Tag: Coffee Trends

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 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: coffee you can see through

Posted on by Sara Walker
Image: Pixabay

Every time we think we’ve really heard it all in the world of coffee, something else comes along to prove us wrong. A Slovakian inventor and heavy coffee drinker, David Nagy, was so concerned with coffee potentially staining his teeth that he came up with a brand new invention – clear coffee, which he claims uses a unique brewing process. The inventor spent several months developing the product, now marketed as ClearCoffee (Clrcff), and launched a Crowdfunding initiative to help him bring it to market.   Rather than a traditional cup of coffee, the finished commercial product looks more like a soft drink, as it’s sold in a bottle and designed to be drunk cold.

Mr. Nagy said that his inspiration was to ‘Create a product that would grab everyone’s attention,’ and came up with the idea while he was living and working in the UK and saw how important coffee was to UK culture. A standard 200ml serving of the drink apparently contains as much caffeine as a cappuccino (usually around 12.83 mgs per 100 ml), and has no sweeteners or artificial additives. Although the exact brewing process is a closely guarded secret, we’d guess that it possibly washes the caffeine from the beans in a similar way to decaffeination as ‘natural’ caffeine is then added back into the drink.

According to Mr. Nagy, the product has a unique taste and aroma and there are no chemicals used in the brewing process. The result is a drink which is low in calories and contains nothing but Arabica coffee beans, natural caffeine and water.

It’s certainly true that coffee in large quantities can stain your teeth, as tooth enamel has microscopic areas of roughness that can harbour tiny particles of food and drink. Alternating coffee with drinking a glass of water can help to prevent these particles from remaining on your teeth long enough to stain, as can regular brushing and dental care.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we’re got everything you need to make your commercial coffee business a success. Choose from our wide range of coffee beans, supplies and accessories, all available at great wholesale prices.

 

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.

 

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 – ‘coffee in a bag’

Posted on by Sara Walker
Image: Pixabay

Teabags, introduced as a quick, easy, mess-free way of brewing up, have been with us for a while. In fact, patents for hand-sewn fabric teabags were first filed as early as 1903. So, with coffee now firmly ensconced as the UK’s favourite drink ahead of tea, have you ever wondered why no-one’s invented a ‘coffeebag’?

 

Step forward Raw Bean Ltd, a small, artisan producer based in Winchester, who earlier this year launched Bean Bags – pre-roasted and ground specialty coffee, in a single-serve bag. While it’s not quite the first such offering on the market, it is the first to use high-grade specialty coffee. The bags themselves look like the design of a certain major tea company – pyramid-shaped and larger than normal teabags. Each one contains 12 grams of pure arabica coffee, which is roasted specially for each order to make sure it’s as fresh as possible. The larger bag leaves room for the coffee to infuse. So far there are three products in the range – a single origin, a blend and a Columbian single-origin decaff. More varieties are also planned for the future.

Are coffeebags the future?

So is this the future of homebrew coffee? It’s a great idea – to deliver a hit of high-quality caffeine with the convenience of a teabag. No more messing around with coffee machines or filters – just pop the bag in and off you go. However, we’re included to think it won’t knock home coffee machines out of pole position. With a bag, it’s too easy to get the water temperature wrong and end up with a bitter brew. The main danger, though, is forgetting you’re in the middle of something and leaving the bag in too long for a result that’s only fit for the bin. Most home coffee machines just require charging with coffee and water and leaving, and they’ll take care of filtering, water temperature and brew quality with no further input. Standing over a coffeebag, waiting for the right moment to whisk it out with a spoon, might be more trouble rather than less. We can see a place for them as a convenience product though – for example if you’re camping. We suspect that these won’t catch on with coffee aficionados, who prefer a more purist brewing method, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for them at all.

To browse our range of (traditional!) coffee beans, coffee accessories and coffee supplies for your commercial catering business, restaurant or cafe, take a look at our main website 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.

 

Coffee trends: the coffee/beer hybrid

Posted on by Sara Walker

coffee-trends-coffee-news-beerLove ’em or hate ’em, there’s no doubt that American coffee giant Starbucks is good at grabbing more than its fair share of the headlines, and now it’s launched possibly its most experimental offering to date – the Espresso Cloud IPA. A mixture of beer and espresso (yes, really!), served cold in a beer glass, and looks like a standard pint with a layered effect at the top.

