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Posts with tag latte

A handy illustrated guide to coffee drinks

coffee drinks chart

I'm not a coffee drinker, but the drinks you get at coffee shops seem really confusing to me. Espressos, Lattes, Macchiatos (which I thought was the guy from The Karate Kid), Caffe Mochas, Cafe Breves, Americanos. The terminology might be second hand to someone who works at such a shop (we hope) but I bet can be confusing even to someone who orders the drinks regularly.

Luckily, we have pictures! Lokesh Dhakar has a handy chart that explains what each drink looks like. I really need this to be done with other aspects of my life, so I can keep track of everything and know just what is in the food I eat, the books I read, and the movies I go to see.

[via Boing Boing]

Get a free drink at Caribou today

What's the best way to celebrate the first day of summer? Going to the beach? Buying an air conditioner? Crying because you hate summer and can't wait til September rolls around?

I'm in the latter category, but you might want to head on over to Caribou Coffee for a free Northern Lite to celebrate the first day of summer. You can get it today at all locations nationwide between 2 and 3pm.

I'm not sure what a Northern Lite Cooler is (I don't think I've ever been to a Caribou Coffee) and I'm not sure what size drink you get, but there are worse ways to spend your afternoon today.

[thanks to Amy for the tip]

Starbucks introduces Dulce de Leche

I stopped at my local Starbucks yesterday and found out that they have released their latest flavor of cappuccino/frappuccino/latte goodness - Dulce de Leche. I ordered the venti latte and received 5 squirts of flavoring, whipped cream, plus a sprinkled topping that reminded me of crumbled, sweetened pie crust, though I was out of the shop before I could ask them to confirm what it was.

As we showed you last week, Dulce de Leche is sweetened condensed milk that has literally been cooked in the can over low heat, producing a rich, milky, caramel toffee-like flavor. If you are so inclined you can make your own at home and save the $5 a cup, but for those who can't be bothered - the Starbucks version is absolutely delicious.

Starbucks baristas are not your friends

That's the claim by an anonymous Starbucks barista in a rant posted over at Jim Romenesko's Starbuck's Gossip Blog. It was originally posted on the Chicago Craigslist, but was removed.

While the barista really isn't saying anything new here, it's actually a good one-stop summary for everyone who doesn't like the coffee shop chain, and a funny, revealing rant for people who do like the chain. A few tidbits from the article after the jump!

Continue reading Starbucks baristas are not your friends

Make your own coffee syrup

Since I drink coffee pretty much around the clock, I started buying the bottled syrups so I could add my favorite flavors to the cappuccinos and lattes I made at home. However at $10 or so a pop that can be a fairly expensive habit, especially since I like to mix up my flavors often. I decided to make a simple syrup base and then added various flavorings to find out how they tasted in comparison to the store-bought variety. The results were very favorable, in fact one friend of mine swears she can't tell the difference between various Starbuck's drinks and my own homemade versions. I still think there is nothing quite like the original, but these are a reasonable facsimile at the very least.

To make a simple syrup, combine 1 cup water and 1 cup white sugar. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until it has reduced by half, which should take about 5 minutes. Now if you want flavoring, you have to add those ingredient(s) at the same time you add the water and sugar. Keep in mind, the following are just examples. I don't really have a precise recipe for this as I usually just wing it, so play around with the amounts and make what suits your own taste.

Continue reading Make your own coffee syrup

A clean Valentine's Day gift for your favorite coffee fiend

Cafe Latte SoapsSpeaking of coffee, if you're looking to find something special for Valentine's Day to give the lovable but ever-wired coffee addict in your life, the natural choice would be...coffee? No. Do you really want to give your girl/boy-friend, husband/wife or part-time lover a bag of beans? Think of it the other way around. You happen to love tennis, but do you want to get a pair of terry cloth wristbands for Valentine's Day?

Heck no! Those gifts are fine for say, Memorial Day, but this is Valentine's Day, and you want it to be something that is special and romantic and shows you understand your loved one's habit. For the coffee lover, how about a set of luxurious Caramel Cafe Latte soaps? The soaps have the sweet scent of caramel and familiar smell of coffee, but will let your lovee relax rather than get amped up.

The Gift Box of soaps with a small bowl are available from Gianna Rose for $31.50.

