Coffee Explorations

dunn bros coffee

coffeeniki — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:19:28 +0000

Today my sister and I went to Dunn Bros Coffee, one of the new (non-Starbucks!) coffee shops around my neighborhood. Their coffee is fresh roasted on site!

The roaster at Dunn Bros Coffee--it's the first thing you see when you walk in.

I tried a Vanilla Iced Nirvana: cold press coffee, vanilla, and cream. It was very smooth, but a little too sweet. I may go there a few more times before I move to Chicago. The shop itself had lots of seating, including comfy-looking chairs (I didn’t stay long enough to sit), a fire place (which seemed out of place in a Houston coffee shop, but was a nice touch regardless), and live music on some nights.

Beans

my almost perfect mocha

coffeeniki — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:51:44 +0000

I tried my hand at making a mocha today, and was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. I am not usually a fan of mochas from coffee shops–usually too much chocolate flavor, and not enough espresso. The solution I usually come up with is to order a mocha with an extra shot (or order something else completely). The one I made today was really, really small compared to a small or tall at a regular coffee shop.

I started by covering the bottom of my coffee mug with chocolate syrup (my mug is slightly shorter than a standard mug, but with a wider base that flares wider at the top). Then I added one shot of espresso, and about a half cup of steamed milk. The whole drink filled 2/3 of my mug, but was a great balance of espresso and chocolate. Not perfect, but nearly there.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t planning ahead very well, and neglected to think about making an iced mocha instead of a hot one. It is way too hot in Texas to drink a hot mocha, even inside my air conditioned house! Solution: put my mocha in the refrigerator for two hours, then pour over ice, and enjoy.

white chocolate latte

coffeeniki — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:04:52 +0000

This morning, I found some Baker’s white chocolate baking squares while searching for some syrup, and attempted to make a white chocolate mocha, rather than the regular mocha I planned on making. I melted one square of chocolate in the microwave (according to the directions on the box), then added one shot of espresso and mixed them together. It turns out that one square of chocolate is too much, and the mixture was really thick. I heated up some milk (actually, a lot of milk) and stirred it into the espresso chocolate mix, which made the drink too milky, so I made one more shot of espresso and added that, and it was a perfect, if slightly too large, drink.

The white chocolate flavor was not strong at all, which suited my tastes, because I am not a fan of white chocolate (and I only like mochas that have more espresso flavor than chocolate flavor). However, the drink did start to separate a tiny bit when it began to cool off. I think this is because I used solid baking chocolate instead of white chocolate syrup. The flavor did not change when it began to separate, though, so that’s good.

I am going to have to go to the grocery store to get more coffee/latte add-ins, because I’ve pretty much exhausted what I can use at my house. Any suggestions?

milk + honey

coffeeniki — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:26:24 +0000

This morning, I began experimenting with flavoring/sweetening my plain old latte (which always ends up being a cappuccino, by accident). Instead of adding syrups or cubes of sugar, I decided to try out clover honey. I added about a tablespoon of honey to a half cup of milk, heated, and frothed using a hand-held frother.

Milk, honey, frother

Ended up with too much foam, but it was really good foam! The milk + honey mix was subtly sweet and a little nutty and made my latte/capp taste really delicious. Next time I might try adding some cinnamin to the foam as well. I drank it with a breakfast of scrambled eggs, sauteed spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes, ham, and beans. A fantastic way to start the day.

Scrambled eggs, ham, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and beans

taking over starbucks

coffeeniki — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:34:58 +0000

Night before last at Starbucks, my friend Jacqueline got to go behind the counter and make our drinks. Pretty awesome. It helps when you’re friends with all of the baristas (as Jac is) and when you watch them make drinks so often that you know exactly what to do .

I don’t usually like really sweet drinks, but I got the same thing that Jac always gets: iced caramel macchiato, I think, with 3 shots and extra caramel. It was pretty good, and not as sweet as I expected, though that may be because it was mostly milk. (I usually drink chai, iced or hot, or a dirty chai).

Jacqueline + drinks. Note how much milk and caramel there is!

