Anonimo is right. A cafe con leche made with Nescafe Clasico isn't bad. I had one at a hut in the boonies near the Pemex pipeline pumping station I was visiting near Matias Romero, Oaxaca.
At first I didn't like Nescafe, but when I was a road warrior travelling to the mines in northern mexico, staying in different hotels each night, I knew the restaurants barely opened at 7AM, I didn't want to wait around for the first morning coffee.
So, I brought along my own jar, a coffee cup from home, some sugar, and a little heater coil so I could enjoy my first coffee without getting up, showering, and getting dressed and going downstairs to the sleepy restaurant. Sometimes you have to wait another 20 minutes while they finish making the coffee.
Later I left the sugar and the heater coil at home deciding that if I was going to go to some rough places in the outback, I'd have to learn to enjoy Nescafe with room temperature water. At first it wasn't pleasant, but it was better than nothing.
Sure, I enjoy the coffee at Becari, and the Cafe Andrade in Veracruz, but if I have a dependence on drinking only good quality coffee, it really limits the places I can go.
If you can drink Nescafe Clasico made with room temperature water, you are freer than the rest of the tourists who can't stray far from the beaches and the better restaurants, and don't come close to the real Mexico that I have come to know and enjoy.
At least that's been my experience.
John
I'm guessing that folks didn't mean they were going to drag food home on the plane to save a few pennies, but were commenting on food price comparisons. For me, I was surprised to see bananas at Mega in Playa del Carmen at the same price as in Minnesota.
It's not a question of saving pennies but lack of availabilty of Nescafe in the local stores in the states.
John
md2020, you are right, I guess a spoonful of the stuff with a sugar chaser is for the real hard core traveller, and not for those tea sippers who don´t venture 2 blocks back into town from the beach.
Did you find any mahogany logs with figures? I also imagine the straight coffee helped with gnats and kept the mosca chiclera flies from biting.
John
Jeez, if straigt Nescafe will ward off las moscas chicleras (and maybe los mosquitos, los bobitos y las chinches) I'll have to switch from my El Marino Gourmet Line Oaxaca (Export roast NOT Oaxaca Pluma) to Nescafe clasico.
Mexico has some really good coffee and there is no need to drink that wretched nescafe. UGH!
paty, at first Nescafe Clasico wasn't pleasant, but sometimes I go to places where Nescafe Clasico is the only brand of coffee in town.
If you stay close to the beach and don´t venture more than 2 blocks back from the main streets, you can probably find a better grade of coffee, but you won't find any figured mahogany logs.
John
John, do you think that the Nescafe you bought in the USA the same formula that's sold in Mexico, or do you taste a difference? I'm wondering if, like with some other food products, the strength, etc., is different (catering to a different marketplace). I know that some people curl their noses at the thought of using instant coffee so frequently, but, as we've seen with some other products . . . drinking Nescafe is a part of the real Mexico.
I thought I put coffee like that behind me in 1964. When I found it the only thing served in some places in Mexico I switched to MEXICAN coca cola in the old green bottle as my breakfast drink. I buy Mexican coffee in the bean and grind it myself and brew it. I load up in Merida at the coffee places there - beans in the bag en grano I think it is called. Playa del Carmen has two Starbucks now but that is vile stuff too. Once in Mexico I ordered a cafe con kalua and got cup of hot water, jar of nescafe, spoon and shot glass full of kalua. I drank the kalua and sent the rest back.
trusted partner
