My Morning Coffee

Eric and I have a favorite brand of coffee -- Baltimore Coffee and Tea.  There are a couple locations near us that sell the whole, roasted beans, but we also like to visit one of their shops in Timonium.  This location is also their roasting plant and it smells amazing in there!  Coffee bean freshness has everything to do with when the beans were roasted.  So we enjoy incredibly good espresso every morning because we are buying freshly roasted whole beans from a nearby location and grinding them as needed.  We have also tried ordering their coffee online and it arrived the next day.  Great company, great product.

We get the organic espresso blend of beans.  That goes in to the Breville BES870XL Barista Express Espresso Machine with Grinder, and out comes amazing espresso with golden crema.  The Breville espresso machine is not the kind of appliance that anyone can just open and use.  There is a learning curve that goes with it.  Barista skills would be helpful here.  I myself had no barista skills when I first used this machine, so we did make a lot of bad cups of coffee in the beginning.  Eventually we found the right grind size and amount for our freshly roasted beans, so now we almost never have to adjust those settings.  When it comes to packing the ground coffee into the portafilter, there is a science to how hard you do or don't tamp the grounds, and all of these things determine how well your espresso shots will turn out.  Eric mastered this process first, because he seriously enjoys overcoming challenges.  Now we can both make beautiful double shots of espresso.

Eric has been weaning himself off sugar, so he drinks his coffee with just a touch of sugar and sometimes without milk.  I drink coffee with less sugar in it than a Starbucks drink, but I still like it light and sweet.  Lately I have been liking a particular latte recipe:

double shot of organic espresso
2 teaspoons organic cane sugar
1/2 tablespoon of unsalted Kerrygold butter
1/2 teaspoon of blackstrap molasses
1/2 teaspoon of bourbon vanilla extract
8 oz of steamed and foamed organic whole milk

I think I stumbled on the butter idea about two weeks ago when I heard about Starbucks having a butterscotch latte.  What is butterscotch?  Butter, brown sugar, salt, and cream.  What is brown sugar?  Sugar and molasses.  So instead of going through the work to make butterscotch, I just added the same ingredients to my latte.  Everything goes into the bottom of the coffee cup, then the espresso is brewed on top.  Steamed milk is stirred in.  I am no fancy foamed milk artist, so I just top the whole thing with way too much foam.  It's just fun to drink all the foam -- kind of like how my four year old likes to blow bubbles in her milk.  

So this has become the morning ritual, no matter how I flavor it.  After drinking this at home, I don't care for the taste of any other coffee anymore, especially the gross Starbucks lattes.  They don't taste fresh anymore, are usually pretty weak, and have a chemical aftertaste.  YUCK.  Much better and cheaper to make it yourself at home, with all the pride and satisfaction that comes with creating something delicious and just how you like it.