Into the Light

Once upon a time, when I was a blossoming coffee connoisseur slowly making the transition from a caramel frappucino girl to a real coffee woman, my roommate showed me how to grind my own coffee beans with her seriously magic Magic Bullet.

Having grown up in a home where coffee was purchased in large cans of pre-ground beans, and working in a campus coffee shop that brewed from individual, pre-measured packets of grounds, this was an incredibly novel concept to me.  It opened my eyes to a whole new world of buying coffee.  No longer did I have to settle for those squishy pre-ground bags.  Now I could venture into the world of whole bean coffee.

The coffee section at Trader Joe's was an adventure in itself.  Their cans of coffee were tall with aesthetically pleasing packaging and funky-sounding names like "Costa Rica Tarrazu" and "Bali Blue Moon."  My absolute favorite though was their Volcano coffee, which was considered a "Super Dark" roasted coffee.  I knew little about different types and varietals of coffees, but I knew I liked a rich, bold brew that would bring out the flavors of my vanilla soy milk or peppermint mocha creamers.  You could say that I liked a little coffee with my cream.  

My tastes have evolved over the years.  When I entered the specialty coffee world, I was introduced to light roasted coffees and taught how to pick out different tasting notes.  The character of a light roasted coffee is often much more interesting than a dark roasted coffee.  Dark roasts always have that smoky, burnt taste to them that often overpowers any other qualities of the coffee.  Many specialty coffee shops these days won't even roast their coffee darker than a medium roast.  Modern roasters tend to believe that this burnt taste ruins the coffee.

They have a point, but in the end, it all depends on personal preference.  Like I said, I used to love that dark, rich, oily flavor of coffee, but when I learned more about the roasting process and how the process can bring out or mute the flavor characteristics of a coffee, I got caught up in the delightful taste sensation that is properly light roasted coffees.  And I never really went back.

Recently though, when I began really excitedly writing about coffees on a regular basis, my husband noticed how happy it made me and decided to splurge on a super-rare (i.e. expensive) coffee for me to taste and write about.  The coffee was described on the website as a medium roast, but turned out to be what I would consider a dark roast.  Still, it was roasted fresh and shipped whole bean, so I was optimistic if a little wary.

This coffee, he told me, was a Green Tipped Bourbon (bourbon as used here is a type of coffee plant, not the whiskey!) from the island of St. Helena, and I'm terrible at geography, so I kept thinking Mount St. Helena, which is also a volcano, but is in the state of Washington, and even though coffee thrives in volcanic soil, it also needs a tropical climate.  He tried to explain where the island of St. Helena is, that it's where Napoleon was exiled, and I'm thinking, "Isn't that near France?"

No, no it's not.

Thanks to Google, I was able to see that this extremely remote island is located in the south Atlantic Ocean, between the coasts of South America and Africa, but closer to Africa.  It is a volcanic, tropical island, like Hawaii, though much much smaller.  Like Hawaii, the conditions are perfect for growing delicious coffee, but coffee from St. Helena is even more rare than the beloved Hawaiian Kona because they aren't able to grow much on such a tiny piece of land.

So, knowing how rare (and expensive!) this coffee is made me very curious to try it.  The darkness of the beans worried me--I was afraid it would just taste burnt.  But this company, Coffee & Tea Limited, has been around a long time.  Though they tend to roast darker than newer roasters, they delivered a classic, consistent batch of beans.

It took me a few sips to get past the smokiness, but when I opened my mind, my taste buds followed suit.  It was smoky and sweet, with a smooth caramel ribbon of delight flowing quietly through the richness.  It was delicious, and full of flavor.  Each cup I brewed revealed a new layer of flavors, tasting almost like candy.  The wonder never ceased, and even increased by the last sip, leading me to do some more research on this magical lava.

