Category: Blog

Coffee cocktails

Posted on by Sara Walker
Black Russian cocktail
Black Russian cocktail

The strong, distinctive flavour of coffee is a perfect cocktail ingredient, whether you use fresh coffee or a coffee flavoured liqueur. Here’s our pick of the best recipes:

Black Magic – mix equal quantities of Tia Maria and vodka together, and add lemon juice to taste. Serve over crushed ice.

Amaretto Choco Latte – Use one measure of Amaretto, two teaspoons of cocoa powder, one measure of strong hot coffee made with freshly-ground coffee beans. Place the cocoa powder in the cup, pour over the Amaretto and coffee and stir until fully combined. Add sugar and milk to taste.

Black Russian – probably the best known of the coffee cocktails, this is made from equal measures of Tia Maria and vodka, topped up with coke.

Baby Guinness – this recipe is best served in a miniature straight glass if you can find one, rather than a tapered shot glass. Pour two thirds of a measure of Tia Maria into the glass, then pour a third of a measure of Baileys over the back of a spoon into the glass, so that it sits on top of the darker liquid, resembling the head of a pint of Guinness.

Mudslide – You’ll need a cocktail shaker for this one. Fill the shaker two thirds full of ice, and add a single measures of vodka, Kahlua (or Tia Maria) and Baileys. Shake until thoroughly combined (impressions of Tom Cruise optional), and stain into a glass.

B52 – another popular drink. Pour a single measure of Kahlua over the back of a spoon into a shot glass. Follow it with a shot of Baileys and then a shot of Grand Marnier, so that the different colours create distinct layers. Variations on the theme are the B53 (Tia Maria or Kahlua, Baileys and vodka) and the B54 (Kahlua or Tia Maria, Baileys and Amaretto).

Classic coffee cocktail – fill a glass with crushed ice. Mix one measure of coffee liqueur, such as Kuhlua or Tia Maria, with two measures of fresh, cold coffee, one measure of cream and a teaspoon of sugar. Pour over the ice. To customise the drink to your taste, try adding stronger coffee, or more or less cream or sugar.

 

Love Coffee and Lego? Check this out

Posted on by Sara Walker


Build on Brick MugForget paper crafts, blue tack animal sculptures or other activities to curb your office boredom, because Think Geek has a new invention.

If you love coffee and you like playing with Lego, check out the Build-On Brick Mug by Think Geek. They’ve cleverly designed a functional and fun coffee mug you can play with and drink from.

The Build-On Brick Mug is made from small black raised studs and holes so you can attach your own Lego bricks to the outside of the mug and create anything you like.

Make your cup into a car and wheel it across the desk, add on extra handles – just because, or even attach a plate for your biscuit. It’s the perfect functional office toy you can actually get away with. Bring it to your Monday morning work meetings to liven things up – either that or get some confused looks, depending on who you work with.

And if you’re really tech savvy you could make your coffee into a robotic mug. I’m not sure what function this could serve, but it could be worth trying if you fancy being a bit more creative and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands.

So, back to the practicalities. The Build-On Brick Mug can also be used with PixelBlocks, Mega Blocks, KRE-O and K’NEX Bricks. It’s also hardy enough for hot drinks and it’s made from BPA-free plastic; however, it’s not suitable for the dishwasher or the microwave.

If you like the sound of it, you can buy your own Build-On Brick Mug online from thinkgeek.com for US$19.99; however, this includes just the mug – it’s up to you to supply the bricks. Other Think Brick accessories include Star Trek Pizza Cutters, Doctor Who coasters and a Rubik’s Cube Mug.

What next? Coffee Scented Newspapers

Posted on by Sara Walker


wake up and smell the coffeeImagine flicking through a recipe book and smelling the food through the pages, reading a book infused with scents, or picking up your junk mail to throw it in the bin, only to discover that you can actually smell the product its advertising.

Creative Directors at the advertising agency, DC Thomson & Co may not have branched out into the realm of scented food ads, but they have created a newspaper advert for the Scottish based IT company, BusinessPort, that smells of real coffee beans. Ingenious – now you can literally wake up, read the paper and smell the coffee.

You’d think the advert would be more appropriate for a company selling coffee machines or other coffee based products, but BusinessPort wanted to be innovative and attract more attention. They certainly accomplished that. An advert for an IT company smelling of coffee beans, isn’t exactly what you’d expect is it?

