Great Coffee, Bad Coffee, And Something Green On My Final Morning In Nuuk

Coffee And A Much-Needed Dose Of Vegetables In Nuuk

Fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive in Greenland because very little can be grown locally and most produce must be imported over long distances. By my final morning in Nuuk, I was craving something green.

My first stop was at Cafe X, which had a menu that said “Starbucks” (making me think of Bethlehem in the West Bank which has a “fake” Starbucks…). The coffee (very thankfully, I might add) was not from Starbucks. It was excellent…I had a nice cortado…perhaps my best coffee of my entire visit.

I then went to the post office before trying one more coffee shop at a place called Café Esmerelda.

There, I have to admit the coffee wan’t great because Café Esmeralda uses UHT milk, which simply does not taste like fresh milk to me. But with no meaningful dairy industry in Greenland and fresh milk expensive to import, it is hard to fault a café for choosing the shelf-stable option but perhaps the problem here was too much milk, which drowned out the taste of the coffee despite the beautiful presentation.

Anyway, I would not return for the coffee, but I did enjoy the green drink…fresh celery, parsley, apples, and ginger really hit the spot. My diet at home featured a lot of fruit and vegetables but I’d have to imagine that might be different if I lived in Greenland considering the high pries I saw for these goods at the grocery store.

I returned to my apartment, watched my Air Greenland A330-800neo land, packed, and took a cab to the airport…it was time to say goodbye to Greenland and fly to Copenhagen…with a new airline and new airplane in store for me.

I’m “live-blogging” my trip to Greenland, with a slight delay, this week.