How do you take your coffee? Try these 10 ways

October 30, 2020
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<Coffee for the Average Josh, Part 5 of 10>

Comedian Brian Regan feels insulted that Pop-Tarts come with printed preparation instructions.

“Can there be a simpler food item?” he says. “Like if the directions weren’t there, would someone be like, ‘How do I get that goodness in me?’”

Not so with coffee. There seem to be as many ways of consuming coffee as there are drinkers.

How do you take your coffee? Here are 10 ways coffee drinkers “get that goodness in me.” How many have you tried?

1. Cream and sugar

Classic. Every diner table worth its salt is stocked with these two options.

While seemingly straightforward, the options are endless. There are a million sugar alternatives — from Splenda to In the Raw —or sweeten the cup with a touch of honey.

Cream starts with dairy options like heavy whipping cream, half and half, and milk. Then there’s the litany of non-dairy commercial creamers with names like “Toasted Marshmallow Mocha” — which, incidentally rarely list marshmallows and chocolate as actual ingredients and is never actually toasted.

2. Decaffeinated

Love coffee but want to sleep soon? Decaf was made for you — though it wasn’t grown for you. Coffee beans are harvested with caffeine (you can’t order a decaf Arabica plant), and so the beans need to go through a process of decaffeination after leaving the farm but before they are roasted.

There are two common ways this is done: one you want to know about, and one you don’t.

The one you want to know has a beautiful name: the Swiss Water Process. Beans are soaked in water, and then a science glossary walks up and smacks the caffeine out of them using solubility, osmosis and a carbon filter.

The other way to decaffeinate is with a paint stripper. OK, OK, so it starts with a water soak but then a solvent thug is brought in to actually — avert your eyes, kids — bada-bing the caffeine right out of Mr. Bean. The most commonly used solvents are methylene chloride (used to strip paint) and ethyl acetate (used in nail polish remover).

But don’t worry, the FDA has signed off on the whole thing so long as the solvents that remain stay below certain thresholds, so … nighty-night.

3. Instant

The Pop-Tart of coffee in that it’s ready in a jiffy, the instant variety comes in a powder form — just add hot water!

This is not to be confused with ground coffee, which is just a pulverized coffee bean. Instant coffee, on the other hand, was actually once a brewed cup of coffee that — thanks to the magic of manufacturing and/or elves — transformed back into a solid granule state.

4. Iced

Iced coffee is simply coffee that was brewed hot and then cooled down by refrigeration or ice.

5. Cold brew

Unlike iced coffee, cold brew was always cold. For this method, coffee grounds are steeped in cold water, with recipes generally ranging from 12 to 24 hours. When you’re ready to drink, simply strain out the grounds. Cold brew fans tend to rave about its smooth taste and low acidity.

6. Frozen coffee

Frozen: It’s where coffee goes “Into the Unknown.” (Amirite, Elsa?)

With names like Vanilla Bean Frappuccino, McCafe Mocha Frappe, Frozen Dunkaccino, Cocomo Dutch Freeze, Caribou Cooler, Chick-fil-A Frosted Coffee, what we are essentially talking about here is a million different ways to make a coffee slushie.

Most use powder mixes because many customers prefer the consistency, though some may blend ice and espresso shots. Usually, they taste like dessert and can be indistinguishable from a chocolate milkshake. (If what you want is to blend in a hot espresso shot, it helps to specify that. Some people who want a little more of that coffee punch will even add a hot espresso shot to an instant coffee mix recipe.)

It’s worth the experimentation at your favorite shop. When you score a blended ice coffee drink that perfectly suits your palate, it’s a glorious thing.

In my experience, frozen coffee drinks are the hardest to order using a common vocabulary. For instance …

Frappe: As it refers to drinks, this word has French and Greek heritage. It typically refers to a recipe that is a combination of milk, sugar, ice and instant coffee mix.

Granita: Originating from Italy, this word describes a frozen treat that is served somewhere on the scale of shaved ice to Slurpee. Like those treats, granitas can be flavored with fruit syrups or other sweet accompaniments. Coffee is just one possible flavor for a granita.

