Aged Sumatra is back in reserve stores this month, and I am so happy! Aged Sumatra is something I look forward to every year, and it’s what makes some of our seasonal coffees so special. The cedary and spicy notes you find in Anniversary blend and Christmas blend are due to the aged Sumatra. This lot, lot number 571, has been aging for 4 years! It might sound like a long time, but it is worth the wait. Maple and toasted marshmallow notes with a syrupy sweetness and heavy body….
Growing up, around Christmas time, my mom would always make her famous curry and serve it with a mandarin orange salad. It is probably one of my fondest food memories. I wanted to take that idea of curry and mandarin oranges and apply it to a coffee tasting. Ethiopia Gedeb is the perfect coffee for this. Ethiopia Gedeb has intense apricot and ginger notes to it, I knew those flavors would compliment curry very well.
I wanted to create a tasting that was a twist on a classic snack; french fries and ketchup….
While I was in Sacramento, I stopped at Teavana and stocked up on their seasonal teas. (We do not have a Teavana store nearby, sadly). So many of my friends love pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, and I thought they might appreciate the pumpkin spice brûlée tea from Teavana. It’s the perfect mix of pumpkin, cocoa, caramel, vanilla and ginger.
When I came up with this recipe, I wasn’t planning on blogging about it, but I did post it on facebook, as I was tossing ingredients in the pan. My friend Melody, tried it, loved it and blogged about it! The response was overwhelmingly positive, so I thought I would add it here as well.
To compliment the warm spice notes these pecans have, I am pairing them with Starbucks Thanksgiving Blend!…
Every Friday, my store does something called French Press Friday. This idea was adopted from another partner, Cookie, who is on the other side of the country. Thanks to social media, we were able to connect and she inspired us to commit to doing french press Friday each and every week. By doing this, we have completed our passports, and now are moving on to Reserve coffees! I am kind of a coffee hoarder. I’ll get a coffee, and keep it hidden until I have a special tasting or a meeting. Mexico Guadalupe Zajú is the Reserve subscription for October, so I really wanted to use that, but the idea for this tasting goes a bit further back.
In March, at the Starbucks shareholders meeting, I was able to sample a reserve coffee I had never seen or heard of before; Mexico Finca Nueva Esperanza. A few of the Roastery partners were sampling it on the siphon, and I was struck at how sweet and soft this coffee was, with vibrant notes of almond and lemon. I knew I had to have this coffee, and I knew that I wanted to make conchas, because the artwork of the card reminded me of the neon sugar paste. Getting this coffee was not an easy task…..
There is a small window, right before the Christmas mania begins, where Starbucks Thanksgiving blend appears in stores. Thanksgiving blend was created in partnership with Seattle restauranteur Tom Douglas in 2008. The goal was to create a blend that could pair with both sweet and savory foods, a culinary coffee to compliment a Thanksgiving feast. Ten blends were created, but Tom and master blender, Anthony Carrol, narrowed it down to two. Tom cooked a Thanksgiving feast, and paired the two coffees with the meal. When paired with the herbed stuffing, one coffee stood out.
Thanksgiving Blend has become a tradition is many homes over the past 8 years. It is a blend of coffees from Sumatra and Guatemala, spicy and full bodied with subtle herbal notes.
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Holiday is just around the corner, and that means my favorite coffees are here! Thanksgiving blend, Christmas blend, aged Sumatra and Holiday blend!
For a long time, Holiday blend was the same as Christmas blend, just in a different package. In 2013 that changed, and Holiday blend became it’s own blend of Latin American and Indonesian coffees. Holiday blend does not have aged Sumatra, and is a little less intense than our vintage Christmas blend. I know people say it’s too early, but as soon as I saw Holiday blend in the stores, I became so excited. It really is the most wonderful time of the year!
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With the holidays approaching, the amount of baking I do drastically increases. I love baking treats and bringing them into my store! A few years ago I discovered that you can bake directly in to sample cups, so doing this is a staple once the red cups come out. There is nothing more adorable than a peppermint mocha cupcake baked into a red sample cup. I am getting a little ahead of myself. While I was in Sacramento, we had extra sample cups. The baristas gave them to me, and you know I brought them all the way back to Michigan with a project in mind. Reserve cupcake pairing. So here it is; Colombia El Quebradón with snickerdoodle cupcakes!
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Over the past year I have been having so much fun with this blog, and connecting with partners all over the world. Something that I have been thinking about is having ‘guest bloggers’, coffee masters contributing their recipes and pairings. The idea that this blog, eventually, become a hub for coffee masters. Several months ago, one of my friends, Michelle, came up with a custom cold brew blend named cool beans, cold brew. Michelle is a talented artist and coffee master, so I knew she would be perfect to be the first guest blogger here.
And then life happened. To both of us. Michelle had some issues to deal with, and then suddenly I had to fly to California to be with my family. Coincidently, Michelle lives in Sacramento, which is very close to where my family lives, so instead of having a guest blogger, we got together and drank coffee together!…
Tomorrow is National Coffee day, and I really wanted to highlight the return of México Chiapas in a serious way. What better way to honor a coffee and the many hands it has passed through than making a feast?
Food is culturally something that connects people, and I wanted to create something that could be a communal experience. It is said that there are two things that people want to do together; laugh and eat. So gather your friends, put down your phones, and share an incredible meal with an incredible cup of coffee.
As some of you may know, my dad just passed away, and being here with family, sharing these meals, sharing stories and creating new memories really made me remember how special these moments are.
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If there is one food I could eat for the rest of my life, it would be chips & dip. Hands down. Especially guacamole. I love a chunky guacamole, with loads of tomatoes and cilantro, just like Alton Brown taught me to make. One problem.. my husband hates cilantro 🙁 Some people have an allergy where cilantro tastes like soap. My poor husband is one of these people. We often clash on the subject of cilantro when I’m cooking dinner, so I have learned to work around it. If you think about it, a lot of the flavors in guacamole are found in Italian cooking; tomatoes, onions, garlic, and what herb goes better with those flavors than thyme? It’s thyme for guacamole :)…