Chefs taste test Astronaut Coffee

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks on earth – and it is popular in space, too. Unfortunately, the astronauts have been drinking coffee of questionable quality for the past few decades, since the brewing processes that we use down here don’t work quite the same way up there. The Space Food Systems Lab at the Johnson Space Center in Houston has been doing a little R&D to see if they could come up with some better quality coffee to offer future astronauts. They came up with a few options – Kona Coffee With Cream and Kona Coffee With Cream and Sugar, packed in Capri Sun-style pouchs with built-in straws – and called in a few well known chefs to give them a taste test. David Chang of Momofuku and Traci Des Jardins of Jardiniere both sipped as though they were aboard the space station – and gave fairly good reviews to the new coffee.

I would bet that it tastes better than freeze dried astronaut ice cream, and I could see a fan market for this starting down here. After all, with space tourism in the future, the market for space-appropriate coffee might actually see some growth in the future!

Starbucks Frappuccino Summer Lounge Party

The beach in Santa Monica is one of the best places to spend a summer evening, with all kinds of shops and restaurants to choose from and a steady crowd of locals and tourists enjoying the cool sea air. It is even better if you’re there for a party and I was fortunate enough to be down at the beach the other day for Starbucks’ Frappuccino Summer Lounge Party to celebrate the launch of their new summer drink, the Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino.

The party was a chance to try the drink and learn some fun facts about frappuccinos – such as the fact that there are some 36,000 different ingredient combinations that you could potentially put together to customize your frappuccino! Aside from occasionally getting soy milk instead of regular for a change of pace, I tend to keep frappuccinos simple when I order then and was surprised that there were so many possibilities.

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Starbucks Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino, reviewed

The caramel sauce that Starbucks uses to finish off drinks like the caramel macchiato is addicitive, and one of the most popular requests in caramel drinks is for extra caramel (or even extra, extra, extra caramel). The newest seasonal offering from Starbucks is the Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino, a drink designed for the people who like to ask for extra caramel in their frappuccinos. I’m partially kidding, because the drink doesn’t really use all that much extra caramel, but there is some extra in there and it has a lot of caramel flavor, so it should definitely do the trick for caramel fans.

The Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino is a caramel frappuccino that has caramel sauce blended right into it (the usual caramel frappuccino doesn’t). It is poured into a cup that is lined with a generous drizzle of “dark caramel sauce,” and topped with whipped cream, caramel drizzle and crunchy caramel topping.

It sounds over-the-top – and it is, but in a good way. The drink has a really good caramel flavor and, thanks to the burnt sugar notes in the “dark caramel” sauce, it has a flavor that is reminiscent of dulce de leche or creme brulee, and the crunchy toffee-like bits on top are absurdly addicting. It’s sweet, but you can still taste the coffee in there, so it actually has a pretty nice balance of flavors and will hit the spot when you want something sweet and cold on a hot day.

Smuckers launches Life is Good coffee

Coffee always makes a day look a little bit sunnier, but a new line of coffee from JM Smuckers – makers of Folgers, Millstone, and Dunkin’ Donuts packaged coffees – literally says “life is good” on the packaging. The new coffee is an extension of the popular Life is Good lifestyle brand, better known for their clothing products bearing their logo, and its first UTZ certified sustainable coffee. UTZ promotes more environmentally friendly farming methods, as well as improved working conditions for farmers and their families. Smuckers is one of the largest coffee buyers in the world and moving towards farmer-friendly coffee potentially could have a big impact for both small and large coffee growing operations.

The new Life is Good coffee line is being launched with five flavors: Light Hearted light roast; Happy Medium medium roast; Dark & Daring dark roast; S’more to Love s’mores-flavored coffee; and Banana Bread Bliss banana-bread-flavored coffee. 10% of the net proceeds from the sale of the coffees will go to the nonprofit Life is Good Kids Foundation.

Latte art at a new level, from Kazuki Yamamoto

Many baristas – both home baristas and pro baristas – have struggled to master the art of latte art, getting the perfect microfoam to allow you to create beautiful, rippling designs on the top of your lattes and cappuccinos. I know that I gave myself a huge pat on the back the first time I pulled off a perfect heart (and cried a little inside when I completely missed the mark on the next four or five after that one good one), but as happy as I am with my own progress, the bar for latte art is being raised every day. Kazuki Yamamoto is someone who is taking the bar far out of reach for most of us with some truly amazing and very creative coffee creations.

The milk foam kitty pictured above is my own personal favorite, but the collection of Peanuts characters gives you a little more insight into just how detailed his works can get. For more, check out his Twitter feed, which is updated regularly with all kinds of impressive art – including portraits in coffee of everyone from anime characters to world leaders.