The highlight of my stressful day is a walk to the souk (market) to buy a tiny cup of kahwa (coffee) or in the South Sudanese Arabic, bon for 100 SSP (as of April 2019). This coffee is infused with ginger or cinnamon, some spices, and cardamom. These poured out from a special tin ‘jug’ with a long spout known as a jebena and served in tiny tea cups with the tiniest spoons I've ever seen! The coffee is usually served with a generous amount of sugar, reminding me of my chai (tea) days in Iraq. If you do not like your coffee sweet, you can ask them to serve the sugar separately.
On days when I feel sick, I prefer to go to a stall which serves a strong ginger coffee but most days, I often go to a place that serve cinnamon flavored coffee. This has now become my personal favorite and I can't go on a week without a sip of it.
However, these days, the industry seemed to have picked up and you can observe small coffee/tea places all over the local souk. My favorite one is tended by a young barista named Alo. She always serves me the same quality of coffee every time me and my friend, Joyce visit her little cafe.
She would usually start roasting her coffee beans at around 6pm. (Yes, the sun is still up at 6pm here!)Then, she uses a stone mortar to ground this. The ground coffee is then incorporated into the boiling water. Upon reaching its boiling point, spices like cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and pepper are then added. This is then poured into tiny cups served. If you place the cup under the light of the sun, you will see that the sugar level is about a fourth of the cup.
Don't worry! The water for the coffee is boiled so it is safe to drink!
Watch out for my chai (tea) review on South Sudanese Karkaday (hibiscus tea) and peppermint tea soon!
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