The drink · November
Sherman Heights Café de Olla
One drink. The evenings turned, and November opens with Día de los Muertos.
Keep
- Ground coffee
- Water
November adds
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- A strip of satsuma peel
Method
Bring four cups of water to a simmer in a saucepan with the cinnamon stick, brown sugar, and satsuma peel, and let it bubble gently for five minutes so the cinnamon opens up. Take it off the heat, stir in a third of a cup of ground coffee, and let it steep for four minutes. Pour it through a fine strainer, or a paper filter if you want it clean. It should taste like coffee first, then spice, and only a little sweet. It's traditionally made in a clay pot, the olla; any saucepan works.
Try another way
Less sugar
Start with two tablespoons if you take your coffee black.
Stronger
A heaped half cup of coffee instead of a third, for slow mornings.
Lemon peel instead of satsuma
Sharper and less floral.
Iced
For the warm afternoons November still has.