet, mountainous inner regions are ideal for growing robusta coffee, which is often regarded as being less flavorful and more bitter than arabica coffee. Coffee production and export slowed to a mere trickle during and after the Vietnam war, but in the early 1980s, Vietnamese coffee once again began to creep into the marketplace. Without much fanfare, Vietnam gradually increased the size of its export coffee market. As of 2004, Vietnamese coffee exports were second only to Brazil. While robusta coffee is seen as making inferior coffee to arabica beans, it is often blended with arabica beans in supermarket blends for sale to the general public. The robusta beans grown in central Vietnam are ideal for making Vietnamese coffee, and many espresso afficionadoes favor robusta beans for espresso as well.

Like Turkish coffee and espresso, making Vietnamese coffee involves its own little secrets and rituals. The coffee, called ca phe, is actually brewed in a miniature drip pot that sits on top of your coffee cup. The “cup” is more usually a glass, because Vietnamese coffee is as much a treat for the eyes as it is for the tongue. The Vietnamese coffee pot looks a bit like a top hat. The rim is designed to sit on the rim of the glass. Inside, the coffee pot consists of the chamber and a filter. The filter lid unscrews from the body of the coffee pot so that you can add the coffee and then cover it.

How to Make Vietnamese Ca Phe with a Vietnamese Coffee Pot

Unscrew the filter insert and remove it from the pot.

Spoon about two tablespoons of very finely ground Vietnamese coffee into the pot. If you can’t find Vietnamese coffee, try Luzianne coffee with chicory. In fact, many experts claim that it isn’t Vietnamese coffee without the chicory.


Replace the filter insert and screw it down tightly over the coffee grounds. This serves the same purpose as tamping the filter basket when making espresso. It compresses the coffee into a hard puck and slows the process of the water through the ground coffee, giving it time to extract all the flavor.

Pour about 1/3 of an inch of sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of your coffee glass or cup. Place the Vietnamese coffee pot over the rim of your cup or glass.

Pour one cup of water just off the boil into the pot over the filter top. Cover the pot and wait.

The coffee will take its time. More than almost any other method of making coffee save perhaps Turkish coffee, drinking Vietnamese coffee encourages a leisurely attitude. It is not coffee for the rushed and impatient. It can take ten minutes or more for the water to finish dripping through the coffee grounds into the glass, transformed into thick, rich, velvety coffee. The coffee, being of different density, simply sits on top of the milk, forming three distinct layers – the creamy milk at the bottom, a very thin layer of caramel colored coffee that has dissolved some of the milk, and the thick coffee on the top.

Remove the coffee top hat from the glass and set it on a saucer or plate beside you. Stir up the coffee and milk with a spoon and enjoy.

Taken From Talk- about coffee.com

This product is available @ http://www.coffeeshopz.com





March 24, 2010

Kopi Legendaris Semakin Tua Semakin Mantap - Kopi eva

Kopi Eva, Bijinya Tahan Hingga 10 Tahun

Sejak didirikan tahun 1954 hingga sekarang, R. Mich. Tjiptomartoyo (86) yang biasa dipanggil Pak Cip masih terlibat secara langsung menangani Eva Coffeehouse yang ia dirikan di dataran tinggi Ambarawa, Jawa Tengah. Lulusan sekolah dagang Belanda ini masih tekun melakukan audit keuangan secara manual di belakang meja kasir. Tanpa bantuan kacamata, ia mencatat perubahan harga bahan baku sambil sesekali menyapa pelanggan setianya. Dibantu lima anak perempuannya, ia mengelola warung kopi sejak pukul 06.00 WIB hingga 21.00 WIB.

Lokasi strategis Eva Coffeehouse yang terletak di jalan raya yang menjadi penghubung Semarang dan Jogjakarta menyebabkan banyak orang yang tengah ada di perjalanan singgah untuk berisitirahat. “Biasanya mereka juga butuh tempat istirahat dan buang air kalau sedang di tengah perjalanan. Makanya kami menyediakan banyak toilet,” kisah Maria Budiastuti (50), generasi kedua kopi Eva.

Strategi itu bisa jadi berhasil, karena hingga kini banyak sekali rombongan turis yang menuju Borobudur, Magelang atau Yogyakarta dari Semarang atau sebaliknya mampir untuk meregangkan otot dan minum kopi. Turis yang datang tak hanya turis domestik. Banyak juga rombongan turis mancanegara yang datang untuk menikmati kopi Eva yang legendaris. Kopi Eva yang diminum panas-panas sangat cocok dengan udara Ambarawa yang dingin. Apalagi dari ruang serbaguna Eva Coffeehouse yang biasa digunakan untuk menyambut tamu rombongan, pengunjung bisa menikmati pemandangan kota Ambarawa dan kebun kopi milik Cip. Ia pun menyediakan berbagai macam suvenir bagi turis yang ingin membeli buah tangan khas Jawa Tengah.

Kesuksesan kopi Eva, tak lain karena kedekatan Pak Cip dengan beberapa pejabat penting di masa perjuangan kemerdekaan Indonesia, saat ia tergabung dalam Brigade 17. Karena efek kedekatan itu, banyak di antara mereka yang memasok kebutuhan kopi untuk institusi yang dipimpinnya dari kopi Eva.

Sayangnya, setelah pergantian pejabat, tak banyak institusi yang masih membeli kopi darinya. Hanya beberapa pabrik dan perkantoran saja yang masih memesan kopi Eva. Selain itu, Cip tidak mendistribusikan kopi Eva ke luar kota karena alasan biaya. “Terlalu mahal, jadi kami hanya mengirim kalau ada yang memesan atau ke pabrik yang sudah jadi langganan. Lagipula enggak ada resiko kopi enggak laku dan dikembalikan,”.