Next time we have an opportunity to make our own drinks, I want to practice latte art. And maybe drink an undertow. In any case, both are on my to-do list.

It’s all about the timing

coffeeniki — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:23:34 +0000

Since it’s summer, and I have no real fixed time commitments during the day, I’ve started stepping up my work-out habits. My regularly scheduled work out now takes place sometime in early afternoon, between 2 and 4 pm, right when I would normally crave a latte. While this new habit is good in general, it means that I have only one opportunity during the day to experiment with coffee (because after I work out, I generally don’t want coffee at all, unfortunately).

But never fear! My morning coffee excursions and experimentations will continue!

Latte Art Attempt, Take One

coffeeniki — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:23:53 +0000

…was an utter failure. I tried to make latte art using the automatic milk frother, and the Tassimo automatic espresso maker. I had an inkling that it might not work, and I was right. Manual seems the way to go, perhaps, though it may just be that I am terrible at making latte art. No pics; the drinks weren’t worth it

Vietnamese Coffee

coffeeniki — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:14:55 +0000

Vietnamese style coffee is probably my favorite kind of coffee drink ever, and whenever I am in Houston, I try to drink as much of it as possible. This morning, my family and I had pho (Vietnamese soup), and of course, I had Vietnamese coffee. And. It was so much better than I ever remember it being. Those few times I’ve made it on my own do not even compare to having it in a Vietnamese restaurant.

It's kind of hard to see the whole thing, but the coffee maker is in the upper right-ish part of the pic. The final product is in the cup with the ice.

I think that the kind of coffee used and the brewing apparatus make a big difference in how the coffee tastes. (So, using a French press to brew the coffee, is just not as good as using the proper Vietnamese coffee maker).

The coffee itself is double strength chicory coffee (usually Cafe du Monde, I think), brewed through a cool little apparatus that sits directly on top of your coffee cup. As it brews, it drips into sweetened condensed milk, which turns the coffee from a rich dark brown to a lovely toffee color. The coffee and sweetened condensed milk are stirred together, then the whole thing is poured over a tall glass of ice. The coffee is so strong and thick, that when mixed with the condensed milk, it is quite thick–the ice, when it begins to melt, waters it down a bit, but not so much that it dilutes the flavor at all.

Stovetop Espresso

coffeeniki — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:43:11 +0000

This morning, I dove into coffee-related experimentation with a method of brewing that I have been eager to try out for a while: stovetop brewing. My mother gave me a really cute stainless steel stovetop espresso maker:

Stainless steel stovetop espresso brewer

The package for the brewer says that it makes 4 cups…but the water chamber only holds 1 measuring cup of water, so it’s pretty misleading. The end result of my first try yielded what seemed to be the equivalent of two shots of espresso. Initally, I loved the tiny size, but once I put it on the burner, I realized that it was not really a great fit for our stove. With the flames on the low setting, the espresso took almost 10 minutes to brew (because it took so long for the water to boil); making the burner hotter decreased brewing time, but the whole apparatus got hot, including the silicone handle (that was supposed to stay cool). I had to handle the brewer with pot holders, but when I ran it under some cold water in the sink, it cooled off again pretty quickly so that I could refill the espresso and water to make another cup. However, the espresso was nice and strong, generally pretty decent for my first try, I think.

To complete my latte, I steamed and frothed some milk in the Nespresso Aeroccino Automatic Milk Frother, which is pretty damn cool for an automatic. It took about 20 seconds, and the milk was nice and hot (but not burned) and there was a thick layer of foam on the top. However, the machine is pretty expensive (about $100), and I think that once I leave home, I’ll stick with my hand-held frother. Foam:

Nespresso frother

Verdict: the frother is cool, simple, and fast, but way too expensive; this particular stovetop brewer was not bad, but I’d like to try other versions as well.

Welcome to the first post of the long-overdue coffee blog by niki (and possibly jenn)!

coffeeniki — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:07:36 +0000

Today is:
–Jenn’s first day shadowing Angelo at Paramount Coffee Co in Lansing, MI
–Niki’s first exploration into the world of stove-top coffee, at home in Spring, TX