Created by Justin Burns-Beach, who worked for the company for eight years as a barista before starting with the research and tasting team, the drink took a year for the team to master.  The process involves a shot of espresso coffee, shaken with pieces of fresh orange and a hint of sweet vanilla flavouring and ice. The shaking turns the drink into a cloud of ‘microfoam’, with thousands of tiny bubbles. When that’s done, simply fill a beer glass with cold beer and pour in the chilled coffee shot. The head of the beer and the coffee foam combine to create a deep layer of froth. Although Starbucks are serving the two drinks separately in different glasses, they recommend you seize the bull by the horns and mix them together boldly for the full effect. The result – the company’s first and so-far only alcoholic drink, which is available in the evenings only at certain locations – and there’s no news on when it’ll be available in the UK.

Although we’re fans of both beer and coffee, we think we’ll stick to different glasses and different times of day – this is definitely trying to take a good thing too far! If your commercial coffee business prefers to serve more traditional drinks, take a look at our online range of coffee beans, coffee accessories, flavoured coffee syrups and commercial coffee supplies – all available at great wholesale prices.

 

The new coffee trend: adding butter

Posted on by Sara Walker

wcc article 3Most of us enjoy adding a little something to our coffee, but we normally draw the line at milk and sugar. Perhaps, for a special occasion, you might toy with a little brandy, chocolate or flavouring, but that’s not what we drink everyday.

Now, US technology millionaire Dave Asprey wants to change all that. Apparently, the best thing you can add to coffee still comes out of a cow – but it’s butter, not milk.

Already popular in the US, the craze is starting to catch on over here amid claims it can aid weight loss. On the ace of it, that doesn’t seem likely – the brew contains, in addition to filter coffee, a whopping four tablespoons of fat. This consists of two spoons of unsalted butter, and two further spoons of coconut oil, all of which replaces the more usual splash of semi-skimmed.  The resulting drink is known as a ‘bulletproof coffee’ – sounds lovely!

The drink contains around 500 calories, instead of the normal 20 or so for coffee with semi skimmed milk. It must also taste pretty oily. Its inventor, though, sings its praises, claiming it was inspired by the Tibetan habit of adding yak butter to tea. He credits the buttery brew with helping him slim down from 21 stone to a healthier weight.

Th odd trend has now made it to the UK, and you can buy it in several London cafes, who claim it’s becoming more popular. The scientists, however, are sceptical. Dr Sally Norton, a leading weight-loss consultant and NHS surgeon, says there is no scientific basis that would support the use of this coffee for weight loss.

Inventor Dave Asprey has plans to open the first ‘bulletproof’ cafe in the US shortly, but we think the UK may be a bit further behind!

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, you can’t buy a coffee-with-added-butter – but you can buy a range of top quality coffee beans, all at great wholesale prices. For more information, please visit our coffee beans page.

High End Coffee On the Rise

Posted on by Sara Walker

Do you own a coffee shop? Or maybe you sell coffee beans (like us)? Or maybe you just sell espresso machines? Whatever your niche is, there are some new statistics you may want to be happy to know about. These are all concerning the American coffee market, but even if that’s not your market, you may still be curious to know.

What the stats are saying is that if you like Intelligentsia Coffee you are not alone. In fact, you are part of a growing number of people who believe coffee is meant to be a treat. That’s to say: it should not taste like dishwater.

It appears more and more people are starting to find pleasure in being able to distinguish coffee from coffee and therefore they seek to buy coffee that appeals to a rather developed palate. It’s the so-called Starbucks generation – folks that grew up on take-away coffees, people who are used to having coffee as part of their lives – that is now demanding high quality. It’s understandable: if coffee plays a large part of your life, why not make it an enjoyable part?

Reuters report: U.S. craft coffee purveyors are getting less lonely. The segment is a small but growing slice of the $27.9 billion U.S. coffee market, which has increased in recent years at an annual average rate of 5.6 percent and is expected to reach $33.7 billion by 2018, according to research firm IBISWorld, though it does not yet separate revenues for high-end purveyors.

[…]

Customers are willing to pay dearly for their java habit – $80 for a half-pound of rare, roasted beans and $3 and up for a cup of individually prepared “pour over,” high-tech “siphon” coffee, or old school espresso. Those prices are as much as triple the cost for an average cup of coffee and bean prices are at least 10 times more.

So there you go – good coffee is on the rise. It’s worth noting as well though that it’s not a product for everyone – many will still prefer a cup of coffee that is cheap and cheerful, made in seconds and available to give them their morning dose of caffeine without a paycheck headache.

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