The advert first appeared in the Scottish newspaper, the Press and Journal and is said to be the first of its kind for the paper. As a result, BusinessPort hope to get people talking about it and buying their products. Other adverts on the radio and social media platforms have also helped to promote the idea.

So how does it work? When I first heard about this, perfume ads sprung to mind – the kind where you peel back the bit of foil and rub the scent over your neck and wrists only to discover that you’re not a huge fan of it.

However, BusinessPort’s coffee infused ad has been made differently. The coffee bean scent was actually injected directly into the ink to create the effect.

So, what next for the future of advertising? Will we start to see and smell more scented messages? Will the idea take off or is it just a bit intrusive? I’m sure we’ll find out in due course.

Make your own coffee and go on holiday

Posted on by Sara Walker

holidayStatistics can be scary; you know, the kind that tell you exactly how much you’ve spent on chocolate, cigarettes, alcohol… (insert your creature comfort here) over the last 10 years.

I’m not going to bombard you with lots of preachy data, but I will tell you that I recently came across a study outlining that about one third of us in the UK say we can’t afford to go on a one week holiday. I thought, that’s a bit sad; we all deserve holidays!

Anyway, at the same time, I discovered that as a nation we’re drinking more takeaway coffee than ever before. If you’re a fan of your morning shop bought coffee before work, you’ll know that the average cup costs about £2.

So, this is where I propose the ‘coffee beans from your coffee machine’ plan. OK, it’s a simple suggestion really, but a helpful one — stop buying so much takeaway coffee and instead, invest in a small home coffee machine, stock up on decent coffee beans, then get yourself a flask and start making your own coffee. It’ll taste better.

Or even better, lose the flask, and just bring your coffee machine to work and get everyone involved. If you buy takeaway coffee every day, that’s £10 you can pocket away every week. You do the maths for six months.

And now, here’s the best bit — in 5-6 months time, you’ll have saved up enough to go away somewhere. It’s not going to take you to the Caribbean, but there’s loads of places you can go with a couple of hundred quid if you’re a bit creative with it.

Here are some money saving holiday suggestions you can try out once you’ve saved all the money making your own coffee.

1. Buy a cheap flight, then stay somewhere lovely and for free with couch surfing.

2. Go camping in the UK. There’s a lot of people with pretty gardens who rent out the space in the summer to campers. It’ll be cheaper, prettier and you’ll have more space.

3. If you’ve got any old friends who moved away, go and visit them for a week.

Coffee-themed Valentine’s Day menu

Posted on by Sara Walker

coffee heartIf you’re planning to create a special meal for your loved one on Valentine’s Day, why not go for something a little different with this coffee-themed menu?

Starter (all quantities serve two)

Chicken with coffee marinade

You’ll need:

  • Two skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon freshly-ground coffee beans
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon liquid honey
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix all the marinade ingredients together to a paste, then stir in the chicken, making sure the strips are evenly covered. Cover the bowl, and leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours or preferably overnight. Fry the chicken until cooked through, and serve with green salad.

Main course

Beef and mushroom casserole with coffee

You’ll need:

  • About half a kilo of braising steak, cut into chunks
  • 1 red onion, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 6 – 8 mushrooms, sliced
  • 25g/1oz butter
  • 25g/1oz flour
  • 290ml/1/2 pint red wine
  • 290ml/1/4 pint coffee, made from freshly-roasted coffee beans
  • Beef stock
  • Oil, for frying

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees centigrade. Fry the steak with a little oil until the meat is sealed, then remove it from the frying pan and place it in an ovenproof casserole dish. Fry the onion in the butter until soft and golden, then stir in the flour. Add the wine and coffee, and bring the mixture to the boil. Pour the liquid over the beef and add enough stock to completely cover the meat. Stir in the garlic. Place in the oven for around 3 – 3 1/2 hours. Half an hour before the end of the cooking time, stir in the mushrooms. Serve with rice or mashed potatoes and green vegetables.

Pudding

Chocolate Coffee Mousse

You’ll need:

  • 140g/5oz good quality dark chocolate
  • 60g/2oz icing sugar
  • 115g/4oz mascarpone
  • 60ml/2fl oz strong espresso coffee
  • white of one large free-range egg

Break the chocolate into pieces, and carefully melt it in the microwave. Allow to cool slightly. Whisk the egg white until it stands up in peaks, and in a separate bowl beat together the mascarpone, sugar and coffee. Carefully beat the chocolate into the mascarpone mixture, then fold in the egg white, taking care to keep as much volume as possible. Pour into espresso cups, and leave in the fridge to set.