An easy way to make latte art

Instead of fussing with steamed milk and trying to perfect the very difficult skill of making good latte art, which is very tricky to practice unless you have access to a good espresso machine and work in a coffee shop or drink a lot of coffee, a good way to decorate your drinks is with a stencil. Aerolatte sells a Cappuccino Art Set. The art set comes with a collection of stencils that can be placed on top of your drink and dusted with cocoa powder or cinnamon using a fine duster, similar to the type used for sprinkling powdered sugar. The six stencils are made of sturdy plastic, are dishwasher safe and come with a small storage tin. There is only one downside and that is the fact that you are limited to the designs that are provided. As elegant as the premade stencils are, if you want to make your own, you can use the exact same technique (perhaps even the same stencils) that we used for making cupcake stencils a few weeks ago.

Testing the brewmasters

Nespresso Le CubeI was at Border's the other day, getting my usual chai, when a woman came to the counter. I would say she was in her early to mid 50s, and when she got to the counter the guy asked her what she wanted. The woman scanned the menu, looked around the counter and said, "what's an espresso?"

This surprised me, because I thought everyone - well, at least everyone who drinks coffee, goes to coffee shops and had passed the age of 50 - would know what an espresso is. I thought of this while reading this Esquire column by director Barry Sonnenfeld. While directing the new ABC comedy Notes From The Underbelly, he decided to test several cappuccino makers on the crew, and he publishes the results.

Continue reading Testing the brewmasters

Gingerbread or eggnog latte?

The Pumpkin Spice drinks might the most popular seasonal beverages - hot or cold - at Starbucks and there are more than a few people who mark their calendars with the release date every fall, but their two more Christmas-y drinks - the gingerbread and the eggnog lattes - deserve their time in the spotlight, too. Especially since those flavors are popping up at other coffee houses. The gingerbread latte is made with a spicy gingerbread syrup that is blended into a regular latte and topped, if desired, with whipped cream. The eggnog latte is a bit different and is made with real eggnog, which is mixed with a bit of regular milk (whole, nonfat, etc) and steamed as usual. You might not expect eggnog and coffee to go well together, but the combination is actually quite good. Especially if you know a barista that will a little something "extra" to the eggnog lattes on Christmas Eve (not that that would ever happen or anything...).

Gingerbread is my favorite, as the spices are both warming and satisfying. Which do you prefer - or do you skip those typically seasonal flavors in favor of the peppermint mocha?

NYT on latte as art

This week's NYT food section delves into New York City cafes whose baristas truly deserve the title. Before we go any further let me say that I've had my share of Starbucks espressos. Regardless of their caffeine kick, they're overroasted and bitter.

As the article states, one of the things that makes a great barista is having a machine that allows the operator to control the process. Roughly stated, the elements that contribute to the perfect cup are the quality of the beans, the temperature at which to brew a particular bean and how much pressure one uses to tamp the ground coffee. The perfect espresso is capped with a thick, ruddy crema. Instead of having a burnt taste, it should be redolent of such aromatic notes as jasmine and orange.

An ace espresso isn't the sole hallmark of top baristas. They should also be able to pour exquisite cappuccinos topped with freshly steamed milk. But how do baristas raise the bar? By pouring the milk in such a way as to create hearts, fern leaves and other patterns in the crema of your afternoon pick-me-up.

Everything I ate, à la the New York Diet

For the article titled The New York Diet, New York magazine asked a sample of five New Yorkers to write down everything they ate for a week. The project was meant as a small comparison to the book Everything I Ate, which is one New Yorker's photo diary of everything he ate for a year.

Overall, the piece is fascinating, and I think that part of the appeal of reading through these lists is the same thing that keeps people reading food blogs: you get to eat vicariously through someone else's writing/photography. You also get to learn a few things about the lifestyle of the person you're reading about. For example, I learned that the 10th grader's diet was pretty frightening, with lots of candy and fast food, and also noticed that New Yorkers generally eat dinner later than I do.

Continue reading Everything I ate, à la the New York Diet

Caffeine and espresso

I love most kinds of coffee and I love espresso. There is one misconception about it - whether you like the taste or not - that bugs me. It has to do with the caffeine content and I know otherwise sane adults who shudder at the very thought of having an espresso-based drink while happily downing cups of regular brew. They think that the strong flavor of espresso directly correlates with an exponentially high caffeine content.

