Saturday, February 28, 2009

Beverage Love

Thais are serious about beverages (and with good reason - it is so hot that if you're not drinking all day long, you'll end up severely dehydrated). Along the main street in our neighborhood there are at least a dozen little stands that make coffee, tea, and other delightful drinks.  Look at all the fun, colorful options here!

This one has some coffee and a lot of tea, with Nestea being the substance of choice. I think I'll pass on that (but this stand is Mike's favorite).
You can tell by the cans of Carnation milk that this stand's main focus is coffee.  I don't know how many cans of evaporated and sweetened condensed milk are consumed in this country on a daily basis, but it's a huge number.  I almost never see people drinking black coffee; it always has lots of milk and sugar!

Before we came here, I didn't really pay attention drinks other than water (OK, and coffee, and beer - just the essentials).  To me, they were a waste of calories and I would rather have something I could chew on.  But then I fell in love with Thai iced coffee, and after that I figured I should give all the other drinks a chance too.  Now I probably spend as much on drinks each day as I do on food (two or three dollars).

Thai iced tea with milk has a nice pretty orange color and tastes like tea with an infusion of wheat.  It doesn't sound particularly pleasant, but trust me, it's good.  It's really creamy and not too sweet - very refreshing on hot, humid afternoons.

3 comments:

Cathy said...

Thai iced coffee is the best!

Steph said...

I know what you mean about wasting liquid calories, but that's because we drink so much pop here. Ice coffee on the other hand is so worth it!

Rebel said...

My entire experience of Rayong has improved with the addition of an actual coffee shop... with like a couch and comfy chair and everything. I spent several hours there today drinking an iced cocoa. YUM! And I would LOVE to find out the per-capita consomption rate for sweetened condensed milk. Gotta be about a can per person per day.