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White [Milky] Friday

Today is ‘White Friday‘ on Lost in a Cup. Today we celebrate white, milky, some say ‘weak’ coffees such as the popular ‘Latte’ or to be correct ‘Latte macchiato‘ you can see depicted below.

Mixing milk with coffee in Italy is usually done in the mornings, for breakfast and there is the unwritten rule of ‘no cappuccinos after midday’. Often touristy destinations offer Cappuccinos on the menu of restaurants and pizzerias but be aware it is just for tourists! Most Italians would not have milk in their coffee after breakfast. The only exception is when they ask to stain their espresso with a splash of milk called a ‘macchiato’, which literally means ‘stained’. Macchiatos can be done with hot steamed milk, ‘a caldo‘ or with cold milk, ‘a freddo’.

 

Spoiler: next week will be “Black [Coffee] Friday”

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Recipe: Espresso Martini

When you think of an espresso based cocktail the first thing that will spring to mind to most people is the all time classic ‘Espresso Martini’. 

A  very easy to make cocktail which tastes fantastic if you use the right ingredients.

 

Dick Bradsell, inventor of ‘Espresso Martini‘

It was invented in the late 1980’s by barman Dick Bradsell when a top model requested a cocktail that would: ‘Wake me up and then f**k me up’.

 

The name comes from the main ingredient used for the drink together with the glass its served in even though it has no actual ‘Martini’ in it.

It soon became a popular drink across the world as its blend of enveloping taste and the simplicity in preparing it made it a perfect after dinner drink.

The bitter coffee flavor mixes with the coffee liquor to give birth to a drink to sip in all seasons. In the summer you can serve with ice scales, as a slush.

 

How to prepare it

The steps to prepare the Espresso Martini Coffee Cup La Tazza d’oro are few and simple.

We cool off a cocktail cup and pour 5 cl of vodka, 3 cl of espresso

coffee and 2 cl of coffee liqueur into a shaker.

 

Put the ice very dry and shake it very energetically for about a minute. Pour all the mixture, which will appear with a light foam consistent, in the cocktail cup previously flavoured with a touch of lime.

If you like, serve it on a slate dish with a tartar of fresh fruits and berries, lime and some coffee beans.

 

For an exquisite dessert version you can easily make a coffee affogato: put two cream ice cream balls in a bowl, add the Espresso Martini, plus another boiling coffee on the icecream  and… the refereshing dessert is served!

 

A more alcoholic variant is to replace Vodka with any kind of grappa, for a fuller and stronger drink.

As for any cocktail, the key is good ingredients so choose a nice vodka and a really good blend of coffee, such as ‘La Tazza d’Oro Miscela Bar’ to ensure an optimal result. 

 

Credits for this version of the recipe to ‘La Tazza d’Oro’.

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Trick or Treat? MERINGUE-UCCINO!

One of my most scary experiences in recent times..

 

Whilst visiting friends in UK, I decided to stop and check the coffee scene and see how the English ‘Barista hype’ compares to the Swedish one.

So I went to a really popular café on the main road of a London suburb and ordered a regular Cappuccino.

A few minutes later the waitress arrived with this to which I wondered if it was a mistake or if it was supposed to be like this.

After consulting a few local coffee lovers I figured this was the standard, not a ‘Halloween special’ meant as a practical joke or even to scare you!

If you really love froth you most likely would be a fan but in terms of shape and consistency it would be more correct to call this a Meringue-uccino or something to that effect.

If kids knock on your door tonight asking ‘trick or treat?’ why not treat them to one of these?

Happy Halloween!

 

Disclaimer: there are also amazing coffees in London with outstanding Latte Art but this is not one of them!

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BYOB – Be Your Own Barista

Is it possible to make Café style coffee at home?                                                          

 

Italian coffee has a long lasting and well-known tradition, famous worldwide.

 

It is maybe the biggest example of ‘less is more’ as a tiny espresso contains such a richness in flavour that one does not need a pot-full of it to appreciate its properties.

 

Espresso style coffee has been steadily on the rise in Sweden both in independent coffee shops and big high street names as a growing part of the population appreciates taste and quality over quantity.

 

Could there be a way of making this quality of coffee in your kitchen? Is the only solution for this coffee to reach your sofa or office desk to go and order a take-away cup? Does good coffee have to ‘cost the earth’, both environmentally and economically?

 

In Italy the answer is NO. How about Sweden?

 

A lot of coffee is on the Scandinavian market but not many options are thought out with simplicity in mind, while others have a considerable impact on the environment.

 

That’s why ‘Lost in a Cup’ wants to change things by bringing quality coffee from Italian coffee roaster “La Tazza d’Oro” to your home, work place or social centre.

 

To find out more about the different solutions and to order coffee online and get it delivered to you click here.

