There's one thing about coffee that doesn't sit well with people who don't make a lot of money. It's expensive. It's always going to be expensive. My wife told me about how she had rice coffee when she was young because her family was too poor to buy coffee. So I knew about rice coffee, but I didn't know there was also a corn coffee.

It's Not Coffee

I don't know why people insist on calling it rice coffee or corn coffee. Unlike teas that are called teas even when they're not make from tea plant, rice and corn coffee aren't even brewed like coffee.

Perhaps it's due to the way it looks as opposed to how it's made. Both rice coffee and corn coffee is as dark as black coffee after the ingredients are boiled. My wife swears the rice coffee tastes like regular coffee. I don't think so, but I can't argue the point since I've never tasted it.

Making Rice Coffee

My wife said all they did to make rice coffee was to take raw, white rice and roast it in a skillet until it was almost burnt. Then they would add it to water and boil it. After they poured the liquid into cups, they would discard the rice sediment at the bottom of the pot.

I read somewhere else that the rice was to be ground (with a mortar and pestle) before boiling, but my wife said it wasn't necessary.

Making Corn Coffee

I haven't read a description of how corn coffee is made, but it's supposed to taste like coffee too. From what I've read, though, Native Americans in the US and Canada were drinking corn coffee more than a century ago.

I'm not even going to consider it. It probably tastes worse than Postum did.

No Coffee Means No Coffee

My wife said she'd make rice coffee when she gets back to the Philippines, just so that I can taste it for myself. I'm sorry, but coffee is coffee and there isn't a substitute for me. If I can't get the real stuff then I don't want any kind of "make believe" coffee. I'd rather do without coffee than to try to fool my taste buds and my stomach into believing that something else could be just as good as real coffee.

(Image source: Corn Coffee at Pinoy Food & Other Cuisine :: Food PhotoBlog and Events)

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Unlike coffee, the many kinds of tea are not produced from multiple species. The different varieties of tea come from one plant, the camellia sinensis. I'm not talking about teas (like herbal tea) which do not come from the tea plant; I'm specifically talking about the varieties made from the tea plant.

Tea is Classified by the Producing Technique

The traditional tea consumed by most Americans is black tea. It's the same plant used for green tea, so green tea isn't any healthier for you than black tea in its original form. Here are the classifications:

• White tea: Un-Wilted and unoxidized
• Yellow tea: Un-wilted and unoxidized but allowed to yellow
• Green tea: Wilted and unoxidized
• Oolong: Wilted, bruised, and partially oxidized
• Black tea: Wilted, crushed, and fully oxidized
• Post-fermented tea: Green Tea that has been allowed to ferment/compost

What about Red Tea?

When my family moved to Hawaii in the 70s, and I was a teenager, my parents planted a unique hedgerow. It was a repeating row in an order than included Tea, Red Tea and Bird of Paradise. The tea plant was the tea plant I'm talking about. The red tea plant is something else. Although it looks like the regular tea plant, it's not red version of it. Frankly, I don't know what it was.

How Tea is Consumed

I've always known about tea being consumed either cold (iced) or hot. The British like it hot, while most Americans like it iced. Unlike coffee, again, tea isn't used in candies and cakes and the leaves aren't eaten with chocolate.

Local Tea Varieties

I'm unaware of any tea that's grown locally. If I look at some of the packaging, I'd probably find out that some of what I think is imported is actually made in the Philippines.

I usually buy the instant NESTEA, without sugar or lemon flavoring added. I like to taste the tea, not the additives. Yes, I add sugar, but how much I add depends on how strong I make it. I like it iced and lightly sweetened, not heavily sweetened like the US southerners.

Unfortunately for me, most Filipinos like the added lemon, so the plain NESTEA is always hard to find.

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