 

 

 

 

The history of instant coffee

Posted on by Sara Walker

instant coffeeInstant coffee – coffee granules soluble in water – has been around since the early 19th century. The first commercially successfully process for making a powdered product was developed by chemist George Constant Washington, and his product hit the shelves in America as ‘Red E Coffee’. His process was patented, but the taste of the instant coffee still left a lot to be desired when compared to the real thing made from freshly-roasted coffee beans. In the 1930s, the Brazilian coffee industry, then the world’s top coffee producer, became interested in developing instant coffee as a way of preserving their excess crops. Various companies began to experiment with liquid coffee extract, but the Swiss company Nestlé, who was at the forefront instant coffee research, launched its iconic powdered coffee product Nescafé in 1938. Instant coffee became enormously popular during the Second World War as a convenient and long lasting product, which could be made anywhere without the need for a coffee machine. In one year, the U.S. military bought more than one million cases of Nescafé, which represented a whole year’s output for the company.

Although the original instant coffee contained equal portions of soluble carbohydrate and coffee, the process was being enhanced all the time and in 1963 Maxwell House launched a freeze-drying process which came to dominate the market, giving a taste more comparable to fresh coffee.

Other milestones in instant coffee’s history include the launch of Nestlé’s famous brown tin in 1961, which in 1971 gave way to the clear glass jar still in use today. In 1986, the Nestlé also became the first company to launch a decaffeinated instant coffee.

Although modern manufacturing methods have greatly improved the taste and solubility of instant granules, the freeze-drying process means that fresh coffee will always have the edge for aroma and complexity of taste. However, the convenience factor that made instant coffee so popular during the war means that it continues to thrive in a modern market.

Latte Art

Posted on by Sara Walker

latte artIf you’re not a trained barista, you may not have heard of ‘latte art’ – but you’ll probably have seen it at some point in your coffee-drinking life. ‘Latte art’ refers to the practice of drawing a picture or shape in the froth on top of the finished cup of coffee, as a presentation technique. The more usual shapes are hearts and flowers, but a good barista can produce astonishly complex pictures from geometric images to animals.

How’s it done?

The trick to producing the perfect latte art is to steam the milk correctly – a good commercial coffee machine will have a built-in milk steamer to simplify the process. To produce the correct consistency for drawing your design, the milk needs to be heated slowly to between 150 and 155 degrees centigrade, so that it contains no bubbles and attains a smooth, thick, velvety texture. Draw the milk off into a jug, and swirl it around until any stubborn bubbles have disappeared.

Next, prepare the coffee – a single shot of espresso made from good quality coffee beans. Carefully pour the milk into the cup until it’s half full. Now, you can make your design by manipulating the jug with careful motions of the wrist. Always move the jug rather than the cup, and remember that practice makes perfect!

Drawing designs

To draw a flower design, position the pouring stream of milk at one edge of the cup and steadily move the jug backwards over the surface, while simultaneously moving your wrist from side to side. For a heart, pour a circle of milk into the middle of the cup and carefully fill in the hollow outline, then flick your wrist up so that the stream of milk pulls the bottom of the circle into a point for the heart shape.

Another decorative technique is known as ‘etching’ and involves using a pointed object such as a skewer to draw a design into the foam. You could also embellish your finished masterpiece with chocolate powder or chocolate swirls.

 

Wake up and smell the coffee

Posted on by Sara Walker

Coffe_timeFor dedicated coffee lovers, the smell of those freshly-roasted coffee beans in the grinder or the scent of that first cup of coffee, wafting through the kitchen, is an integral part of the morning routine.  You may think that the reason the smell is so delicious is that you’re anticipating that caffeine hit when you take a sip, but in fact, the smell is the first and vital step of the whole tasting process.

According to Professor Barry Smith of the University of London, humans have two senses of smell – one when we inhale and the other when we exhale, so scents are actually processed twice. A huge percentage of what we think of as ‘taste’ actually reaches us through scent receptors in our noses, explaining why the smell of fresh coffee as it brews in your coffee machine is almost as satisfying as the taste itself.

According to the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), a research institution based in Oxford, “the so-called taste-buds on our tongues can only distinguish four qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt – all other ‘tastes’ are detected by the olfactory receptors high up in our nasal passages.”

Each one of these taste-buds contains a number of receptor cells, each with a tiny hair-like probe that tests the chemicals of the food or drink you consume. When these probes are activated, they send nerve messages to your brain. However, if you have a cold, causing the lining of your nose to swell up, you lose the ability to use your smell receptors and this makes the food taste bland.