But who cares, really? These are just two of many words in Coffee Land that are sometimes used interchangeably, sometimes used for clever marketing, rarely used correctly.

My advice: Enjoy another sip, Olaf, and “Let it Go.”

7. Affogato

In its purest (aka non-alcoholic) form, this dessert is usually represented by the following ratio: one scoop vanilla ice cream (or gelato, if you’re in Affogato’s original Italy), one hot shot of espresso poured on top.

8. White coffee

Not to be confused by coffee recipes that feature milk, such as the flat white, white coffee actually represents an extremely light roast of coffee. White coffee is said to originate in Yemen, and the taste of the roast is notably different than more traditionally roasted coffee. While the flavor can vary, it is typically marked by a nutty quality.

9. Dirty chai

Love tea and coffee? While a chai latte is a common coffee shop drink without the coffee (black tea and spices with steamed milk), it’s not uncommon for people to order drinks like this “dirty”? Don’t get the wrong idea. It just means adding coffee. Coffee-tea marriages are actually common worldwide, particularly in Asia.  

10. Irish

If coffee and tea aren’t your thing, how about coffee and Irish whiskey? Irish coffee is just one of many recipes for making coffee that can be measured by “proof.”

What about common espresso drinks and at-home coffee?

In the second half of the Coffee for the Average Josh series, we will spend more time breaking down coffee at the shop (typically espresso) and coffee brewed in the home.

Next: What is espresso?

This is the fifth in a 10-part series, “Coffee for the Average Josh,” releasing Fridays this fall. Get your fix of Coffee 101 by signing up to receive an email when the next post drops.

Previous:

  1. Where do coffee babies come from? (Oct. 2, 2020)
  2. Growing up on the coffee farm (Oct. 9, 2020)
  3. 3 reasons to pay more for your coffee (Oct. 16, 2020)
  4. 5 factors of great-tasting coffee (Oct. 23, 2020)
Related Posts

Why I’ve missed coffee shops …

May 22, 2020
4

I once asked CJ Curtis her secret to repeat customers at The Garden, her Spokane Valley coffee shop that has soared in its first year in business.

The customer service?

The Indaba coffee?

The avocado toast?

“Personally, I think it is the presence of God; I really do,” she said. “I believe that people can sense his presence even if they don’t know it.”

My first thought: Writing about toast would be easier.

My thoughts ever since: Amen.

• • •

Ironically, coffee shops used to be my escape from anyone’s presence.

Counter seat facing the street.

Earbuds in.

Alerts silenced.

My mission was to move piles of work and avoid eye contact. God, the devil and the mayor could have been there for all I cared. My back was turned.

But if Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had been sipping a cappuccino in the corner, he would have sworn he saw the devil slip onto the stool at my side.

“Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil,” Jung famously said.

I was always in a hurry.

And it was those things that hurried me that presented the key problem. Charles Hummel published a booklet in the 1960s called “Tyranny of the Urgent,” arguing that the most important things in life are often crowded out by things far less vital. How? Because the trivial items were due yesterday.

To say coffee shops rescued me from this tyrant is oversimplifying things.

But they provided the setting.

• • •

One of the less spectacular ways a marriage deteriorates is a combination of hurry and ego. In my case, I spent years too busy to properly prioritize my wife and too proud to tell myself the truth about it.

For Kim and me, renewal began at shops like Rockwood Bakery and the Service Station (miss that place). Then we started taking weekly coffee dates at Thomas Hammer and Jack and the Bean Shop, at Vessel and Vault, at Arctos and Coeur d’Alene Coffee Company.

The coffee itself was incredible, but it didn’t contain any magic for rejuvenating our relationship. Drinking it slowly, on the other hand …

We invested time seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, knowing and being known. I started to realize that when I wasn’t in a hurry, I was quite taken by the woman across from me.

Over time, I introduced other relationships to the coffee shop treatment.

One of my best friends, Adam, was an acquaintance until the night we hit up the downtown Starbucks instead of coming straight home from an event.

Three hours in the patio sun at Bakery by the Lake with my mom deepened our bond more than our prior 300 “interactions in passing.”

