S3: Bonus Episode: Fun Coffee Stuff At Twixtmas
If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs this Twixtmas this bonus episode is packed with suggestions for fun things to do with coffee. Put the Quality Street tin down and hone your brewing skills, sharpen your palate or host a tasting party instead.
Pick a coffee documentary to watch from the list presented in the video review by the YouTube channel European Coffee Trip: Top 8 Coffee Documentaries To Watch Online (for free)
Get in touch!
Please note that although I read all texts, I don’t have the facility to reply to them, but you can also get in touch via Instagram and email.
Email: thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break…
In this bonus episode for Twixtmas I have a few suggestions for some fun coffee related activities to tackle the post Christmas blues … and later instead of the usual frequently asked coffee question I have an alternative suggestion for people who don’t actually want to move from their couch so stay tuned for that…
So you’ve played with your presents and eaten a ton of food and now its that twixtmas week between Christmas and New Year. Its a great time to meet up with your favourite people or relax with a boxset and a tin of Quality Street chocolates but if you are looking for something different to do, or have some time on your hands, how about using this downtime to have some fun with coffee, do a little experimenting and perhaps a little tastebud training….
So firstly fun with coffee and the brew
The obvious thing to do if you were given a new coffee brewer for Christmas is to take the time to understand how to use it properly. Get the manual out and learn how to get the best out of it. Then once you know what you are supposed to do, if you have enough coffee and are up for it, try having a little fun with some brewing experiments. Playing around with brewing parameters in a single session is a good way to learn what changes to the grind size, brewing water temperature or the brewing time does to the flavour of the brewed coffee. But if you are going to do this be aware that you will be wasting coffee as you will brew some undrinkable coffee! And please do check your brewer’s manual first to make very sure that what you are thinking of doing won't damage your brewer. Also on that note do not be tempted to use milk in place of water in any brewing machine. Aside from ruining your machine and invalidating the warranty, I can tell you now that it doesn’t work. Finally if you are brewing with a cafetière I’d advise against experimenting with coffee ground to a powder. I can promise you that it will be very bitter. Also you will need the strength of the Hulk to depress the plunger and there is a very good chance of having an accident while trying to do so. My top tip with brewing experiments is to change only one thing at a time so that you can really taste and understand the impact of that change. This will help you understand why the ‘right’ way is the right way and as a side bonus you will learn to diagnose issues with coffees that other people brew for you. A helpful skill that will be useful forever.
Next fun with coffee and the taste
A fun activity to test your coffee tastebuds like a pro, is to have a go at triangle tasting. This is one of the ways professionals train their palates. Using the same brewing method, brew three coffees where two are the same coffee and one is different and then taste them blind to see if you can spot the odd one out. This will require a trusty helper to mix up the cups for you and of course keep tabs on which is which! If you don’t manage to spot the odd one out, taste the coffees again, knowing what they are, to fix their flavours in your mind. Then mix the coffees up again and have another go. A more sociable palate training session is to have a tasting party. This can of course be with coffee, but it doesn’t have to be - you can do this with just about any food or drink. Select a category of food or drink and either buy - or browse from your own cupboards - a variety of examples of it. I recently saw a large group of people having a great time tasting different flavours of crisps - that’s chips for American listeners. The category can be very broad such as fruit of all kinds, or it could be very specific such as types of vanilla ice cream, hot sauces, dark chocolate or cereal. Set it all out and invite everyone to sample everything. It’s a simple thing to do but is a lot of fun, especially if you can include things you don’t normally buy or taste.
Finally fun with coffee and the bean
If you really have time on your hands and are lucky enough to have have been given a large bag of a whole bean natural, anaerobic or Indonesian coffee, sort through the beans putting them into separate piles according to bean colour, bean size and/or shape of the bean. When you have a brewable amount of each category, brew a cup of each and compare the flavours against each other and to a cup of the unsorted coffee. This exercise can be eye opening and is one that I do to analyse the quality of a coffee. If your Christmas coffee gift was a set of three different coffees of any kind I definitely encourage you to have a tasting session with all three to compare them side by side. This is a good way to explore the range of flavours that you can taste in coffee. If you are worried about opening all three bags at once, when you have finished you can put the bags you don’t want to use now into the freezer to keep. Make sure you seal them up well and wrap them in plastic or put the bag into a container to keep moisture out before putting them in the freezer.
And now instead of this week’s Frequently Asked Coffee Question…
I have a bonus suggestion for those of you for whom this all sounds like a lot of work and would prefer to do something from the comfort of your couch!
If you'd like to learn more about the world of coffee and the people in it, how about watching a coffee documentary? There are many available on YouTube for free. For a review of some of these, check out the channel European Coffee Trip on YouTube for their review of free online coffee documentaries and pick one to watch. I will put the link to that video in the show notes for you. Happy viewing!
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was all about fun things to do with coffee. Were you inspired to try any of the suggestions and how did it go? Let me know on Instagram @thecoffeedrinkersguide, email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com or leave me a text message using the link in the show notes. The next episode falls on New Years Day and in honour of that I will be taking a look at coffee habits with some suggestions about how to get out of a coffee rut - if you want to of course! Be sure to hit follow so that you don’t miss it, if you haven’t already. If you know someone who you think would find this interesting please tell them about the show and rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk. Until next time I’m Angela Holder thanks for taking your coffee break with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
The Coffee Drinker’s Guide is a Blue Sky Coffee Project