Coffee Nerds

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...