Tag: coffee fads

US sweet company launches caffeinated gummy bears

Posted on by Sara Walker

Every time we think we’ve heard it all, we’re given a reminder that we haven’t yet. In California (where else?) a sweet company called Sugarfina have teamed up with a coffee chain called Alfred to produce the caffeinated gummy bears. For those of you not familiar with the gummy bear, it’s a small teddy bear shaped sweet made from gelatine and sugar and normally flavoured with fruit. The new caffeinated versions are even available in different flavours – bourbon cold brew, iced vanilla latte and cold brew. And yes, the bourbon flavour does apparently contain real whiskey.

Each 100g serving of the sweets contains the same amount of caffeine as a cup of espresso.

According to the coffee shop, they pride themselves on ‘staying ahead of trends’ – and we think they certainly have! The sweets took two years to develop and have been made with real coffee. They retail at around £5.70 for 100g – a lot more than most espressos.

Alfred has collaborated on all sorts of coffee-themed collections in the past, with their partnership with Sugarfina being the latest partnership.

We’re not entirely sure who these sweets are aimed at – although obviously not children! We guess they’re more portable and practical than a cup of hot drink can sometimes be – after all, you couldn’t stick a cup of coffee in your pocket or handbag – and they mean you can get an instant caffeine fix wherever you are. On the downside, though, they contain a lot more than just coffee, including sugar, so aren’t a like-for-like substitute. The sweets are nicely packaged in a miniature coffee cup or a paperbag, and are already proving popular on social media. We think, though, that we’ll stick to the real deal and drink actual coffee!

If you’d like to browse our range of top quality coffee beans, coffee accessories and coffee supplies, all aimed at cafes and coffee businesses, then take a look at our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk.

Coffee trends: the ‘doughnut cup’

Posted on by Sara Walker

Coffee in an avocado. Coffee in a chocolate ice cream cone. Deconstructed coffee. It started out strangely, and honestly it’s just got worse – a bakery in Australia is doing odd and terrible things to a simple and inoffensive cup of coffee by serving it in a ‘doughnut’ cup.

Now, we’re not against a doughnut. We’re not against coffee and a doughnut together, provided that one’s served on a plate and the other in a cup. We do think, though, that serving the coffee inside the doughnut isn’t an improvement – surely you’ll just get a sloppy drink and a messy doughnut?

The Kenilworth Bakery in Australia obviously doesn’t agree – it’s developed a special doughnut which has been coated with cinnamon then hollowed out and lined with Nutella to make it more resistant to liquid. It’s then filled with an espresso shot topped with foamed milk.
The bakery describes the new creation as ‘amazing’, and says they’re proving popular with customers. They took about a week to perfect, and there’s also a version available filled with hot chocolate instead of coffee.

It’s served on a wooden platter, and the customer has to drink the coffee quickly before tacking the doughnut – a task that looks surprisingly difficult, as the doughnut is quite..er…doughy. Don’t expect to look elegant eating one of these!

They do love a gimmick in Australia, and while we applaud this bakery’s innovative spirit we don’t think this is going to catch on. You have to drink the coffee quickly before it soaks too much into the doughnut, and we think you’d have an easier time keeping both items separate!

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we’ve got everything you need for your commercial coffee business, restaurant or café including a wide range of coffee beans and coffee accessories. Sorry, we don’t have any doughnuts!

Coffee fads: coffee leaf tea

Posted on by Sara Walker

Can we offer you a cup of tea? Or coffee? Or, if you can’t make up your mind, how about a hybrid version of both? The new kid on the block is coffee leaf tea, made from the leaves of the coffee plant rather than from beans. Scientists have discovered that the brew contains high levels of antioxidants, as well as a natural anti-inflammatory.