I learned that the Green Tipped Bourbon is still believed to be a pure strain of coffee straight from the Yemeni port of Mocha.  And while the conditions on St. Helena are optimal for growing great coffee, the coffee still requires great care to produce a quality crop.  There has been neglect of the coffee on the island in recent years that led to smaller and less delicious crops, but the farming seems to be on the up and up.  Still, because it is such a small island (seriously, Google the Island of St. Helena--it's fascinating that this place is even occupied and civilized, it's so tiny and remote!), not much can be grown, and the rare delectable beans fetch about $89 per pound from roasters.  My dear husband splurged on a 4 oz bag for me, and the kind people of Coffee & Tea Limited threw in a 4 oz sample bag of some coffee from El Salvador for free!

Ultimately, while I was skeptical about the beans being dark roasted, this coffee experience was truly a treasure for me.  I learned a lot about geography, about one of the most remote civilized islands in the world, and about how much my husband cared to give me a coffee experience I didn't even know I wanted.

If you ever have a chance to try coffee from the Island of St. Helena, do it!

Sprinkles In My Coffee

"Sprinkles make everything better," my mom likes to say.

This saying goes back to summer excursions to McDonald's for soft serve ice cream cones.  They were always delicious, but wouldn't they be better with some sprinkles?  We thought so, so we started bringing our own containers of sprinkles to the drive thru with us.

We would pull into a parking space and dip our cones into the rainbow goodness.  The sprinkles did spice up the otherwise plain vanilla ice cream, but the laughter at our own absurdity was what really sprinkled the extra fun on those memories.

When I was struggling through my senior thesis in college, my mom sent me a care package, and I can't really remember anything that was in it except for the container of rainbow sprinkles marked, "Just in case."  Just the sight of those colorful specks of sugar and the meaning behind the small gift was enough to cheer me up.

I didn't think to use them though until one day when I knew I would need an extra boost of something to get through a long day of classes and work.  I was about to brew my daily coffee when I heard my mom's voice in my head saying, "Sprinkles make everything better."  Laughing at my absurdity, I decided to grind up some sprinkles with my coffee beans.

As the coffee brewed, I half-hoped that the rainbow sprinkles would somehow change the color of the coffee, but of course they didn't.  I thought I detected a slight extra bit of sweetness, but I'm pretty sure it was my imagination.  The placebo effect worked though.  I put the coffee in a travel mug and giggled all the way to class, just knowing that there were sprinkles in my coffee.  It was a little thing, but it brought me comfort and joy.

That's what I aimed to do with this blog from the beginning, to find the beauty in the little, ordinary things of every day, to add a little color to the things that are otherwise gray or dull.  Over the years, it has evolved into spiritual and personal reflections and ramblings, and more recently, experiments in all things coffee.

I have enjoyed writing all of it, but recently while I experimented with delicious coffees that I discovered from other companies across the country, a sad container of old, ordinary, just-okay coffee beans sat with its future undetermined.  I knew I couldn't waste it, but I couldn't drink it by itself either.  With the help of a coffee shop I discovered on Instagram, the idea of how to add something extra to this ordinary coffee began brewing in my head.

On Instagram, I stumbled on Vagabond Coffee in Jacksonville, Florida.  They make their own gourmet pop-tarts (they make their own pop-tarts!) AND they have sprinkle Fridays.  That's right, on Fridays they post pictures of delicious looking pop-tarts and lattes sprinkled with rainbow sprinkles.  And the cherry on top of all these sprinkles?  My mom was born in Jacksonville!  Apparently the soul of that place has sprinkles in it, and sprinkles are therefore in my blood.  Now I have a huge coffee crush on this coffee shop and cannot wait to (hopefully) go there with my mom when we go to the Jacksonville/St. Augustine area for a family reunion next summer.

Until then, I will have to make my own sprinkle coffee experience, hence, my solution for these ordinary coffee beans.  Since I work as a barista, I typically drink high quality coffee, and the thought of tainting that delicious black coffee with sprinkles has been far from my mind, though I do add them to my lattes on special occasions.  One thing I have absolutely never done is add them to cold brew. . . SO for the (name)sake of this blog, I owe it to you, to my mom, to myself to at least experiment with sprinkles in my cold brew coffee.  Just for fun.