 

#EspressøYourself

 

 

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Week’s Drink: Espresso Tonic

Many love a good G&T but have you ever tried an E&T?                                                                            

 

From my experience working behind the bar in Sweden, two of the most popular drinks in clubs are Gin and Tonic or Vodka Redbull, the first chosen for the taste and the second mainly for the energising effect it gives.

 

What if there was a way of mixing those two concepts? What if there was a good tasting drink which could also be energising and also looking good at the same time?

 

The combination of Tonic Water and Espresso coffee might sound odd, it did to me too. However, after the first time I tried it, I was completely converted.

It is a beautiful drink to watch make and super simple

 

  • 2 shots (50–60 ml) of good quality espresso
  • 1.5 dl tonic water
  • 1 lime wedge
  • Ice
  1. Prepare a double espresso and leave to cool.
  2. Fill up a glass (200 ml) with ice.
  3. Squeeze the lime juice on top of the ice.
  4. Pour in the tonic water and gently pour in the slightly cooled double espresso.

 

In my experience you can easily do without the lime, especially if the espresso is good quality. To get the most out of the taste I suggest Arabica 100% if possible or a blend with at least 70% Arabica beans.

 

If you are in a party mode and want to spike it with some Gin many have done that although I have not  tried it so far but I believe it should work; booze and good espresso are a marriage made in heaven. Who needs energy drinks when you have espresso?!

 

 

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The Fika Ritual

Coffee breaks in Sweden are more than a pause, they are a ritual.                                    

 

The word ‘Fika’ is unique to the Swedish language and means ‘coffee break’ or maybe it would be more correct to say ‘coffee ritual’.

This almost sacred tradition involves coffee, something to eat and a good conversation. It offers the perfect setting to meet a friend, a relative or even a date!

Many workplaces endorse the  ‘Fika break culture’ with special dedicated areas which seem more spacious and comfortable than in other countries. It is a key part of the daily routine in which the number one goal is to enjoy the coffee, maybe have a snack and relax a few minutes with colleagues.

Sweden gives the ‘coffee ritual’ more importance than most other countries do and surprisingly this includes Italy! In my experience, Italians give most importance to taste and quality and not to the actual ritual which lasts under a minute, enough time to make an espresso, add sugar, stir and shoot it down. Down south the actual sitting around and chatting is something most Italians would rather do in the evening over an aperitif.

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Sankta Lucia

Sankta Lucia in Sweden is one of the most iconic festivity which mixes the ancient marking of the longest night with the celebration of a christian saint who brought light and hope.

The Saint’s Bio

Lucia is a Christian saint from Syracuse, Sicily and lived between 283–304. The story goes that her father died when she was 5 and she looked after her sick mother who she convinced to go on pilgrimage to Catania where Saint Agatha, around 50 years earlier, was martyred. Saint Agatha spoke to Lucia in her dream telling her that this miracle was granted to her mother as gratitude for her devotion. To thank God and Saint Agatha for the miracle, Lucia chose to continue her veneration and help fellow Christians. She did so by going into the Catacombs where christians hid from persecution to bring them food. In order to maximise the amount of food she could carry she wore candles on her head which connects to the current representations of Lucia in the Nordic tradition. This devote behaviour together with her vow of virginity to thank God angered her wealthy and most of all, pagan husband. Needless to say she did not marry him out of choice instead she did it because of marriage that Lucia’s mother had arranged as before she was miracled she feared her illness was not going to allow her to live much longer and thought her daughter needed someone to protect her when she could not. Her husband however reported Lucia to the Roman authorities and as Christianity was illegal at the time, she was convicted and several attempts were made to execute her. They only succeeded in killing her when they finally allowed her to get given the Christian rights.

The Nordic Tradition

Today across the nordic countries she is celebrated as the young woman with a crown of candles on her head and the reason she has these candles was that she used them to light her way as she went into the Catacombs where christians hid to bring them food and in order to maximise the amount of food she could carry she wore candles on her head.

The Scandinavian Lucia, traditionally used to carry saffron buns (Luciabulle) and other seasonal biscuits recalling the story of the saint who would bring food to her fellow Christians who, unlike her, where poor and hiding in the Catacombs not to be persecuted by the romans. Today Lucia in Sweden is tendentially a very nordic looking girl with long blond hair which would carry a candles on her head and who most likely looks nothing like the original Sicilian martyr.

This festivity, as many others in Christian Scandinavia, is highly important because it dates back to pre-Christian times when there were important rituals marking the longest night of the year. When the Christian cult came to Sweden the Julian calendar was still in use and the 14th of December would be the shortest day so it was easy for the multinational christianity to integrate ancient nordic rituals within the faith by re-branding it as a festivity in honour of a Christian saint.

The song sung by the choir ‘Sankta Lucia’ is a Swedish rendition of the original song in Neapolitan then translated into Italian and although the lyrics differ quite a lot the message of light and hope remains.