Researchers, including staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, believe that up until now the value that we placed on the coffee berries themselves prevented anything thinking about the health benefits of the rest of the plant. The drink apparently has an earthy taste, without any bitterness, and doesn’t have coffee’s distinctive strong taste. Although the drink is relatively unknown in Europe, it’s been drunk in South Sudan and Ethiopia for centuries. The drink was briefly popular in the mid 19th century, and was believed to assuage the pangs of hunger, combat fatigue and provide a mental pick-me-up. It seems to have been the ‘Marmite’ of its day, with contemporary reports describing it as both ‘refreshing’ and ‘undrinkable’.

The leaves of Arabica coffee plants contained the highest levels of the natural anti inflammatory, mangiferin. which also had other health benefits including reducing the risk of diabetes.

If you fancy trying coffee leaf tea for yourself, you may struggle at the moment. It’s available online, but isn’t widely stocked in the UK. Mainstream coffee producers may be reluctant to turn coffee bushes over to be used for their leaves rather than their beans, which could explain the restricted supply.

Unfortunately you can’t get coffee leaf tea from us, either – but you can get great quality coffee beans and supplies for your commercial coffee business. Just take a look at our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk to browse our range of coffee accessories and coffee beans, all at great wholesale prices.

Coffee fads: ways to serve an espresso

Posted on by Sara Walker

It seems like just drinking your espresso plain and black isn’t good enough any more. Here are three coffee trends involving adding extra bits and pieces to your caffeine fix – we think we’ll just stick with a dash of semi-skimmed, thanks.

Fizzy coffee: Apparently big in Italy, this is a soft of caffeinated soft drink. Just make some fresh espresso, let it cool, chill it in the fridge and add an equal amount of cold sparkling water or tonic water. Add sugar to taste. While this may make sense in a country as hot and sunny as Italy, we’re not sure it’s going to sound as appealing here, where we tend to prefer our coffee hot.

Next up is the Espresso Romano, which confusingly doesn’t seem to be drunk at all in Rome. It’s basically a standard black espresso, garnished with a little lemon juice. This could work well with certain types of coffee bean, especially those that have fruity, citrussy notes. To try it, make a cup of espresso then cut a thick slice of lemon and rub it around the rim of the cup. Squeeze a few drops from the lemon into the cup itself before discarding.

Finally, there’s the ‘Paleo coffee’ – black coffee with added butter and oil, supposed to support weightloss. However, there’s no scientific evidence that suggests that adding butter and oil to your coffee has any effect other than making your coffee greasy. If you’re trying to keep an eye on your weight, then drinking your coffee black is probably the way to go.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we’ve got everything you need to keep your commercial coffee business running smoothly. We supply coffee beans, coffee supplies and coffee accessories, all available at great wholesale prices. No fizzy water or lemons, though, sorry! To find out more about our full range, take a look at our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk.

Coffee fads: anyone for hot buttered coffee?

Posted on by Sara Walker

The ingredients of the perfect breakfast have always been hot coffee, toast, butter and marmalade. Now, though, we’re being encouraged to start combining some of those ingredients in slightly odd ways. The French like to dip their thickly-buttered toast into their milky coffee first thing in the morning – but here’s a trend that cuts out the middle man (or the toast). That’s right – adding butter to your coffee instead of milk.

At first glance, it seems very peculiar. It’s become normal, though, to add cream to coffee in certain speciality drinks, and butter’s certainly in the same category. Why would you want to do it, though? Well, in Tibet they’ve been doing it for centuries, using yak butter. Butter is nutrient-dense and rich in several vitamins including A, E and K2, and the result is a nutritious drink.

The main problem is that butter is very high in fat and doesn’t dissolve easily in hot liquids, so if you want to get the full experience you’ll have to use a blender. Add a cup of hot black coffee and one or two teaspoons of unsalted butter to a blender and pulse until the liquid is creamy and frothy looking. According to butter coffee aficionados, the trick is to use a very high quality premium coffee blend for the best taste.

We have to say we’re not totally convinced – but then someone had to be the first to think of putting milk in coffee! In some cultures, that’s just as odd as adding butter. So next time you’re sitting down to your toast and marmalade, why not give it a try – but maybe make enough coffee for two cups just in case.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company we’ve got everything you need for your commercial coffee business, including coffee beans, coffee accessories and coffee supplies, all at great wholesale prices. To browse our full range, take a look at our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk.