And honestly, I had more fun taking pictures of the project than anything, but here we go!

Sprinkles, coffee, sunshine, an adorable hedgehog mug, and an adorable mug and saucer in my favorite color from one of my dearly beloved coffee friends

= HAPPY

The sprinkles and the beans.

The sprinkles and the beans ground together.

I added a total of about 2.5 tablespoons of rainbow sprinkles to 1 cup of beans and ground them together on the coarsest setting for cold brew.  I then added an extra .5 tablespoons of whole sprinkles to the grounds JUST FOR FUN.  If we were going for taste, that was WAY too many sprinkles, considering the fact that they are almost purely sugar but I was having too much fun taking pictures, and a single tablespoon would not have been enough fun to photograph.

Above left is all the sprinkles and coffee ground together with that extra splash of sprinkles.  How fun does that look?!  Above right is everything mixed together with 3.5 cups of water.

I definitely used a nut milk bag AND a strainer to filter this out.

The remnant sprinkly grounds.

Like I said, all the sugar made the cold brew way too sweet for me to drink more than half of a cup.  I added my cashew & brazil nut milk and it tasted like sweet cream with a coffee aftertaste.  Too sweet for my blood, but that sweetness may be just what some of you want in your coffee.  If you're feeling adventurous or have some bleh coffee you need to spice up, try adding sprinkles (and let me know how it goes)!

If nothing else, I guarantee you'll have fun and the absurdity will leave you laughing, which is always good for the soul!

Happy brewing!

Aw, Nuts!

Remember that Juan Carlos coffee from Honduras that made such a delicious cold brew, when I was Winning at Home Cold-Brew Coffee-ing?

Well, I recently made it as a coffee concentrate with the same method I use to make regular cold brew, only I let it sit and brew for 24 hours instead of 12.  I planned to use that concentrate to make an iced latte with my new homemade Cashew & Brazil Nut Milk.  Yes, I made my own nut milk.

And no, Justine, I didn't stand there and squeeze the milk out of the tiny nut udders. ;-)

I got the idea from Ashley Tomlinson over at The Little Black Coffee Cup.  She writes about #ThingsThatGoWithCoffee, and one day she posted a simple recipe for this homemade, creamy nut milk that doesn't separate and goes great with cold brew coffee.  It was her beautiful photos paired with both my love for cold brew coffee and my recent failed attempts to avoid dairy that motivated me to try this.

First, I'm trying to avoid dairy because 1) as I enter the throes of adulthood, my body is slowly losing its ability to properly digest it and 2) I find that even though I can handle small doses of it, the long-term effects of constant consumption have been suspicious enough that I want to cut it out as much as I can (obviously I will still have cheese on occasion, because come on, cheese!).

Second, my attempts to avoid it have failed thus far because 1) I love coffee but 2) I can't drink too much black coffee due to its acidity and 3) it tastes so darn good with milk or cream that 4) all of the milk alternatives out there that I have tried either aren't creamy enough to satisfy me (coconut milk) or overpower the flavor of the coffee too much (coconut milk, almond milk, soy milk).  Also, a lot of store-bought nut milks have lots of preservatives, which are mostly not bad for you (other than carrageenan, which hardly anyone uses anymore anyway), but I still try to avoid them.

SO, because all of these years working as a barista and my intense desire to be healthy and cut out most processed foods have caused me to be so high-maintenance about my coffee and my diet, I embarked on the new adventure of making my own nut milks at home.

With the inexpensive nut milk bag I got on Amazon, it was incredibly easy to make (trust me, if a recipe has more than 5 ingredients or too many complicated steps, I am OUT), and even with our cheap but reliable blender, it turned out really well!  It really doesn't separate much (which was a huge relief because I tried making my own pecan milk a few months back which was tasty, but it separated so completely that it was a little unappetizing to look at), though it could use a good shake before enjoying.  After I added it to some cold brew, I noticed that over a period of time, there was a little separation, but nothing that a gentle swirl didn't take care of.  

