Perk up your menu and profits with pour-over brewing

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Are you looking to stand out from the crowded high street that has begun to fill up with competing coffee shops?

Do you want to adopt a new, cost-effective approach that produces a great-tasting coffee that will set you apart?

If so, think about adding pour-overs to your menu.

Over the past ten years or so, as the coffee industry has become the gargantuan industry that it is today, the pour-over method has risen in popularity. This craze has spread like wildfire in the United States and is a primary factor in the rise of the ‘third wave’ of coffee shops. But, somehow, it hasn’t quite punctured the market on our shores…yet

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Tuesday the 6th January 2015

Jura GIGA X3 Professional

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Thursday the 6th November 2014

Coffee: It’s good for your liver

Coffee beans cooking

You heard it heard it here first: A good strong cup of coffee could be good for your liver. That is what a new report, conducted by the excellent people at the National Cancer Institute, has found.

It states that there is an evident link between coffee and a reduced level of abnormal liver enzymes.

Their latest piece of research can be read in full in the academic journal Hepatology.

So we think it’s time to go and get your favourite beans out and brew yourself a mug or two.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Friday the 10th October 2014

The beauty of coffee grounds

Last week we imparted some tips about what to do with your leftover coffee grounds. Instead of throwing them away or chucking them onto the compost heap we advised how you can use the remnants from your lattes and espressos to help condense those annoying and time consuming household chores.

Well it’s another week and we have a few further uses for those grounds.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Friday the 3rd October 2014

Study shows coffee drinks are ‘fun’

coffee-espresso

For years we’ve been at a loss as to why we continuously describe ourselves as ‘fun’ people to be around both at work and when socialising in our free time. I’m sure that you too have wondered why that adjective has been transposed onto yourself from time to time.

Well the answer, as it turns out, is probably within arm’s reach of you right now. Just extend those fingertips, grab your mug, take a sip and read this.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Thursday the 2nd October 2014

Coffee Semifreddo

semifreddo

Translated into English as ‘half cold’, the semifreddo is a type of semi-frozen dessert which can encapsulate ice cakes, semi-frozen custards and a number of cold fruit tarts.

Even with the nights beginning to draw in a little bit and the slightly noticeable, if disappointing, fact that the temperature in the thermometers are dropping, the semifreddo remains a fantastic favourite of ours.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Wednesday the 1st October 2014

Bubble Tea

“It’s chewy and odd,” says the food critic Marina O’Loughlin. “It’s slippery and strange, but weirdly more-ish. I love the way it comes with a flat straw so I can scoop out the balls and they plop into my mouth.”

O’Loughlin is talking about Bubble Tea, one of the fastest growing drink trends around at the moment.

The origin of this ‘slightly squishy’ tea is 1980s Taiwan. It began as an evolution from the traditional drinks that street vendors sold and after some experimentation they came up with Bubble Tea.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Friday the 12th September 2014

The coffee nap

Cup of coffee

As I am currently writing this the clock is slowly ticking and tocking towards 3pm. With the pendulum swaying backwards and forwards, every second is passing. And with each second, the desire for a lovely mid-afternoon nap rises. Sadly, if I was caught napping at my desk whilst working the consequences might not be too palatable.

The obvious alternative would be to drink a cup of strong coffee, push through the drowsiness and ride that caffeine kick for as long as it lasts. That’s generally how it works in offices – well, according to my experiences anyway.

However, if you can spare a few minutes to enter a gentle slumber during the afternoon you should combine a brief period of shut-eye with a cup coffee and reap two benefits. Supporters of this practice know it to be the famous coffee nap.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Thursday the 4th September 2014

Caffeine – the game

Caffeine

“The lights flicker as if somebody is toying with a fundamental binary code housed somewhere in the electrical circuit. But that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? The most reasonable answer would be to suggest that there’s an errant wire somewhere, but all logic has been lost a long time ago. Down the corridor, vaguely illuminated for a split-second before it plunges into darkness once more, there’s a note. The inscription on it can be barely made out. ‘Coffee this way,’ it reads.

“Coffee.

“Coffee!”

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Monday the 18th August 2014

After-hours coffee

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Due to the prevalence of coffee shops on our nation’s high-street, the drink is typically associated with cappuccinos, lattes and, when the weather is nice, cold brews. However there is a trend that has been bubbling under the surface and that is the rise of the coffee cocktail.

At the moment the roles of the barista and the bartender have become intertwined somewhat. Due to the prominence of craft coffees, speciality beans and third-wave techniques, there’s now an added amount of theatre and ingenuity within the industry that, at one point, bartenders solely operated within. It’s only a matter of time before coffee cocktails are the go-to choice of drink after-hours.

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Last updated by Damien Wilde on Tuesday the 5th August 2014