Last month, I discovered an alternative natural coffee sweetener coconut sugar. Last week, I discovered yet another alternative natural coffee sweetener called balicucha, and how I discovered it is a funny story.
Natural sugar
We were having breakfast at our hotel in Vigan, coffee was served and, on the saucer was what I first thought to be a cookie. You know, like those tiny almond cookies that they serve at Dome Cafe? I searched for the sugar bowl and found none on the table, so I hailed a passing waiter and asked for sugar. A few seconds later, he came back with packets of artificial sweetener. I thought he misunderstood. I wanted natural sugar, brown if they had it, not artificial sweetener.
I was about to call him again when I noticed the little thing on my coffee saucer and realized it wasn’t a cookie. I looked at it closer and noticed how much like tira-tira (native sugar candy) it felt in my hand so I decided to conduct the most logical test and taste it. I took a small bite, it did taste like tira-tira but it was not chewy but porous. Feeling bold, I dropped it into my cup of hot coffee. I stirred the coffee and realized that the sweet thing I dropped in it had melted.
Several stores
I sipped my coffee and liked how it tasted, Speedy did as I did then we asked a waitress what it was that we had just put into our coffee. Balicucha, she said, and it is only found in Vigan. She didn’t know what it was exactly but she offered the information that it was sold at the hotel and also in shops around the city. After breakfast, we walked to Calle Crisologo for some last-minute shopping, found balicucha in several stores, bought a large packet, and brought it home.