It is incredible creamy and has a nice, naturally sweet nuttiness to it that delightfully complements coffee, possibly (dare I say it) even BETTER than cow's milk.  I tried all the experiments with this, and it is just as good with hot coffee as cold brew.  It pairs very well with espresso, and when steamed for a latte, it isn't quite as smooth as cow's milk, but holds up just as well as almond milk.

So, I was really excited to try a latte with my homemade nut milk and homemade cold brew concentrate.  But as it turns out, the oh-so-magical Juan Carlos is just so delicious even when it's brewed twice as strong as it usually is that I only needed to add a small amount of my nut milk to it to make it creamy.

You will notice some white flecks from the milk.
I think these would be eliminated with a better blender,
but even if not, they don't affect the taste!

 Yesterday, though, I used an inexpensive Guatemalan coffee that I've had sitting around in a Glad container for months to make a cold brew concentrate.  I mixed half of that concentrate with half of my fresh batch of Cashew & Brazil Nut Milk and goodness gracious, it was creamy coffee perfection!

Now my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of enjoying coffee.  My plan is to experiment with different types of nuts and combinations that might go well with coffee.  Stay tuned!

Whiskey + Coffee = {An Experiment}

Once upon a time, when I was still a green barista, I discovered a whiskey barrel-aged coffee.  Boston Stoker released a very small batch of an experiment they had conducted aging a Brazilian coffee in a whiskey barrel.

This is an old practice, dating back to the 17th century, but that was the first I had heard of it.  At the time, I didn't even like whiskey unless it was drowned in Coke (so that it didn't have that burning, wood feeling as it slid down my throat).  This coffee smelled delicious, though, so I tried it.  And it was delicious.  The Brazilian coffee had a well-rounded, chocolaty body, nutty notes, and just a hint of whiskey.  It was wonderful, and five years later I'm still raving about it.

After that, I slowly began to really taste and enjoy whiskey on its own.  Of course, I started with the sweet stuff, Wild Turkey American Honey (YUM), because it didn't have that harsh, burning-wood taste to it.  It was smooth and delicious, and I could sip it slowly on its own.  Gradually, I came to appreciate the milder, smoother bourbons, like those from Four Roses and Buffalo Trace.  For my birthday, I received a fantastic bottle of Eagle Rare from my in-laws (thanks again!) that I enjoy on those evenings when I don't have to be at work the next morning.

So when I caught wind that Dark Matter Coffee (whose espresso blend I wrote about here recently) was about to release four batches of different barrel-aged coffees, I knew I had to try one.  This was my chance to revisit that experience I had five years ago, now fully armed with a greater knowledge of and appreciation for both coffee and whiskey.

I chose the Guatemala Catuai Natural aged in a barrel from a Single Barrel Four Roses Bourbon.  Since I had tried a couple of Four Roses Bourbons, I knew I enjoyed their smooth sweetness.  (And, okay, I'm not going to lie, I LOVE roses and that, Shakespeare, is what's in the name.)

When I opened the bag of freshly roasted beans, I received a face-full of chocolate and whiskey.  It was lovely, but very overpowering.  I decided to let it sit for a day before brewing it.  The next day when I went to smell the beans, the whiskey woodiness was so potent, it was like sticking my face in the barrel itself.  

As the coffee brewed, the aroma of whiskey filled our tiny apartment.  I poured myself a little sip in my newly acquired and totally adorable hedgehog cup that I now use for sipping tastes of coffee and whiskey.

 I took a few sips to sift through the layers.  The whiskey aroma was strong and overpowering.  The body was very light and smooth, and the acidity was almost completely muted.  I tasted some very sweet, fruity notes that I enjoyed. . .until they were overpowered by the whiskey.  As the coffee cooled, it began to taste like wood. . . I took another sip and...yep, wood.  It tasted exactly like wood.