 

 

 

Coffee fads: coffee in a cone

Posted on by Sara Walker
Image: Pixabay

Compared to other recent coffee fads, such as coffee served in an avocado shell (really, we’re not making it up), this one seems almost tame. In fact, it’s not really a coffee fad at all, more a coffee cup fad. While it’s certainly environmentally responsible to use a non-plastic container for your coffee, we think this might be taking it too far!

The newest trend in Johannesburg, South Africa, is for coffee in a cone. That’s a waffle ice-cream cone. Dubbed ‘the most Intagrammable coffee trend yet’, it consists of a waffle cone lined with dark and milk chocolate and filled with latte coffee, decorated with a heart. It certainly looks pretty, and would create an instant mocha if that’s your thing. Would you really have time to drink it before it leaked, though? How would you manage to put it down in you wanted to, and what about drinking it on the tube? It was invented by The Coffee Grind Company, who invented special cones with four layers of chocolate, each with different cocoa percentages to help show down the melting process. Once poured, you’ve only got a few minutes to down your coffee before the ‘cup’ leaks. ‘Coffee in a cone’ became an instant hit on Instagram when it was first launched, with photos being shared a million times. We’re not sure that this is a trend that’s here to stay, though – we still think mugs are probably more practical, particularly if you’re at work!

While we may not be in the business of quirky cups, we’re certainly in the business of coffee. We’ve got everything you need for your commercial coffee business, including top quality coffee beans, accessories and supplies, all available at great online prices. To find out more, just take a look at our main website www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk.

 

Drink your greens: add new broccoli powder to coffee

Posted on by Sara Walker
Image: Morguefile

It’s really hard to imagine two odder partners than broccoli and coffee. And while we appreciate how good for you broccoli is, it’s harder still to think of incorporating it into a snack break. Don’t panic, though – you’re not going to be asked to swap teaspoons for brassica spears for dipping into your Americano. Australian researchers have come up with a much easier way of helping to get to your five a day.

Scientists have developed a method of reducing the vegetable to a powder form, which can be stirred into almost any drink or added to cooked dishes. Even better, they’re using up the non-uniform broccoli that would otherwise have been discarded by wholesalers and thrown away. Two tablespoons of the powder, made from ground broccoli, has around the same nutritional benefits as one serving of the fresh vegetable. It’s easy to store and has a long shelf life compared to fresh broccoli, which makes it practical. The brassica is one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat, containing vitamins A, K and C as well as folic acid, fibre, calcium and antioxidants.  

A survey carried out by the World Cancer Research Fund revealed that only one in five Britons are eating their five portions of fruit and veg a day, so this simple powder could help those finding it difficult.

One Australian cafe has already tried adding the powder to coffee to create the ‘broccoli latte’, which has a greenish tinge to the foam. We’re not sure what it would do to the taste, either. Perhaps we’ll stick to drinking our coffee naturally and eating our broccoli in vegetable form – there are some things that are just better apart.

For all your commercial coffee needs, take a look at our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk. We’ve got coffee beans, coffee accessories and coffee supplies, all available online at great wholesale prices.

Coffee fads: the ‘custardo’

Posted on by Sara Walker

Do you love affogato as a pudding? The name is Italian for ‘drowned’ and the dish/drink itself is a shot of strong espresso coffee with a scoop of ice cream. You can eat it with a spoon, or wait a bit, give it a stir and drink it. It’s the world’s easiest dinner party dessert, and tastes fantastic.

