Drinks for breakfast in this world seem to be dominated by coffee, tea, chocolate, and orange juice. According to Andrew Dalby in his book The Breakfast Book, tea is the most popular for breakfast.
This plant, which originates from the mountains of southwest China, is the most consumed breakfast drink in Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan. It is also the breakfast drink of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Middle East. Not to forget the UK, which is synonymous with milk tea, also serves tea at breakfast.
Like food, drinks for breakfast in various countries are also unique and distinctive, here are some examples.
Cafe Reverse from Switzerland
Contents
This drink is the opposite of the French café au lait. If a café au lait is black coffee topped with a layer of hot milk, then a café renverse is hot milk topped with a little espresso.
Dou Jiang from China
Simply put, dou jiang is soy milk which is usually consumed warm/hot, like half soup and half drink. The texture is smooth and milky, but has a strong soy aroma. It is usually served sweet, but sometimes it is also savory mixed with vinegar and chili oil.
Sarabba from Indonesia
Indonesia has a variety of warm drinks that are suitable for drinking in the morning, sarabba is one of them. This typical Makassar drink is made from a mixture of ginger, coconut milk, egg yolks, palm sugar, and ground pepper. Now available in bottles and instant sarabba in sachets.
Butter Tea from Tibet
Tea water mixed with butter and salt, stirred until dissolved. The result is a thick, tasty, salty drink. The butter used comes from the milk of yak, a type of cow with long hair.
Agua Dulce from Costa Rica
Agua dulce means sweet water, made from water and tapa. To make tapa, sugarcane water is taken, boiled, evaporated, formed/cast into chunks. This tapa is similar to Javanese sugar.
To make agua dulce, tapa is boiled in boiling water until dissolved. There is also a boil in milk but it is less common.
Champurrado from Mexico
Chocolate has been a part of Mexican culture since the time of the Aztecs. Champurrado is this chocolate drink mixed with sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch. Serve hot or warm.
Naranjilla juice from Ecuador
Naranjilla fruit looks like a tomato, but tastes sour and bitter. If juiced with sugar or syrup to make it more delicious.
Apart from that, naranjilla is also made into sauces, ice cream mixes, pies and various kinds of cakes. But the most common is juice. The fruit is washed, hair removed, cut and blended, filtered, sweetened and then served.
Salve from Türkiye
Ointments made from tubers of Turkish orchids, a popular breakfast item during the Ottoman Empire. Its popularity then spread to England and Germany where this drink is known as saloop.
How to make ointment powder is mixed with water until it thickens, sweetened with orange blossom or rose water. Its popularity fell when it was rumored that the ointment was a good remedy for venereal diseases, so people were embarrassed to take it in public. Now, the salve is making a comeback and skimmed milk, cinnamon, and sugar are added to its preparation.
Closing
If you look at its origins and the various differences in breakfast menus around the world, it turns out that breakfast is closely related to the development of human culture. Cultural acculturation also influences, for example tea which is popular in many countries originally comes from China. The getuk that we eat in the morning, the cassava comes from Africa.
So good is God who arranges destiny so that we have delicious food and drinks for breakfast. Even being able to have breakfast is also a big pleasure, because there are many out there who can’t have breakfast and are forced to endure hunger until they meet food. So from now on let’s appreciate and be grateful for our breakfast, no matter how simple it is.