Wash your Decaf!

If you haven’t noticed by now, I work in coffee. I have worked in the business for over six years, grew up in the coffee capital of Seattle, WA, and had the luck to work with and be trained by five different roasting companies. One undergoes training for each different bean because every coffee is so unique it will pull differently from the machine, has different cremas, flavors, and lots of other nerdy coffee talk. Nonetheless, I loved it because I got to learn a little more from each one! (Not to mention, taste some really good coffee!)

I have worked for both major companies and some smaller ones, but I love seeking out different coffees and tasting them for what they truly are. So I figured we’d do a little coffee talk. My early morning comrade coworker and I have noticed and increase in the requests for decaf or half-caf coffees lately, and I’ve noticed the talk of decaf amidst the blog world, so I thought I’d start with the explanation of the best decaf method out there, which is the Swiss Water Decaffeinated Processing method.

Often, coffee companies use a chemical called methylene chloride to strip caffeine from the beans. While this process is believed to be safe to consumers, it does deprive the beans of some natural flavors. It also leaves a chemical residue. Although, what is commonly known as the Swiss water processing method, costs a bit more, companies who care about providing a high quality bean will invest in it for their customers.

Simply stated, the process involves the following:

• Steaming
  This opens the beans’ pores, making them responsive to the solvent that will remove the caffeine.

• Drawing
  After steaming, a coffee solids-rich solvent is introduced to draw the caffeine out of the coffee. Water is used as the all natural solvent. Because the water has already absorbed soluble solids from a batch of green coffee that is discarded to start the decaffeination solution, it leaves most of those important flavor-imparting solids intact resulting in a pleasantly intense decaffeinated coffee.
  • Water (H₂O)
    Water is the solvent of choice. Water is used to remove caffeine from the bulk of the beans allowing us to preserve nearly 100% of the coffee’s original flavors.

Swiss water decaf had this spiffy chart: (they also have a cool little video)

 

Some well known companies that use this process are:

• Caribou Coffee
• Stumptown Coffee (okay, some of you may not have heard of them, but they are by far my favorite coffee I have tasted thus far!)
• Starbucks Coffee

Some interesting decaf facts:

• Decaf coffee can still have between 2-6mg caffeine
• Excessive caffeine intake has been linked to decreased bone density, earlier menopause, elevated stress levels, and decreased absorption of minerals

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, there are also benefits of caffeinated coffee. I think what the world has to learn, especially Americans, is that it’s all about proper portion sizes. Stay tuned!

Maca Power and Mocha Tastings

Woohee! That Maca stuff is crazy powerful! I have put it in my shakes now for a few days and it leaves me talking a mile a minute, I think I need to be careful with it. It is definitely one powerful superfood, let me tell ya’! No need for any extra caffeine when adding just a teaspoon of that!

photo courtesy of www.navitanaturals.com

Fun Facts about Maca:

• possesses building blocks for seretonin
• helps with stress by helping adrenal glands regenerate
• from a root vegetable related to the turnip
• a little bit will do! only need about 1/2tsp a day

  After work today, I gathered a few of my ‘Bou buddies and we did a Mocha comparison with some of our coffee competitors to see if our new chocolate really lived up to it’s standard and actually came up with some good results! To preface, I love coffee, and just because i work somewhere doesn’t mean I’ll drink their stuff. I go after taste. For example, I worked at Starbucks in Seattle for years, but I LOVED Stumptown and Cafe Vita, and would always go there whenever I wanted to actually purchase a cup of really good coffee or espresso. As I have mentioned before, there is an art to coffee and espresso, and tasting it is much like tasting wine.

MOCHA ADVENTURE!!!

Thus, the mocha comparison began. It was free mocha’s at McDonalds, so we ventured over there and nabbed two small ones, very scary as it was literally pumped out of a machine, milk and all, and topped with Reddi Whip.

Then, it was off to Starbucks for a Grande Mocha and a Grande White Mocha, had to take off my Caribou shirt before going in there, hehe.

Once back at the ‘Bou, we poured them all into disguised sample cups, made one of each Caribou white and dark mocha, and then blind tasted them all:

THE RESULTS:

MCDONALDS: You pay what you get for I guess. If you want a gas station tasting mocha with flat milk and something that tasted like an instant cappucino mix with a very bad aftertaste for $1.90, then go for it, but you could probably make something better at home. BLECH!

STARBUCKS: This one was creamier, and we ordered it with 2% but one tester said it tasted almost like breve. The biggest complaint about both the white and dark mocha was the big oils on top, it was disgusting. “When is exxon going to come clean this spill up?” said tester #2. Biggest disappointment….major sludge at the bottom.

CARIBOU: Creamy, smooth, very rich. Good consistency throughout, and no sludge! One change I would make is less chocolate in a hot one though, because it might be too rich for a medium hot mocha if you were to drink the entire thing. Best one overall though and no oils!

WHITE MOCHA-

STARBUCKS: I used to love these, this one was creamy and smooth, but had a very bitter aftertaste and was almost too sweet. Once again, major oils.

CARIBOU: Very creamy consistency, nice and smooth, not too sweet, nice vanilla undertones, good balance. I think this recipe is right on.

WRAP UP-

None of the testers will ever be going to McDonalds. I used to hit up the ‘Bux for their White Mocha’s but once Caribou does their full run on their new chocolate, they have definitely won me over with their new White Mocha. We all agreed that Caribou’s new chocolate is better than Starubucks in both consistency and quality, in part due to no disgusting oils on top of the drink and no sludge at the bottom.