Do you remember how hard it is to be a teenager? I don’t, but it helped when my daughter and I started talking about song lyrics, school stress and mental health at Sams and Coffee on late-start school days. I’m a bumbling parent, but I’ve never regretted those blended mochas at 7 a.m.

• • •

Here in Spokane County, COVID closed down inside seating at coffee shops March 17. That ban was lifted — with several proper restrictions in place — on May 22, a span of 66 days. (There’s a devil-in-the-details fact for you.)

Some have cited the forced “slowing down” of life’s pace as a silver lining of the coronavirus. As a susceptible slave to hurry, I’m not arguing.

But “slowdown” was only a piece of my revival story, and this is why I’ve missed coffee shops so much. I didn’t just need to be present. I needed to be purposeful and vulnerable in my relationships as well.

Jamie Tworkowski, the writer and mental health advocate, says it best: “You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people, and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living, breathing, screaming invitation to believe better things.”

There was a time I wasn’t believing better things. Even in coffee shops, I couldn’t see beyond my to do list and my ticking clock.

But that was before I turned around.

Before I sat down across from a fellow human being.

Before I sensed it: CJ Curtis was right.

Would you do me a favor?

If you enjoy articles like this one, join the CoffeeJosh mailing list. It’s hurry-free, spam-free and also free … free. As a thanks, I’ll send you a PDF — you guessed it, free — that has 10 of the best coffee shop orders in the Spokane area. (All 10 are drinks and treats local coffee shop owners make for themselves. In this case, expect to pay for your order and feel like it was totally worth it.)

Crazy coffee orders that were actually placed

August 7, 2020
1

To introduce a new series on coffee literacy called Coffee for the Average Josh, I asked some friends about the craziest coffee orders they’ve ever received.

The responses didn’t necessarily help me discover gaps in what people know about coffee, but they did prove that people have a sense of humor …

“A 24 ounce caramel, creme de menthe, white chocolate powder, butterscotch, English toffee, peppermint and white coffee. He called it the spicy hoppin’ grasshopper with a twist.”

— Anabel, Crush Coffee Bar

“A 16 ounce extra hot latte with 3/4 pumps of Irish cream, 3/4 vanilla, stirred once to the right and three times to the left with whip. The employee said, ‘You’re funny,’ thinking he was joking, but his reply was, ‘I am serious,’ with no smile.”

— Kim Cline, Shotzy’s Coffee

“A 32 ounce ‘blended cappuccino’ (not a thing) with seven pumps of hazelnut, seven pumps of vanilla bean and seven pumps of peppermint. Yikes.”

— Rosa, Bee Kind Coffee

“A quad 20 ounce s’mores mocha. Might not sound that strange except the majority of my customers were medical staff. … You’d think such clientele would have a more cautioned and reasoned approach to sugar and caffeine. Not so much. They did tip well, though.”

— Josh Jensen, Jensen Handcrafted
(Plus former barista and jack of all trades)

“Here is one that our Pines crew received through Uber: 32 ounce caramel; chocolate; dark chocolate; white chocolate; pumpkin; Irish cream; caramel syrup; salted caramel; blue raspberry; banana; with one white, one dark, one ristretto; whip with matcha sprinkled on top of the whip.”

— Christopher Arkoosh, Wake Up Call

“I’ve been doing this for so long nothing can be too weird at this point, but back in the day I used to think the craziest was your typical, ‘I’ll have a 12 ounce hot, but not too hot, 130 degrees, split shot (half decaf, half regular), sugar free vanilla, not a lot of syrup, only half a pump, no foam, Americano, with coconut milk. Make sure and give me about 2 inches of that coconut milk! Oh, and no sleeve but with straws. I want a big straw, not small straws.’ This unfortunately is now a regular thing so I’m used to it.”

— Tasha Branning, The Blissful Whisk

Want to gain a little coffee confidence and enjoy a couple laughs along the way? Follow the “Coffee for the Average Josh” post series by signing up for the free CoffeeJosh newsletter. Other great spots to check out include Instagram or Facebook.

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