Coffee Nerds

As you may have noticed, this episode is a little longer than normal. In fact, I believe it's our longest yet. This is because we tried not one but four different coffees. Here's a breakdown of each recipe followed by our opinion on how they came out. Note: We used dark roast coffees across the board for brewing. Experiment 1:  Mint Leaves in Coffee For this one we just tore up some organic mint leaves and tried steeping them right in already made cups of coffee, kind of like tea leaves in hot water. Leuke's Thoughts: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Nope. Chad's Thoughts: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ (no stars) Do not try this at home! It was just gross, it tasted a lot like our mint tea coffee (see below). Just bitter and sour. Didn't have a good smooth, minty taste. Experiment 2:  Mint Leaves Ground into the Coffee Since that didn't work (like at all), we mixed mint leaves and coffee beans, then ground and brewed it all together. I'm not going to tell you how many ...

Episode 21- The end of our trip around the world! A bittersweet farewell to our attempt to explore how the world does coffee. You may notice we are reunited! I was in Colorado so Chad and I got to film a few episodes in person. I wish we could film them all that way, but alas, not to be. Mama Carmen's Buffalo Blend came to us by way of Mercy House, the organization we spoke of in the video. They empower women in tough circumstances to break out of poverty. If we can help out by drinking a little coffee, that's not too tough, eh? Here's a link to the shop where I picked up the coffee and scoop: https://mercy-house.myshopify.com/search?q=coffee As of this writing, the bundle I bought is sold out, but they have a few other fun options you can check out, even if the basic option is gone. If you're curious about Mercy House Global, check it out here: http://mercyhouseglobal.org/ Fair Trade Friday? Right here: http://fairtradefriday.club Now back to the c...

Coffee with cheese in it?! Yes it's true! This experiment was... interesting. We based the recipe off a traditional Norwegian and Swedish coffee known as Leipäjuusto, Juustoleipa, kaffeost, or sometimes just Juusto. Normally it's made with something called bread cheese. You can find a more exacting recipe here . We unfortunately could not try the recipe with homemade cheese and the whole nine yards. The amount of money and work involved was a little demanding for our currently limited budget.  Perhaps someday we will! Recipe Five or six small organic cheddar cheese curds 1 cup of your favorite coffee I basically made a layer of cheese curds at the bottom of my cup and poured my coffee over it. As you no doubt saw in the video, the results were less than successful. The cheese and coffee didn't merge in any kind of beneficial way. Afterthoughts: Leuke ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ You read that right, ZERO STARS. On some level I feel like this experiment should have w...

Episode 19?! You read that right, we're going back to Morocco, which seems to be an abundant land of coffee recipes. There were at least three more recipes we found but didn't get to try this time around, including the one with delicious sounding orange blossom water. I've really enjoyed our around the world series. I'd like to do another coffee voyage someday and try several more. Or even better, visit some of these places in person! Recipe: Cinnamon Ginger  Cardamom  Peppercorns Nutmeg Clove Coffee  Trivia: When was coffee banned? Coffee has famously been outlawed five times in the past. The first was in Mecca in 1511. The governor thought it would stimulate radical thinking, and unite his opposition. Which is fair because coffee does bring people together. People were actually making fun of him in the coffee houses. Coffee also got a bad rap at the time because it was used to stay awake at funerals during prayer. Maybe we should try that nowadays...

Episode 18! This coffee, called café des épices, allegedly hails from Morocco. I say allegedly because the background for this recipe is a bit of a mystery. We usually decide our schedule several weeks in advance, and when it came time to research this one, I couldn't find any solid data on its history, or even how much of each ingredient to use. Recipe: Coffee (of course) Sesame Seeds Black Pepper Nutmeg Grind everything together. If your coffee is already ground, just grind up the seeds and mix everything together.  So... this one was a big experiment. I was generous with the sesame seeds and pretty light with the pepper and nutmeg. If I did it over again I'd use a little more of all three. You may have noticed I'm often vague when I give out these recipes. There are two reasons for this. One is its usually early in the morning when I'm making these coffees, and I typically just wing it anyway. The other is to encourage experimentation, and make sure yo...