Kopi Eva, selain dijual dalam bentuk siap minum, juga dijual dalam bentuk bubuk, biji, bahkan sirup. Sirup kopi Eva dikemas dalam botol dan bisa disajikan hangat atau dingin. Setelah dibuka, simpan saja botolnya dalam lemari es. Rahasia kopi Eva ada pada proses pencucian biji dan obat yang digunakan agar biji kopi takkan dimakan serangga meski disimpan hingga 10 tahun.

Hingga sekarang, kopi Eva masih menggunakan biji kopi dari kebunnya sendiri. “Kalau kurang kami beli dari kebun tetangga. Sejauh ini sih selalu kurang,” kata Cip. Selain kopinya yang sudah dikenal hingga mancanegara, andalan mereka adalah Tahu khas kopi Eva dan Gudeg Manggar yang dibuat berdasarkan resep rahasia mendiang sang istri.

Sama seperti kopi-kopi klasik yang lain, Cip mengaku tak banyak keuntungan yang ia dapat. Apalagi, ia hanya mengandalkan penjualan di Eva Coffeehouse. Harga kopi per gelas masih ia jual Rp 5 ribu, sementara kopi bubuk Rp 20 ribu/seperempat kg, dan sirup kopi Rp 25 ribu/botol. Dengan harga semurah itupun masih banyak yang meminta harga kopi tak dinaikkan. Banyak pihak yang mengajak kerjasama ditolaknya untuk menghindari kecurangan bisnis yang berakhir pada kerugian.

Untuk mempertahankan pelanggan, Cip hanya berusaha mempertahankan rasa kopi Eva. “Jadi kalau dulu ada orang waktu kecil dibawa orangtuanya minum kopi Eva, sekarang dia ke sini sudah membawa cucu tapi rasa kopi Eva masih sama”. Lalu bagaimana ia mempertahankan rasa kopi Eva selama puluhan tahun? “Itu rahasia kopi Eva!” ujarnya sambil tertawa.

Dewi Sita/Nova diambil dari tabloidnovadotcom

How to Make Vietnamese Coffee (Ca Phe)



Vietnamese coffee is like nothing else. I developed a taste for it when I was living close to a small Vietnamese lunch counter. Normally, I ordered a cup of American coffee with my meal. One rainy evening when I was the only customer in the place, the owner stood by my table while I ate, talking about this and that and the other. When it came time for my coffee, he smiled and said, “You try my coffee tonight.” In an agreeable sort of mood, I – well – agreed. Sublime does not do the flavor justice. Nor does mere description. If someone had told me that Vietnamese coffee is very strong coffee mixed with sweetened, condensed milk, I could no more have imagined the flavor of Vietnamese coffee than if someone had told me that ice cream is frozen milk with sugar and flavoring added.

In the early part of the 20th century, Vietnam was a major exporter of coffee. Originally brought to the hilly interior of the country by the French, it rapidly became a major cash crop. Those wet, mountainous inner regions are ideal for growing robusta coffee, which is often regarded as being less flavorful and more bitter than arabica coffee. Coffee production and export slowed to a mere trickle during and after the Vietnam war, but in the early 1980s, Vietnamese coffee once again began to creep into the marketplace. Without much fanfare, Vietnam gradually increased the size of its export coffee market. As of 2004, Vietnamese coffee exports were second only to Brazil. While robusta coffee is seen as making inferior coffee to arabica beans, it is often blended with arabica beans in supermarket blends for sale to the general public. The robusta beans grown in central Vietnam are ideal for making Vietnamese coffee, and many espresso afficionadoes favor robusta beans for espresso as well.

Like Turkish coffee and espresso, making Vietnamese coffee involves its own little secrets and rituals. The coffee, called ca phe, is actually brewed in a miniature drip pot that sits on top of your coffee cup. The “cup” is more usually a glass, because Vietnamese coffee is as much a treat for the eyes as it is for the tongue. The Vietnamese coffee pot looks a bit like a top hat. The rim is designed to sit on the rim of the glass. Inside, the coffee pot consists of the chamber and a filter. The filter lid unscrews from the body of the coffee pot so that you can add the coffee and then cover it.

How to Make Vietnamese Ca Phe with a Vietnamese Coffee Pot

Unscrew the filter insert and remove it from the pot.

Spoon about two tablespoons of very finely ground Vietnamese coffee into the pot. If you can’t find Vietnamese coffee, try Luzianne coffee with chicory. In fact, many experts claim that it isn’t Vietnamese coffee without the chicory.


Replace the filter insert and screw it down tightly over the coffee grounds. This serves the same purpose as tamping the filter basket when making espresso. It compresses the coffee into a hard puck and slows the process of the water through the ground coffee, giving it time to extract all the flavor.

Pour about 1/3 of an inch of sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of your coffee glass or cup. Place the Vietnamese coffee pot over the rim of your cup or glass.

Pour one cup of water just off the boil into the pot over the filter top. Cover the pot and wait.

The coffee will take its time. More than almost any other method of making coffee save perhaps Turkish coffee, drinking Vietnamese coffee encourages a leisurely attitude. It is not coffee for the rushed and impatient. It can take ten minutes or more for the water to finish dripping through the coffee grounds into the glass, transformed into thick, rich, velvety coffee. The coffee, being of different density, simply sits on top of the milk, forming three distinct layers – the creamy milk at the bottom, a very thin layer of caramel colored coffee that has dissolved some of the milk, and the thick coffee on the top.

Remove the coffee top hat from the glass and set it on a saucer or plate beside you. Stir up the coffee and milk with a spoon and enjoy.

Taken From Talk- about coffee.com

This product is available @ http://www.coffeeshopz.com