It is fascinating to watch this ancient ritual that has been kept alive by Christianity and even in one of the parts of the world with the highest percentage of atheists Lucia brings back a certain sense of spirituality and religiousness that is not really well understood or conceptualised rather it is done, for traditions sake and lived collectively appreciating the beauty and the magical contrast of the cold and darkness outside to the warm glow of the candles and heartwarming singing of traditional songs.

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#Pointless or #Powerful use of Social Media within Academia Today?

Having given myself the title of ‘Social Media Manager’ in the Swedish language school I was working for this Summer #UISS2017, much to the amusement of the director and many within the school, I have earned myself the reputation of ‘social media man’ which I honestly don’t know what to make of.

I am of the ‘social media generation’ and I witnessed first hand the transition between nothingness and the digital world we live in today and if I stop to think about how much has changed in so little time I find it is almost scary.

There are two ways one can look at this revolution:

  • on the one side, one’s personal privacy is never going to be like it used to be as everything you have said or published on the net can be discovered using an elementary browser search.
  • On the other hand, debates have no limits or borders and things written can be picked up shared, commented on and ‘go viral’,capturing thousands of people around the world. Freedom of speech and openness are key in modern digital debates. Those philosophical debates a few intellectuals would once have had sitting around a table in a ‘Cafe d’Art’ in la Bella Epoque or over a millennium earlier in the public toilets in Roman times,now occur in offices, bedrooms, streets, trains, universities and anywhere an internet connection is available, thanks to online publications, blogs and forums.

Becoming a ‘digital intellectual Cafe’ is the new goal for LostinaCup which started as an exchange student’s blog, and then became a personal website with ‘Social Cultural observations and other random stuff’, to then take a step further now in 2017 and undergo a series of changes that are still taking place beginning with the passage from the .org to .com. Improvements in graphics together with the increasing number of sections available and things you will soon be able to do, make this a real ‘Cafe’. To be fair from the very beginning in February 2013 this has never been a ‘moppy woppy’ platform of narratives on ‘how lovely new friends from all over the world are’ or how ‘OMG, it is so nice to see so much snow and have Fika afterwards with all the cute Swedish pastries…’

Four years of work ‘putting myself out there’ via the blog and social media channels connected to it has not really changed things that much from the long dinner table discussions I used to have with my family while I was growing up. Now the debate extends way beyond the four walls of the dining room of my parents’ house in Sardinia and anyone can take part in it. However the reality is that only my 87 year old grandma, who lives in London, has effectively been included in the discussions to which she often contributes with comments which I really appreciate.

This just goes to show how even if you try as much as you want to create a broad debate over many years, you sometimes still lack the readership and interest from the public. It could be down to uninteresting content, bad communication and distribution or the fact I’m not a academic, journalist or politician who is able to say things with a voice of authority. Who knows? Then again, the web is often quite simple minded and this is reflected by the fact that Justin Bieber and cats playing piano are the biggest sensation on Youtube.

But if the # taught me something,it is that one does not need qualifications or electoral mandates anymore to be able to rule a country as long as they are good at Tweeting. Take Trump as an example, even before being elected admin of @POTUS he had been tweeting and hashtagging away attacking people left, right and centre in a very ‘politically incorrect’ manner or another case:- the former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who was democratically elected as mayor of Florence and after internal political decisions within his party became the leader of a State of over 60 milion inhabitants with his charismatic touch and pungent tweets such as #staisereno (don’t worry), but no electoral mandate from the Italian people.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a hashtag, is a good guy with a hashtag (*).

There is no escaping the fact we live in a digital era and hashtags are changing the way people think and communicate across the world. That little previously unused character on your keyboard has now become a vital connection between my 145 characters to the ones of everybody else who is covering the same topic or has taken pictures of the same location.By connecting people social media gives the user a broader perspective on a topic which is often strongly dictated by able politicians, journalists and mainstream media channels who set the agenda and have the loudest voice.

It is our duty, as students and academics to bring out our nerdy knowledge, observations and thoughts to the table as we are more able than others to connect dots and draw broad cross cultural comparisons so it is our duty not to shy away from controversial debates, but instead tackle them full on. With the use of our previous research, passive and active knowledge and writing skills it is our duty to serve the broader population and, with a respectable voice, put all the people who lie and manipulate the masses via social media back into place. Let us prove them wrong with 145 pungent characters, a little bit of sarcasm every so often and back our tweets with external content such as URL links to longer posts, articles or books without forgetting to also connect to other Tweets with a proficient use of hashtags.

If you too believe it is time to feel in a similar way, share this post and let’s make the hashtags #AnthroTaggers (Anthropological Taggers) and #AcaTag (Academic Taggers) into something viral.