Episode 17! We paired coffee and cinnamon for this episode, and added a little sugar. It's called Cafe Del Olla. Check out the video for more on this fun coffee experiment. Recipe: Coffee Cinnamon Stick Piloncillo (to taste) Piloncillo is a Mexican sugar. You can sometimes find it at Hispanic groceries or the Mexican food area at a regular grocery. We couldn't track any down, so we just subbed regular brown sugar. As always with sugar, a little goes a long way. You might also want to try 2 cinnamon sticks depending on how much coffee you're making. Toss the cinnamon stick and sugar in with the coffee and bring it to a boil, then use it to make your coffee using your preferred method. I recommend a pour-over. Leuke's Thoughts:  ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆   Where's the flavor?! This wasn't cinnamon-y enough for me. It certainly wasn't bad, but I wanted more from the cinnamon. Cinnamon sticks are expensive, too, so this isn't the easiest recipe to experim...

Episode 16!! Hard to believe this episode marks our FOURTH month of testing coffees before the watchful eyes of the internet. To celebrate, we've got a new format! We'll be posting some thoughts from both Chad and myself here in the blog. You'll also notice the videos are a little different. Now that Chad and I are in different states, most episodes will be splitscreen. One benefit is that we're making our coffees with slightly different ingredients, with slightly varying amounts, and at different altitudes, so really we'll be testing two different (if admittedly similar) coffees in each episode! This time around we tried a sugary Brazilian drink called Cafezinho. The recipe was just coffee and sugar. I recommend starting slow and blending in no more than a teaspoon's worth, maybe less. Mine was a little too sweet and I did maybe half a teaspoon, but I don't like sugar, so take that with a grain of salt (or sugar). We ground the sugar in with the be...

Episode 15- Yuanyang (Coffee and Black Tea) This episode was the first we recorded from separate states. For some reason the audio came out badly- You can't hear me at all! We think we can fix it, but in the meantime, here's a rough transcript. It has everything, unfortunately, but the actual tasting. I recall this one was kind of just "OK" not bad not great. Pretty much how you would expect a blend of black tea, coffee, and milk to taste. Didn't hate it but it's not one I'll ever revisit. Feel free to try it yourself though and let us know what you think. The super precise and specific recipe I used was: Recipe 1/2 Cup of Coffee 1/2 Cup of Black Tea A pinch of sugar Two Tablespoons (ish) of Milk Transcript Chad: What's up coffee drinkers I'm (Chad) (and I'm Leuke) and we are the coffee nerds. Leuke: Thanks for joining us for Episode 15 of coffee nerds, the coffee break podcast Chad: You may have noticed a change of scener...

A bittersweet episode arrives this week. This is the last one Chad and I filmed in the same state! In the future, our episodes will be a little different. Same (hopefully!) great content, just a slight change to the format to adjust for my having moved across country. At least, until we can convince Chad to move to Ohio! Episode 14... LEMON COFFEE. Yep we squeezed lemon juice right into the coffee. It's a pretty straightforward recipe based on mazagran. It often calls for sugar, but we skipped it. Chad tried it later with sugar and said it wasn't an improvement. Honestly, I have never regretted skipping sugar in a recipe, and when I use it, I usually wish I had used less or skipped it. Sugar really just does not add much to coffee in my opinion. Once you get used to black coffee, there's really not much reason to look back! The steps for this one are pretty simple: Brew up some coffee (9 tablespoons or so for 2 cups. It needs to be STRONG) Ice it! This is why w...

This episode was all about them spices. In Episode 13 we tried out Cardamom Coffee, a traditional Israeli treat made with cardamom pods and cinnamon. I also added a sprig of ginger, which is optional. We ground it all right in with the coffee beans. Normally it's made over a stovetop, but we prefer to make our coffees with more conventional methods when possible, be it a coffee maker or a pour over dripper. Easier to try yourself that way. And less to clean up... As a bonus we tried some cardamom pods staight. It was delicious don't try this at home, kids. Recipe: This is flexible. Feel free to experiment and get the coffee how you like it. For starters try: 4-5 cardamom pods 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or grind up maybe a quarter of a stick) 1 sprig of ginger (they come in little gremlin man shapes. I snapped off a nubbin and ground it in) 8 tablespoons of coffee That's about what we tried. I take a loose-y goose-y approach to recipes, so sometimes it...

Episode 12! Egg Coffee!!?! Yes we made coffee with egg in it! Egg yolks to be specific. Chad was a pro at fishing them out of the rest of the egg gunk. We used the coffee itself to cook the egg, which in hindsight may not have been enough. My stomach was twingy for a bit afterward. If I ever try it again I'll probably either A. Start With hotter coffe. or B. Pre-cook the egg yolks. I did read several blogs where people swore by egg yolks. Apparently they are packed nutrition and protein, and very popular with body builders. Could be something your body needs to get used to, like the ghee and MCT oil in bulletproof coffee. What is the recipe for this crazy concoction you ask? 2 Eggs 2 Teaspoons of sweetened condensed milk  8 cups of Coffee (in a standard size coffeemaker) And it was AMAZING. Play with the amount of milk and egg and let us know what you think. The recipe traditionally calls for actual Vietnamese coffee, but we weren't able to get any in time so...