It was as if the coffee hadn't been able to stand up to the powers of the whiskey saturated wood surrounding it.  I decided that maybe if I let the coffee sit and off-gas for a few more days, it would settle and come into its own.  I tried it again today (about a week later), and the whiskey was a bit milder, but the coffee was still lost in the sea of whiskey.  And maybe it's because I've been watching a lot of Scrubs lately, but I got lost in this daydream:

Our brave coffee stands on a wooden plank above a stormy sea of whiskey.  It has been sentenced to death and shoved into a wooden barrel. The swords of enemy pirates poke and prod until the barrel rolls into the sea with a splash.  The entombed coffee rolls and fights against the waves until it succumbs to the force of the whiskey, and drowns slowly, down into the depths...The remains of the coffee are but a drop in the sea.

Whiskey is a good thing. . . in moderation.  It is delicious.  It takes the edge off of a rough day.  But in the morning, when I sit down to have a cup of coffee, I want to taste coffee.  Maybe I simply don't have the taste acquired yet for real, hardcore whiskey.  But I do have a taste for real, hardcore coffee, and I didn't taste nearly enough in this batch.

My theory, based on the limited knowledge I have of the process and the two barrel-aged coffees I have actually tried, is that this Guatemalan coffee simply did not have enough body to stand up against the waves of whiskey in that barrel resulting in a coffee that tasted like straight whiskey.  On the other hand, the Brazilian coffee from that original batch I tried had just the right amount of body so the result was a coffee with a hint of whiskey.

The moral of the story:

Dark Matter Coffee + 3 Floyds Beer = GOOD

Dark Matter Coffee + Four Roses Bourbon = I'D RATHER JUST HAVE THE WHISKEY, THANKS

Winning at Home Cold Brew Coffee-ing

Today, I woke up winning.

I made my cold brew for today yesterday so I wouldn't have to make any coffee on my day off.  And this particular batch of cold brew was de-licious.

One of the newest coffees we have at work is Boston Stoker's Juan Carlos Organic from Honduras, and I am in love with it.  Its notes of orange, blueberry and brown sugar create a smooth and sweet citrus crispness.  Its complexity makes me want to sing Katy Perry's "Firework" and shove a sample at every person who looks even remotely interested in coffee so we can love on it together.  I've been excited to try this one as a cold brew, especially now that I think I have perfected my home cold brew method.

After my last post, my husband bought me flowers

I think he likes me.

AND I discovered an important tidbit about my homemade cold brew.  I made another batch of Dark Matter's Unicorn Blood and let it chill for an hour or so before drinking it.  It was so much better than the last time when I added ice to the room temperature brew.  It brought out so much more of the coffee's sweetness that I had missed in my other brew methods.  Maybe this is a "duh" for most people, but whatever, sometimes I'm impatient and I don't want to wait for my coffee, especially after already waiting 12 hours.  In any case, now I know to plan my cold brewing better.

So yesterday when I got up before 4 am to get ready for work after about three hours of fitful sleep (during which I dreamed solely of coffee), I started a batch of cold brew with this new, magical Honduran coffee.  The beans were ground the day before (I don't think my husband or our neighbors would appreciate me grinding coffee at that unholy hour of the morning) so all I had to do was measure out the grounds with the appropriate amount of water into my handy-dandy cold-brewer (which is actually an old Budweiser beer pitcher that we have laying around--don't judge me; it works really well).

Around 5 or 6 pm, after the cold brew had been sitting for 13 or 14 hours and I had worked a full shift of barista-ing, taken a long nap, and had my own throwback 'N Sync jam-fest on my search for food, I went ahead and strained the coffee, and put it in a pitcher with a lid in the refrigerator.  It was waiting for me this morning when I needed it, and I tell you what, it was as magical as I hoped it would be.

The first sip danced and rolled around my tongue in a taste sensation.  Even after I swallowed it, I continued to taste the different layers of goodness that lingered.  In a coffee professional's terms, it was like a crisp, bright orange with a sweet blueberry syrup body and a brown sugar finish.  In my own personal terms, it was like a beautiful, sunny day at the beach, full of love and tacos, crashing waves and salty breezes.

Perfection.

All around, it was a win.  If you would like to be a winner too, check out my cold brew recipe below and make it your own!  Let me know how it goes, and hit me up with any questions, comments, or suggestions.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I love talking about coffee.

