Honduran beverages

A very random blog I know! When you are done reading this, scroll down to see a pic of the beach from last weekend.

Coffee –

Luke and I have been drinking coffee with breakfast and dinner (and sometimes at the cafeteria at the training center too.) As of yet, neither Luke nor I have had any difficulty sleeping. I assume this is probably due to the new environment, speaking Spanish a lot (mentally exhausting) and the fact that we walk a good hour a day and break a sweat both there and back due to the hills. To make coffee our host mom puts water on the stove and just puts the coffee grinds right into the water. Just when it starts to boil, she dips out the coffee/water mixture with a cup and runs it through a filter (a cloth, cone-shaped one) into a thermos. They don’t buy the coffee in the bean form but I saw the package the ground beans came in and it is from a Honduran coffee farm. Its weird but it’s actually sort of difficult to find good coffee even in a country that produces a lot…they would rather export it all and make more money than risk selling in here in Lempiras. The Hondurans drink their coffee with a lot of sugar – more like a cup of sugar with a little coffee. We had to clear that up right away with our host family that we prefer it black! Some people drink it with milk but most just with sugar.

Water –

We don’t drink water from the tap. It’s not safe because it’s not treated like our city water that we’re used to is. So the only water we can drink is bottled water (they sell it in giant plastic jugs here). This gets sort of complicated because water that is consumed in any from must be treated whether it’s ice, etc. Sort of difficult when you’re living with a family and have no control over what you eat/drink and also difficult when you go out to eat because you can never really be sure. Boiling the tap water is ok as long as it’s for 5+ minutes or you can add 3 drops of chlorine per liter.

Licuados –

Licuados are extremely common here (you can find them just about anywhere from the street to a restaurant) and really delicious. Basically it is really cold milk (or partially frozen milk that comes in bags), sugar, fruit (papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberry, pineapple, or banana) and oatmeal or granola if you want all blended together in a blender until frothy. I usually get a banana and strawberry licuado but have had a cantaloupe one and really liked it to. I’m a fan!

Tea –

So they don’t really have a lot of store-bought options for tea which is probably due to the fact that they’re really good at making homemade tea. I haven’t quite learned how to yet but my host mom makes a really delicious cinnamon tea and says she makes a good pineapple tea with the left-over scraps after cutting up a pineapple.