Swedish Egg Coffee

[Akrasia]

Well there was a thread a while back about coffee, and I think it was maxd who was experimenting with roasting his own beans. I haven't gone that far but I did a lot of digging into what makes a good coffee and I thought I'd share some of my discoveries. We bought some single origin wet process beans (already roasted) and they were absolutely amazing, none of the jitters and hardly any of the bitterness that I associate with regular coffee. My research tells me this is because the better quality the coffee the less mycotoxins it has in it, and these are the things that cause jitters in a lot of people.

Another thing I discovered after reading the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson (highly recommend!) was Swedish Egg Coffee, where you mix raw egg into the grinds and boil the coffee on the stove. You can even throw in the shell. The egg takes so much bitterness out of the coffee it really does make an amazingly smooth cup of coffee.

Just thought I'd share

 

[chayton]

I've never heard of that! But I'm going to try it...we have some coffee right now that's not the best, maybe it will help!

 

[Tirilej]

Another Swedish thing that I've never heard of before

I had to look it up and it's obviously not something that ever has been made in Sweden.
I'm sure it's good, but just so you know

 

[rockycatt]

in the past we only put in egg shells in the perkulator coffee and that was at a long standing AA meeting house :notworthy ah and that's one thing reformed drunks is there coffee

 

[Akrasia]

Another Swedish thing that I've never heard of before

I had to look it up and it's obviously not something that ever has been made in Sweden.
I'm sure it's good, but just so you know

Haha really?

Just goes to show. Most of the recipes on the net say it was their Swedish or Norwegian great grandma's recipe or something. Thanks for letting me know Now I feel like a fool bahaha.

 

[Tirilej]

After what I could understand it was the immigrants from Sweden to US that used it but I have no clue why. The coffeee over there wasn't that great I suppose
They first used fish skin but discovered that they could use eggs instead.
I didn't read so much so why I have no clue.
You were not wrong though because the name is correct

 

[chayton]

blech....I find it hard to believe that fish skin could improve the taste of coffee! Unless you're a cat, I suppose.

 

[Tirilej]

blech....I find it hard to believe that fish skin could improve the taste of coffee! Unless you're a cat, I suppose.

Of course it didn't have anything to do with the taste. I better go look up the explanation again.

This is one explanation, but I found more of them
...and they have been using eggs in coffee in both Sweden and Norway as I could understand. Guess what they called it in Norway?

It was the custom in the later 1800s to add a piece of fish skin to the water, when you were making coffee, it was called "klarskinn" and was supposed to make the coffee clear and not look full of grounds. I think the emigrants used the "tissue" that you find inside an egg for the same purpose, as they could not easily get the little pieces of fish skin in the US. And then perhaps someone dropped the egg into the coffe and liked it....

 

[Akrasia]

Why do we need a title for a reply lol

From what I read the egg and/or eggshell binds with a lot of the acidity and takes it from the coffee, making it smoother, as well as helping the grinds settle to the bottom of the pan. Some kind of chemical reaction.

 

[Tirilej]

What I wonder is if it actually says something about Swedish egg coffee in Stig Larssons books? I don't remember that.

 

[Akrasia]

When Blomkvist is visiting people to investigate stuff one of the people gives him coffee which 'he could tell had been made the traditional Swedish way, in a pan on the stove' Which he apparently appreciated. So I did some digging to find out the traditional way and came up with the egg thing. Not sure if this was what he was referring to, probably not since you mention it certainly isn't a common thing in reality. Just a case of me getting my wires crossed I suppose lol. Pity we can't ask him It is such a shame he died before writing any more books, I absolutely love his work.)