Happy brewing!

Easy Magically Delicious Homemade Cold Brew Coffee
*Note:  it looks more complicated than it is because I like to be thorough.  #sorrynotsorry

What you will need:

• 1 cup of your choice of coffee beans
• a coffee grinder
  (*Note:   If you don't have one at home, don't worry. You can usually take your beans to your local grocery store or non-pretentious coffee shop or wherever you bought them and ask nicely for them to grind your coffee for you on a coarse grind, like for a French Press.  I do this all the time at work for people who bought their coffee beans elsewhere, and it is not a problem at all.)
• 3 cups filtered room temperature water
  (*Note: The water doesn't have to be filtered, but it definitely helps, especially if your city's water is as terrible as mine is. The room temperature thing is vital though, because if the water is too hot or too cold, it can cause the coffee to taste bitter or harsh.  I just keep a gallon jug of drinking water handy on the counter so it's there at the right temperature when I need it.)
• a pitcher or container of some sort large enough to hold at least 6 cups  (*Note:  A glass container like a mason jar might be better than a plastic one taste-wise, but I use what I have available, which is an old, plastic beer pitcher.  I also recommend something with a spout so that you don't end up with a splashy coffee-ground mess when filtering the coffee.)
• a lid or something to cover the above container (I use plastic wrap and a rubber band)
• a spatula or wooden spoon or something to stir with
• a kitchen strainer and/or some cheesecloth or nut milk bag
• (*Note:  I just use a standard metal kitchen strainer because I don't mind a few stray grounds in my coffee--I consider it a bonus!  If that bothers you, I suggest using cheesecloth or a nut milk bag to help catch the smaller ground particles.)
• a pitcher or container with a lid to store the coffee in the refrigerator (I got a cheap quart-sized Rubbermaid pitcher for 3 bucks at Meijer.)

What you will need to do:

1.  Grind 1 cup of your choice of coffee beans on a coarse grind and dump the coffee grounds into your container of choice.
2.  Add 3 cups of room temperature water and stir for about 10-30 seconds.
3.  Cover the container and let the concoction sit at room temperature for about 12 hours.
(*Note:  Keep your sitting cold brew away from excessive light or heat--like windows and stoves.  ALSO, 12 hours is relative. I let mine sit for 12-14 hours, depending on what I have going on. I wouldn't let it sit much longer than 14, though, or you will end up with more of a concentrate.  However, if a concentrate is what you're going for, I recommend letting it sit for 24 hours.  I haven't experimented with concentrates yet, though, so I don't have much advice on the subject beyond that. . .)
4.  After 12ish hours, remove the lid and give the coffee a little stir to loosen the coffee grounds.
5.  Set your strainer (and/or cheesecloth/nut milk bag) over the opening of the pitcher or container you plan to store your coffee in.
6.  Slowly pour the coffee through the strainer into the pitcher.
(*Note:  If you can manage it, it helps sometimes to use your spoon/spatula to hold back the coffee grounds and let more liquid come through so your strainer doesn't get overloaded with grounds and your counter doesn't get covered in coffee splatter.)
7.  Put the lid on the pitcher and let sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
8.  Enjoy within 3 days for best flavor (will technically last a week or so).

Yields:  about 16 oz (2 cups) of magically delicious cold brewed coffee.
*You can easily make more, just make sure you keep your coffee to water ratio at 1:3 and have a big enough container to hold the coffee and the water with at least about an inch of room at the top so the coffee can breathe.  Otherwise, it will overflow like a volcano.

In Lieu of Flowers

"Some husbands buy their wives flowers," mine said when he came home from work one day carrying a brown paper bag, "but I got you this."

I excitedly opened the bag, wondering what kind of funky, rare beer he found for me that day.  He does that sometimes.  For the first birthday I had while we were dating, he bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a growler (a 64 ounce jug) of a delicious beer.  I knew he was a keeper.  Over the years, he has alternated surprising me with flowers and unique beers that I would like.  He knows me so well.