Espresso has plenty of caffeine in it and, ounce for ounce, it has more caffeine in it than drip coffee. Here's the thing: one serving of espresso is 1-2 ounces, while a serving of drip coffee ranges from 6-12 ounces. To approximate, as the exact brewing method and quantity of beans used can affect caffeine content, one serving of drip coffee will have 100-200mg of caffeine (17mg/oz). A serving of espresso, which we'll say is 1.5 ounces here, has approximately 50 mg of caffeine (30mg/oz). So, if you only drink one ounce of coffee, you would get less caffeine than with one ounce of espresso. Otherwise, it is likely that you are drinking both more coffee and more caffeine with a regular drip than with a drink that uses one or two shots of espresso, like a latte.

The moral of this story? If you're that concerned with caffeine, order the smallest available size of a drink or ask for decaf. Otherwise, you can relax and enjoy your latte without having to worry that you'll be kept up for the next week.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Dissatisfied with the Delocator

I have no problems at all with Starbucks coffee and am often glad to see their sign on the horizon, particularly when I travel. Like it or not, Starbucks is a big part of the reason that it is easy to find a decent cup of coffee just about anywhere. Even if you are served a bad brew - for whatever reason - not only will the Starbucks baristas will replace the offending beverage, but it will still beat the burnt, week-old, brown sludge or faintly flavored hot water that was somehow able to pass for coffee in many places only a few short years ago. This is not to say that there are not places that make better coffee, just that Starbucks helped to raise the bar overall.

I have met many people who claim to dislike them "on principle", despite the fact that the majority of them cannot actually verbalize what their "principle" actually is. Some certainly can converse about their desire to see even more social responsibility or ways to further improve employee benefits, but the ubiquity of Starbucks is generally the favored topic of argument. Overhearing these irate rants can be an amusing experience when they occur inside a Starbucks from the mouths of people awaiting their Frappuccino or their extra hot, extra wet, no foam Venti "cappuccino", which they are unaware is actually a latte. Perhaps they are just annoyed with less-than-instantaneous service, though people who expect a decent coffee or espresso beverage should be willing to wait at least a moment or two for it to be prepared.

But I digress.

Continue reading Dissatisfied with the Delocator

Wolfgang Puck's self-heating coffee recalled



Wolfgang Puck Self-Heating Latte cans are currently being pulled from shelves after reports of the cans leaking chemicals into the coffee or exploding, according to a recent story from beverage industry publication BevNET. The BevNET story recounts a blame game between licensees, the can's manufacturers, distributors and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. The latter apparently requested that the cans be pulled after repeated customer complaints and supposed scrutiny from the FDA. The cans were originally released last spring. Some complaints included reports of a white substance, perhaps the calcium oxide used in the can's heating system, floating in the coffee. A Las Vegas woman also claims she was badly burned by a malfunctioning can that exploded. The cans supposedly heat their contents to 140 degrees. According to BevNET, the company that designed the cans marketed them with the slogan "It does what?"

[Photo: BevNET]

Dunkin' dumbs it down

The core market for Dunkin' Donuts is the segment of the population that feels uncomfortable with the word "panini." To accommodate them, the company changed the name of one of their new sandwiches to "stuffed melt," but this isn't the end of their push to make customers more comfortable.

In an article (subscription only) in the Wall Street Journal, the marketing and branding teams of Dunkin' Donuts revealed their research has shown there are two main groups in their potential customer base, dubbed "tribes." In the first tribe, there are people to frequent Starbucks. They like the atmosphere there and want their coffees with a couch; Dunkin' locations are too bare-bones for them. The second tribe is the Dunkin' tribe. These make up the core audience for Dunkin' donuts and are "bewildered and turned off by the atmosphere at Starbucks." When they do, perchance, wander into a Starbucks, they "don't get it." 

To keep the existing customers happy while bringing in new ones, Dunkin' Donuts is making some changes. In addition to renaming some of their products, they are bringing in new foods, like dough-wrapped pork and "Dunkin' Dawgs" to encourage customers to come in at lunch time, as well as cookies and other baked goods to bring them in in the afternoons. The pastry cases and espresso bars will be revamped to look flashier, but there will still be no couches. They don't want customers to feel too comfortable because it actually, according to their research, makes the Dunkin' tribe uncomfortable.

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