FROM THE PAST until now, one of the things that accompanies the life of the Acehnese is coffee. Drinking coffee is a necessity and this applies to almost all Acehnese. This can be proven by the fact that almost all villages throughout Aceh have at least two coffee shops, and this number will be many times over if you visit the sub-district city, as well as the district city. Meanwhile in the provincial city, Banda Aceh, there are countless coffee shops, which are all of them almost never empty of customers.
Talking about coffee shops in Banda Aceh, the most common can be divided into two types of coffee shops. First a traditional coffee shop. This can be indicated by the type of coffee served, namely the robusta type whose the coffee beans is mixed with various other natural ingredients, such as (actually this is a secret: finely ground cannabis seeds). Traditional coffee shops can also be characterized by their simple, unsophisticated appearance and almost all coffee shops use similar glasses. For example like the image below.
The same type of coffee cup in almost all coffee shops in Aceh
The second type of coffee shop is one which apart from a traditional coffee shop, can be called a modern coffee shop. It is in the form of a cafe as is commonly found in big cities. The appearance of the shop is more luxurious, with a more diverse coffee menu as well as snacks. Usually this modern coffee shop serves arabica coffee as its mainstay menu and this can be indicated by the presence of a coffee blending machine that also looks luxurious, shiny, as shiny as customer tables. Because I rarely stop at this coffee shop, let me just review the traditional coffee shop in this post.
Apart from its simplicity, what makes traditional coffee shops the most authentic places that maintain local wisdom in Aceh is the cheap price of coffee. With 5k rupiah, you can order a cup of coffee and eat a delicious piece of cake. Regarding cakes, between one coffee shop and another has its own mainstay. For example, my regular coffee shop located around Beurawe has roti canai for Rp. 1000 per piece, where this cake is rarely served in other coffee shops.
Roti Canai
So you can imagine for yourself how the tradition of drinking coffee in Aceh, from day to day will be lively. Which because it is so cheap, sometimes people can go back and forth to the coffee shop three or four times a day.