Chocolate Cappuccino Chip Cookies

Adding coffee or espresso to a recipe can infuse some coffee flavor, but it tends to be on the mild side unless the recipe can accommodate a lot of it, as Mocha Pudding Cake can. I find that it’s often better to use coffee extract, instant coffee or other coffee-flavored things, like Cappuccino chips. The chips are made by Guittard and have a distinctly milky coffee taste to them. They’re not too sweet, even though they’re made of white chocolate, and add a nice extra boost of flavor to a recipe.

These chocolate chip cookies have real coffee in the dough, as well as cappuccino chips, chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. They’re delicious when they’re still warm, served with milk or coffee, and have a nice chewiness to them even after they’ve cooled. Espresso can be substituted for the coffee, as well.

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Zhena’s Gypsy Coconut Chai, reviewed

Green and white teas are often used as the base for flavored tea when a maker wants to introduce some more unusual elements into a line. This is because their flavors are mild, and the added flavors can stand out more strongly. Black tea is rich enough that it is actually a great base for flavors, provided you match them well. In this case, the combination of coconut and chai tea on a black tea background in Zhena’s Gypsy Coconut Chai is absolutely brilliant.

The organic, fair trade tea has a rich and spicy flavor to it, with notes of ginger and cardamom. The coconut flavor is subtle, but clear, and really comes through if you decide to sweeten the tea and not just drink it black. It’s a very balanced tea, with all the flavors playing together in such a way that even those who say “but I don’t like chai tea!” will happily drink a cup of this.

If you don’t see this same package in stores, don’t worry. It seems as though the company is moving towards a simpler, all-black label for this tea at the moment.

Tea Forte Brewing Pitchers

This gorgeous Tea Forte Brewing Pitcher set might be better off if it were called a serving set, because the lovely presentation that this makes on the table is mostly what you’re going to see. The set is made of heat-resistant hand-blown glass and stacks neatly one on top of the other. The idea is that you use the top pitcher for brewing your tea, and the bottom one for ice for serving. This means that the tea can be as fresh as possible – still hot, in other words – and you don’t have to try to make time to brew a pitcher and chill it before serving. Just remember to try and brew the tea a little bit strong to account for the fact that pouring the hot tea over ice will water it down just a little bit.

Increase in home coffee brewing

It’s no surprise that people are cutting back on their spending due to the economic downturn, and gourmet coffee drinks are an expense that many are choosing to cut way back on, if not eliminate entirely. But that doesn’t mean giving up coffee. Instead, it means that more Americans are brewing coffee at home more often than last year

According to a survey on coffee-drinking trends carried out by the National Coffee Association, the number of people who drink coffee everyday has remained steady – 54 percent this year vs 55 percent last year – with no statistical difference between this year and last. Conusmption of gourmet coffee beverages, especially if they were consumed on a daily basis, has definitely dropped from 17 percent of regular coffee drinkers to just 14 percent. 85 percent of people participating in the survey who reported having coffee the previous day (or on a daily basis) said that they brewed it at home.

Trader Joe’s Wake Up Blend Coffee, reviewed

The huge logo on Trader Joe’s Wake Up Blend Coffee pulled me in – I was shopping early and who couldn’t use a little pick-me-up before noon? – as did the jumbo-sized can that the beans came in. This is twice the size of TJ’s standard coffee containers, which makes it a convenient option if you go through a lot of coffee in a short time (brewing multiple pots per day for a family or a small office, for instance).

I anticipated that this coffee would be fairly mild and acidic, as many”breakfast” coffees are, even though it was a medium roast. While it was quite acidic, it had a fairly full bodied flavor. It was much better when brewed a little on the strong side, so that the flavor of the coffee could temper some of the slightly aggressive acidity. Once you get past the first few sips, more flavors seem to emerge and the coffee takes on a pleasantly nutty taste, reminiscent of hazelnuts with maybe a hint of nutmeg to it. It took a little more experimentation with the coffee-to-water ratio than I usually need to do to accommodate a new blend, so keep that in  mind if you brew this and it doesn’t come out to your tastes the first time around.