Presto!

I came to Nicaragua with great expectations of coffee. I thought I’d leave an expert in the art of drinking black coffee.  My activity of choice in Charleston was to go to one of my two favorite coffee shops, Hope & Union or Kudu. As I was getting ready for my trip, I would head to Hope & Union and my mouth would water over the tasting notes for the 5 or 6 fresh grinds of the day. I’ll go ahead and admit I was pretty “fachenta” (the local word for snobby) about my coffee back at home.

As nerdy as it sounds, my favorite thing to do in a new Nica city is browse the grocery store. I don’t even want to admit how much time I spent in La Colonia in Chinandega just dreaming for the days I’d be able to cook for myself and trying to think of ways to get creative with such a limited selection. Fast forward to my third day in Nicaragua. I was really excited to go and check out the grocery store in Managua. It is called  La Union, is one of the nicest grocery stores in the country, and just happens to be owned by Wal-Mart. Of course.

After perusing the produce section and checking out the spices or lack there of, I got to the coffee aisle. Instead of finding a variety of shade grown, fresh coffee I was blinded by the mustard yellow, okay we’ll call it gold, “Presto” bottles. So, that’s what they’ve got here- instant coffee. I was crushed. All of the good stuff is usually exported.

Apparently, Nicaraguans are very proud of Presto. They even sometimes send it back with returned volunteers. In a culture that prides itself in the amount of care that goes into making their products by hand, this was pretty surprising to me (think of the past post when I described what goes into making juices). Everyone makes their tortillas and bread from scratch.

Given this, why on earth would Nicaraguans be obsessed with instant coffee? I don’t think it is a matter of cost, because I honestly do think the coffee would be available if sought out. Maybe it is a matter of supply?

I think back to the emergence of TV dinners in the 1950’s. While the meatloaf might have tasted horrible and there were many kinks to sort out (I know I always hated that my chocolate pudding had to be hot in my Kid’s Cuisine), people loved them because they were a novelty. I think the “newness” of instant coffee is probably where the obsession comes from. However, this is only speculation and there might be a much better answer.

Many of you know that coffee is a necessity for me, but don’t worry about me just yet. I found out that the island of Ometepe (the island where I’ll be living) there is a coffee coop made up of 25 different families. If all goes well and I can do some side work with them, I’ll be happily caffeinated.