Now, hot on the heels of the affogato is the new kid on the block – the custardo. Invented by a cafe in Peckham, the original creation used creme anglaise (swanky, thin French custard, if you didn’t know) instead of a good dollop of the traditional stuff. The result is sweet, rich and still delivers that vital caffeine punch. The main beauty of this coffee/dessert hybrid is that it’s incredibly easy to make – even easier than affogato. You can experiment to put your own special twist on it, too – if you use thin, creamy, French-style custard, you’ll get something a little like a thick, sweetened latte. If you use either ready-made custard from a carton or make your own with milk and powder, you’ll get a dollop of custard that sits on top of the coffee for quite a while before slowly surrendering and sliding below the surface. Put a standard measure of espresso in a clear coffee glass so that it half fills it, and add enough custard to take the coffee just below the brim. The sweetness of the custard complements the espresso for an indulgent pairing. To make it into a real showstopper, sprinkle the custard with nutmeg, grated chocolate or chocolate powder and serve with long spoons so everyone can choose whether or not to stir.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we specialise in all things coffee. From coffee beans to cups and accessories, we’ve everything you need to equip and run your catering business or cafe, all at great wholesale prices. Just take a look at our main website to find out more.

 

Coffee fads: could this be the world’s strongest coffee?

Posted on by Sara Walker

More crazy coffee news from (have you guessed it? That’s right) Australia. From the country that brought us the avo-latte, the carrot-cino and the flat white (OK, that last one might have been a good idea) comes what could be the world’s strongest cup of coffee. Invented ‘for fun’ but available to brave customers, the drink, named the ‘Adelaide Asskicker’, contains 80 times more caffeine than a standard cup of coffee.

It’s made up from four espresso shots, 120ml of cold brew coffee (where the beans were left to steep for 10 days), and eight coffee ice cubes (made from cold brew coffee where the beans were left to steep for 48 hours). Phew! Each ice cube alone is thought to contain caffeine equivalent to two espresso shots. The owner of the Viscous Cafe, who invented the drink, advises that it should be drunk very slowly over a three to four hour period, and the resulting caffeine buzz may take several hours to wear off. He says he put the super-coffee together on request for a shift-working nurse who needed to keep awake. The drink is now on the menu, but comes with a health warning that customers should drink it at their own risk.

While we like a nice strong cup of coffee as much – if not more – than the next person, we won’t be advocating putting a week’s worth of caffeine in a cup and drinking it all at once! We believe coffee should be savoured, so that’s why we’re committed to tracking down the best quality beans and roasting and grinding them ourselves to maintain quality control. To browse our range of top quality coffee beans and coffee accessories, all available at great wholesale prices and suitable for every commercial coffee business, visit our main website at www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk.

Coffee fads: the carrot-cino

Posted on by Sara Walker

Hot on the heels of the avolatte, news has reached us of an even more bizarre coffee fad – the carrot-cino. We’ve had the rainbow coffee, the unicorn latte, bulletproof coffee and coffee with all sorts of bizarre things added from turmeric to salt, but now the carrot-cino is making everything that’s come before it look pretty normal.

The avolatte was basically a standard coffee served in a novelty container – or an espresso served in the hollowed-out skin of an avocado. Even its fans didn’t claim that serving it in a fruit did much for the taste, and even if it looked prettier it definitely made it trickier to drink. It’s no surprise to learn that, like its sister the avolatte, the carrot-cino originated in Australia. A cafe in Sydney recently posted photos of their root-vegetable-themed creation on social media. Again like the avolatte, the carrot-cino is nothing more than a fancy holder for coffee rather than a flavour enhancer. The cafe peeled a carrot and cut it into strips, using the strips to create a holder to pour the coffee into. The owners say they just like experimenting and have already tried avocados and apples as well as carrots. However, they admit that this probably won’t catch on as much as the avolatte, as the ‘holder’ is hard to handle and has a tendency to leak. As you can’t make a very big cup out of a carrot, you also have to serve the coffee very strong. The cafe said the carrot-cino and other coffee/food combinations are just a bit of fun, but who knows if they’ll come up with the next big thing one day?

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we stock a wide range of coffee supplies suitable for your commercial coffee business, including coffee beans, accessories and supplies such as milk and sugar. We also stock cups and lids – but unfortunately, not carrots.