 As I opened the bag, I could tell right away that it was a Three Floyds (an extremely popular brewery out of Indiana that our grocery store only gets small, rare shipments of.  They are so popular that their followers can practically smell the shipments as they arrive so these beers rarely sit on the shelves for long.).  He told me to ignore the picture on the label (rightly so, because it was a disturbing image of people's brains exploding. . .but the funky, creative artwork is fitting for Three Floyds' funky, creative concoctions) and just read the name and description.  I saw the words "Coffee Stout" and I hugged him, because beer and coffee are two of my favorite things, and if you put them together for me, I will hug you.

I've had many coffee beers in my day, but my first was still my favorite:  Schlafly's Coffee Stout.  Schlafly is a small brewery in St. Louis with a small, local, family-feel that I fell in love with when I visited a few years ago.  Their Coffee Stout is brewed with coffee from Kaldi's, a small St. Louis roaster.  The French roasted coffee brewed with the rich, dark stout was the perfect, magical blend of coffee and beer, my first experience of two of my favorite things in one bottle:  liquid happiness.

Since then, I have tasted many coffee beers.  Most of them have been good, but none have tasted quite like that Schlafly Coffee Stout (*side-note* this goes for pumpkin beers, as well.  I have tried a lot of pumpkin beers, but Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale is the BEST bottled pumpkin beer I have ever had.  It is the perfect blend of sweet and spicy, pumpkin and ale.  Nom.).  A lot of coffee beers are unbalanced and sloppy tasting, with either the coffee or the beer overpowering the drink, but Schlafly provides a great balance.  It is the standard to which I hold all coffee beers, and this Three Floyds Wig Splitter was no exception.

The description on the bottle stated that this is "an oatmeal stout brewed with freshly ground espresso for those of us who like a little beer with their coffee or a little bit of coffee with their beer."  Grammatical inconsistency aside (the sentence shifts from first person to third person--"those of us who like... their coffee"--don't get me started on the frustrating rise of grammatical laziness in professional business writing! Or do get me started and hire me to be your editor.), this descriptor set a high bar that most coffee beers don't reach.  It boldly proclaimed that it would be adequately balanced between coffee and beer.  And you know what?  It was.

This brew was deliciously balanced so that the flavors of coffee and beer worked seamlessly to create something beautiful. The espresso that Three Floyds used actually brightened the stout and gave the brew a delicately crisp acidity that danced on my tongue in a way that forces me to rank this coffee stout up there with Schlafly's. Because Schlafly uses a dark, French roast coffee to deepen the richness of the stout, where Three Floyds uses an espresso to brighten it, I declare them equal, but different.

After making my assessment of this beer, I was determined to try the espresso that was used in the brewing.  A little detective work by my husband revealed the winner as Unicorn Blood, an espresso blend by Dark Matter Coffee out of Chicago.  I promptly ordered myself a bag and spent my time waiting for my freshly roasted beans to arrive in the mail by acquainting myself with the coffee company via their website.

Like Three Floyds, Dark Matter Coffee is known for creating funky, unique blends.  They are committed to great coffee, but they are also committed to creativity, instead of the typical stoic, black-and-white approach that many seriously scientific coffee companies take these days. The fact that their espresso blend is called Unicorn Blood, for example, is simply awesome.  In the Harry Potter world, unicorn blood is known for its magic healing properties, that it can save a person who drinks it even if they are a breath away from death.  Isn't that how we all feel about our morning coffee?!

And come on, check out this bag:

IT'S A UNICORN PRANCING IN A PORTAFILTER.

I wasn't able to try this coffee as espresso, but I tried it both hot and cold brewed.  I expected it to be sweeter than it was (maybe because of the sweet, happy face of this unicorn prancing around in a portafilter), but it was nutty and fun, kind of like this whole absurd experiment.

In any case, I enjoyed tasting these creative coffee concoctions.  And if you learned nothing else from this post, let it be a lesson as the adult version of the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie:

If you give your wife a coffee beer...she'll spend a week analyzing it and the coffee used to brew it so she can write a long, rambly blog post about it, complete with pictures.