So next time you switch on the coffee machine for that first brew of the day, remember to savour the smell and take a deep breath – for maximum enjoyment, it really is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Coffee in Fiction

Posted on by Sara Walker

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s a measure of how important coffee is to our culture that it makes so many appearances in fiction. Possibly the most famous example is Agatha Christie’s popular play Black Coffee, first staged in the 1930s, and so-called as a cup of black coffee turns out to be the murder weapon! Here’s a selection of the thousands of other books and plays inspired by this iconic drink.

The Coffee Trader by David Liss

This historical novel, set in Amsterdam in the 1690s, follows the fortunes of Lienzo, a Portuguese exile. Lienzo, struggling to make a living as a trader on the stock exchange, stumbles across a novel new commodity – coffee beans. He’s all set to make his fortune, but there are many twists and turns ahead as other traders try to muscle in.

Atmospheric and with a great sense of place, the novel contains a wealth of historical detail about the introduction of coffee into Western Europe, making it an interesting read for both coffee lovers and fans of historical thrillers.

The Various Flavours of Coffee, by Anthony Capella

Another historical novel, The Various Flavours of Coffee is set two centuries later in 1895. The down-on-his-luck hero, Robert Wallis, is employed by coffee merchant Samuel Pinker to differentiate and catalogue the different flavours of coffee. With the action taking place partly in London and partly in Abyssinia, the book’s characters and story are set against the context of the all-important coffee bean trade.

Coffee by Thomas Sephakis

Set in modern-day New York, this contemporary novel explores the concept of free will versus destiny, and poses the question of whether any of us really want to know about our own future. In a quirky plotline, hero Tom Barry has the opportunity to ask God some searching questions when he encounters Him working in a coffee shop.

Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar by Henry Myerson

This book contains eleven short plays, all of which are set in the same coffee bar. The use of a single static location unifies the otherwise different storylines, and provides continuity throughout – a coffee bar being one of the few realistic locations where such a diverse range of emotions could play out.

The Coffeehouse Mysteries by Cleo Coyle

US author Cleo Coyle is clearly a caffeine junkie, basing her whole series of thirteen murder mystery books around coffee. With punning titles as Roast Mortem and A Brew to a Kill, the reader can expect lots of coffee facts and tips wound in with their mystery.

 

Could you grow your own coffee in the UK?

Posted on by Sara Walker

The recession and subsequent economic changes have led to a rising interest in self sufficiency, with more people growing their own fruit and vegetables. Home-grown produce is generally healthier, as it’s not covered in commercial pesticides and fertilizers, and it tastes better too as it’s fresher when it reaches your plate. Some crops, such as carrots, potatoes and other root vegetables, are ideally suited to the damp, temperate climate of the UK. Others, such as rice and coffee, have evolved to need specific growing conditions which are very difficult to replicate in the UK. If you’re a coffee lover, you might have considered growing your own beans – but is it really practical?

Climate

The most popular type of coffee bean, Arabica, grows in cool, mountainous regions such as the highlands of Kenya and Ethiopia. The plant likes a fairly constant temperature of between 15 and 24 degrees centigrade, and although a marked difference in temperature between day and night adds to the flavour of the beans, the plants are easily damaged by frost. Although coffee bushes could grow in the UK in heated greenhouses, it would be hard to replicate the conditions of altitude and rainfall they need to thrive, and any crop would probably be disappointing.

Drying

If you did manage to coax a UK coffee plant into producing a crop of green coffee beans, the next step would be to dry them. Without commercial drying equipment, you’d need to sort the fruit to discard any damaged cherries, soak the remainder of the crop to remove the pulp then spread the beans in the sun to dry. As this process can take up to 14 days, it’s unlikely the UK climate would oblige with fine weather for long enough to dry the crop properly – and excess humidity will cause the beans to go mouldy.

Roasting

Finally, any beans that have survived so far need to be roasted. This is the simplest stage of the process, and can be done in an ordinary frying pan, although  a home roasting machine will give better results.

With all this hard work more likely to end in disaster than a well-earned cup of decent coffee, it’s no wonder that coffee plants are only grown in the UK as novelties rather than as a commercial crop.  As most coffee bean suppliers now offer a fantastic range of wholesale coffee from all over the world, it’s far more practical to stick with commercial blends while focussing your attention on growing plants more suited to a UK climate – and don’t forget to collect leftover coffee grounds for composting.