This is my third day of my ten week internship in #AntroUU and I am curious to hear what the professors, admin staff and lecturers think about my call to # within Anthropology and Academia.

 

#WhyNot

——

(*) The original quote is from the head of the US National Rifle Association, Wayne Lapierre who used used the same catchphrase in 2012 to justify people carrying guns after yet another school shooting.

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From Church to Research

The University of Uppsala is the oldest in the Scandinavian peninsula as it was founded in 1477, even before Columbus discovered America. Few people know the reason why Uppsala was chosen as the ideal location for the first academic centre in this northern part of the old continent. As many things back in the day, it was strongly connected to the presence of the Church and as it was pre-reformation, the church in Sweden was Roman Catholic.

When Christianity first arrived in Sweden back in the 800s it’s first centre was on the island of Birka, approximately 58 kilometres south of Uppsala, on lake Mälaren. It was a strategically important place as a lot of trade at the time passed through there. However, Sweden’s first Archbishopric (the place where the Archbishop, the most ‘important’ Catholic priest of the region, has his headquarters) was instituted in Gamla Uppsala in 1164. Why Gamla Uppsala out of all places? The reason is simple – just as the Catholics have done throughout history when trying to expand the fellowship of their religion, they tried to ‘localise’ it and adapt to the previous cult of the region. In this period  this was connected to the Vikings Norse religion which had its most sacred centre in Gamla Uppsala. This is also where the great men (stormän) of the time (“kings” per se didn’t exist at this time, they were other great men) resided – so both spheres of power, religious and rule of the land were located there.

If you have a chance Gamla, Uppsala is surely worth a visit. Located 5 kilometres north of Uppsala city centre, it is the Mecca of many Swedish school children who learn about the Vikings in the well presented museum and surrounding area. Outside the museum, one can see the mounds, artificial hills, in which previous great men were buried and also the spot where sacrifices to the gods were made; in fact, historians are still debating whether they also conducted human sacrifices on this site.

The choice of Uppsala as the site for the centre of the Catholic religion was obvious and the transition between the Viking culture and Christianity can be observed if one looks at the Viking runes situated in the garden in front of Universithuset (University house) which is located between the Gustavianum museum and Snerikes nation.

The importance of the connection between Church and university can also be observed by looking at the oldest university building in Uppsala, which is currently the site of ‘Gustavianum – Uppsala University Museum’, located in front of the cathedral’s main entrance. When the university was founded, it consisted of four faculties:

  •      Philosophy – taught in academic circles since ancient Greek times, it was the study of the world, a science before Galileo invented the ‘Scientific Method’ which then distinguished philosophy as we know it today from scientific studies.
  •      Law – to educate future lawyers, judges, bureaucrats and rulers of the land.
  •      Theology – to teach aspiring priests the knowledge and skill set they needed to become an active part of the Church.
  •      Medicine – which started being studied at the beginning of civilization but in late medieval times was studied more methodically in many universities.

These are the four categories mentioned in ‘O Gamla Klang’ an old student song that has it’s original version in  German (O Alte Burschenherrlicheit) a Swedish version of it was written by August Lindh, the founder of Uppsala’s ‘secret’ student society ‘Juvenalorden’, in the early 1900s. This song is normally sang at the end of all gasques/ formal dinners and students from the different categories  stand up and sing their part according to what they study and for the last few verses of the song everyone is standing on their chairs and toasting. Once the song is over people must not sit down again as if they do, it is said that they will not graduate. Everyone follows this rule with the exception of Västergöta Nation members who for some reason have a tradition of sitting down again and singing one more song.

When you tell your friends that you study in Uppsala University, mention some of the above facts. You are after all, part of a small group of students who study in an environment full of quirky traditions and student madness that strongly influences the rest of the city surrounding the university.

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4 Years of Lost in a Cup 

On the 8th of February 2013, barely 1 month into my Erasmus exchange study program, I published my first article in ‘Lost in a Cup’. The title was ‘Sweden at Heathrow‘ and talked about my first contact with Sweden on the tarmac of the busiest airport in the UK.

Since then I wrote other 84 articles and published 40 odd pages through the years although most of my work was written in the first half of 2013 during my exchange.
If you want to read more about the choice of title for this website/blog and its chosen content check out the About page

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Plans for the future are to keep analysing Swedish society and student life as I’m now once again in Uppsala to study although things have changed a lot since 2013. This time I believe I have more direct contact with Swedish people as opposed to last time in which I hanged out mainly with internationals. Also I am now an ‘ämbetsman’ (officer/elected worker) of 2 student nations here which are at polar opposites in the ideals they have and way they function.

As always keep comments flying in either publicly or in a private message (via Contact section)>

Last but not least give us a Like to the Facebook page which if you enjoy this so that you will get the latest publications on your newsfeed: www.facebook.com/lostinacup

Stay lost and drink espresso!

Alex