Thank you, and you're welcome.

At the Heart of It All

Whenever we turn on the news these days, someone else has died a violent death.  Or dozens have.  Or hundreds.  It's sickening, confusing, and frightening.  We don't know how to process it.  We often turn to social media where commentaries and arguments have sprung up pointing the finger at others in blame and isolating the problem to one issue, race, religion or another.

But isn't that part of the problem?  Isn't it a problem that we are so ready to jump to conclusions and harsh judgments and stereotypes of our fellow man?  That we are determined to see the worst in one another, and to take sides against one another?

It's easy to be discouraged as these horrific events continue to unfold around the world, across the ocean, in our own neighborhoods.  It's a natural reaction to want to lay blame somewhere.  We want to see someone come to justice.  But there isn't any one person at fault here.  We are all part of the problem.

As a society, we have become selfish, rude, demanding, quick to anger, quick to judge, quick to blame others for our own mistakes.  We are a culture of waste, and we have begun to see one another as disposable.  We don't see each other as human beings.  We see the car in front of us driving like an idiot and it fills us with road rage.  We see our service workers as robots or low-lifes and treat them like crap.  We see the woman with the screaming child in the grocery store and judge her for obviously being a terrible parent.

We don't take the time to put ourselves in another's shoes, to recognize the difficulties that the people around us are facing, to see ourselves in one another.

We are all part of the problem, because we are all human. Rather than be discouraged by that, though, we should take heart in it.  Since we are all part of the problem, we can all be part of the solution.  We are all in this together.

We can stop pointing fingers, stop labeling the symptoms of the problem (racism, terrorism, homophobia) and acknowledge the root of all the problems:  our lack of respect for the dignity and equal value of each and every human life.

We can start overlooking the small annoyances and frustrations we feel from other people in our daily lives.  We can treat each other with kindness and patience, whether or not we receive the same treatment back.  We can attempt to understand the differences of others, rather than fear or hate them.

This isn't easy to do, by any means, but if we all stop making hateful, angry commentary on the tragedy and start feeling it in our hearts, we can work together to slowly but surely bring about peace.

I recognized yesterday my part in the problem when I received some news about an old, loyal friend. I learned that she is joining forces with someone that I believed we both couldn't stand.  When I thought of all those years I had to stand between them and fight them off one another, I was shocked that now they would be uniting as a team. I don't know the details of the situation, but my initial reaction was to feel betrayed and hurt that my friend would consort with the "enemy" in this way.

When I felt the word enemy rise up in my heart, I remembered the horrible, hateful killings of recent days.  Is this person really an enemy?  This is a person who we had perpetual misunderstandings with, but who never meant us any real harm.  We chose to hold on to angry, bitter grudges and refused to ever see this person as a person, but rather as an obstacle to our freedom.  But the real obstacle was in our hearts, a wall we had built ourselves to keep this person out, to side against this common enemy.

I want so much to stay angry, bitter, hateful even, toward this person, but I know that if I see someone like this person as an enemy, I am part of the problem.  If I can't forgive and let go of petty grudges and the annoyances that this person's differences have caused me over the years, how can we let go of hate in our world?

I remember my loyal friend's constant example of a pure love for Jesus, of her ability to love easily, even to the point of folly.  And maybe she has found a way in her heart to forgive this person, to love this person despite their differences, so that they can work together in peace.

That is peacemaking, friends.  That is the solution.  Letting go of grudges.  Choosing love, kindness, generosity in the littlest things of every day.  Smiling while going through the motions.  Responding to rudeness with kindness and patience.  Truly desiring what is best for other people, desiring their success, their well-being--whether or not we like them.  Forgiving others so that the walls in our hearts can be destroyed by love, so that all we have in our hearts is love.

In a few days, we will likely have forgotten about these tragedies, or moved on to mourning the next ones.  But let's please, please, please never forget that we belong to one another.  That all us humans are in this together.  

Please.