Indonesian street coffee
The custom of eating street food – at all hours of the day and night – prepared in numerous
colourful kiosks and on the carts of vendors is common in Java and throughout Indonesia.
Each Kopi warung, or traditional street café, boasts its own speciality, which it displays
and advertises with writing and graffiti: from rise sautéed with vegetables to noodles – fried or
in broth – as well as skewers of meat and chicken or meatball soup.
Coffee lovers also rendezvous at these stands for breakfast, work breaks or late at night to
spend a few rupiahs on an infusion of Javanese coffee and simple snacks such as small fried or
boiled bananas, corn or fermented soy fritters, and cakes made of beans fried in a batter of flour
and eggs.
Coffee is served in glass mugs with a handle, similar to those used for beer, but it is not
unusual to see a very odd way of drinking coffee. The elderly often place a deep saucer over the
mug filled with coffee and rapidly turn it upside down. Then they lift the mug slightly from the
saucer, which they tilt to sip the coffee from it.