Once again, these are my honest chocolate buds talking, I am not partial to any of the companies. I will actually be quite sad when we have to go back to our old chocolate until the true launch, because I am not that big of a fan

If you are in the CHAPEL HILL, NC area, you can receive $1 off any size mocha, hot or iced at either the downtown Franklin store or Franklin/Estes store for the next two weeks by bringing in this coupon!

#571(Yes, my scary photo and this code is the coupon, my boss didn’t want me to get sued for using the logo)

(Sorry I couldn’t make it nationwide, but currently the chocolate launch is in test mode and only limited stores have it, but stay tuned for October!!!)

Affirmation for the day: It’s okay to be myself around others:) Especially when chocolate is involved!

Chocoholics need to come to North Carolina….

And the Caribou I work at!! That’s right folks, we are a test site for a new gourmet chocolate that Caribou is testing our and let me tell you, it is DIVINE!!! It is a top-notch culinary chocolate that is organic and in the process of getting rain forest certified. We are offering it in milk, white, and dark chocolate, and WOWZERS!!! It is such an improvement off the old stuff, which let me tell you, tasted like blech :p

Behind my superseed juice is the little chips that actually get melted into the mochas we are testing out, oh so nummy!! It makes them very rich, so my review is that one should actually order a little less chocolate until we officially change our recipe.

Even though it was Friday, I busted out our “Monday Happens” shirt Hey, it was a good Friday and even my real Friday, much deserved since I just worked about ten days in a row…phew!!! That’s okay, my super creamy green monster fueled me through the morning!

So here is a peak at dark chocolate iced mocha. The dark chocolate is velvety and smooth and really compliments the espresso. I have worked in coffee for a very long time, and I can honestly say, this is one of the best mocha’s I have ever had. I am very pleased with this change and can’t wait until they get all the bugs worked out and the company wide launch happens!!!

Until then, if you are in the Chapel Hill, NC area, send me a message and I can hook you up with a free mocha test. I would love to hear some other food bloggies review!! If not, you’ll have to wait. Remember you heard it first here

Have FAITH, your chocolate hearts will be fulfilled soon enough, patience is a virtue!

Mix it up!

Lately I’ve been waking up before my alarm even goes off and that says a lot seeing it’s 4:20am. Honestly, I think it’s just nature calling. I confess, despite the fact that I work at a coffee shop, most mornings I would stumble out of bed and make *gasp* instant coffee. Then, I noticed how it would stain my counter and not come off, goodness knows what it was doing to my insides. So, I now practice patience and put on the tea kettle while I shower and make a french press.

Nummers, I sip on it while I prepare my juice, green monster, and lunch, though I seldom am ever able to finish a cup before I run out of the house. If you truly want to taste a coffee though, french press is the way to go.

I was too tired by the time I got home last night to bust out Brutus (my juicer) so I only had a little bit left. Thus I grabbed an emergency back up to try Mix 1 has new vegetable/fruit juice mixes out that have a bit of fiber and protein in them as well. This was the berry blend one and it wasn’t too bad. It mixed quite well with the little juice I had left and my super seed powder, and although there was some stuff I couldn’t pronounce on the lable, I was put at ease after going to the website. HOLY MOLY! I have never seen anything so interactive and a company so willing to tear apart their nutrition label and explain it to you. I really like that its soy, gluten, and lactose free which is so hard to find in any commercial smoothie these days. I have tried these once or twice before when they first came out, but never the juice ones. If I’m in a pinch I think I would get one again. I wonder what the carrot/orange is like….

Lunch was a layered salad with leftover broccoli slaw, bean sprouts and some pineapple with that thai curry dressing I made last week. Packed up and ready to go:

Work was the usual. Boss was stressed about a meeting ,the kids were left alone to run the store, I soupled up my green monster which was actually quite purple, guess I went a little strong on the blueberries this morning Still tasty!!!

Before leaving, I chomped on my salad. WOOHEE! That dressing must have absobed some curriness in the fridge. Due to the stress, I have some cold sores, so this was a bit too spicy now, but I ate it anyway :p

For dinner, since it’s hot out, I made another salad. I had made a fresh batch of juice and Brutus was still out so I decided to juice me some dressing. I put some strawberries and a lemon through, then mixed it with a dash of flax oil for some healthy fats and omega’s! The strawberries were so sweet and the lemon gave it the perfect zing! You could do this in a blender too, it would just be seedy.

Roasted Asparagus Sunshine Salad

• Mixed greens
• Asparagus
• Cucumber diced
• I added some beet pulp, but you could just julien a beet or whatever veggies suit your fancy
• bit of shaved raw cheese or your cheese of choice!
• Fresh juiced strawberry zing dressing (mentioned above)
• 2 eggs, poached

Place greens in bowl. Roast asaparagus in oven or on grill. (I lightly sprtized them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.) Poach eggs, if I did this again I would make them runny in the middle. Layer all ingredients in bowl, drizzle with dressing, enjoy!

The salad was okay. I would have liked it if I had a real poacher and not a microwave one so I could have made the eggs a bit overeasy. Plus my dang cold sores keep getting in the way, oh well. Also, I really wanted big crunchy asaparagus, and the store had sad thin sticks. Oh well, I’m fed, thankful, and I’ll take it!

I’m so sorry for the lame pictures, hoping to get a camera eventually that is decent :p

Have a blessed evening everyone, get ready for a mantra tomorrow!