Episode 11 is here! The first in our around the world series. It was great to be able to cover a Caribou Coffee . A favorite coffeeshop of mine, I have been going to the Caribou near my house for years. I love the warm, wood cabin atmosphere and great coffee. Compare that to Starbucks frigid, modern ambience and burnt coffee. I have never understood what people find so appealing about Starbucks myself. But... we're not here to talk about Starbucks. And what about the coffee? This was a surprisingly complex roast! We detected hints of several flavors, and it took us a bit to pin it all down. Overall a great tasting coffee. Caribou rarely lets me down in the quality of their beans, a huge reason they have endured as a favorite of mine over the years. Check out the video to learn all about the true meaning behind the words "Mocha Java". It might surprise you! Next week we move away from reviewing beans temporarily and we'll be trying out a variety of ways to craf...

Episode 10- Bulletproof returns! We tried it this time without all the fluff. No ghee, no MCT oil, just pure black coffee. The result was... good. Not great, but definitely not bad either. Bulletproof coffee promises mold free beans, something no other coffee roaster is touting these days. Even the organic coffees can, allegedly have trace amounts of mold. I haven't been able to verify most of Bulletproof's claims in this area. I will note however, that even though Bulletproof doesn't advertise their coffee as organic, it does seem to fit the restrictions needed for it. Next week we'll be starting our coffees from around the world with beans that will truly take us around the globe! How can one coffee travel the planet? Check back next week to find out!

Episode 9 - Bulletproof Coffee! Ghee, MCT Oil, and coffee, all blended together. I bought French Kick beans and MCT oil right from Bulletproof . The ghee I got at Natural Grocers. We try a few different mixtures in the video. Here's the recipes:  The first one came right from the Bulletproof Blog : 2.5 Heaping Tablespoons ground Bulletproof Coffee Beans 2 (partial)  teaspoons of Brain Octane Oil 2 Tablespoons grass-fed ghee This was too much. We didn't like the buttery taste, and the MCT oil made me (Leuke) sick later. We added cinnamon and turmeric with great results, which improved the flavor dramatically. The Bulletproof website actually has a range on the amount of oil and butter you should use, and I definitely erred towards the higher end this first time out. On the plus side, we did make it awhile without getting hungry. :D The second time we modified based on experience and a friend's recommendation: 3 heaping tablespoons ground Bulletproof Coff...

Episode 8 - This was our last Bean Box episode. We covered Nana's Decaf by Keala's Coffee , a medium dark roast. Curious about Bean Box ? They offer variety packs of coffee roasted in the Seattle area. We had a lot of fun trying out different coffees over the last several months. We used two 4-pack samplers for this first run of videos. Prior to that we tried a 16 pack, which is what gave us the idea to do a podcast! I hope you enjoyed this first season as much as we did. We'll be jumping into our first viewer suggestion next week, Bulletproof coffee. A few episodes after that we'll start our next series: Coffees from around the world!

This week we tackled the Portofino Blend by Fonté Coffee Roasters. Your eyes do not deceive you, we tried a decaf coffee from the same roasters in the very last episode. Check it out here .

 This time out we tried Fonté Coffee Roasters' Decaf AA Blend, a medium dark roast. We also learned coffee just might make you live longer! (As long as you don't overdo it. That can kill you.)

Episode 5 has arrived! This time we tried the Tuscan Blend by Zoka Coffee . We also learned how much coffee it would take to kill you!

T This Week's Coffee: Novella (medium roast decaf) Coffee by: Caffe Vita Coffee Roasting Company

Episode 3 has arrived! This Week's Coffee: Ship Canal Blend Coffee by: Conduit Coffee Company (conduitcoffee.com) 

Welcome to episode 2 of Coffee Nerds! This Week's Coffee: Espresso Paladino Decaf Coffee by: Zoka Coffee (zokacoffee.com)

Welcome to the first episode of Coffee Nerds! We hope you enjoy our efforts. We're new to podcasting and video editing, but learning as fast as we can! Let us know what you think in the comments.  This Week's Coffee: Mocha Java Blend Coffee by: Lighthouse Roasters Fine Coffee (lighthouseroasters.com)