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...