Best Coffee Treats
About a billion of us worldwide drink coffee. But sometimes we are not so much interested in brewing up a cup of java. Rather we would like a treat with the taste of coffee. Coffee treats range from coffee flavored candy to coffee added to a great variety of cooked items. By in large the best coffee treats come from the best coffee and by in large the reliably best coffee time after time comes from Colombia. A great source of coffee and coffee treats from the coffee heartland of Colombia comes from Café Quindío. These folks offer great coffee and great coffee treats every time direct from Colombia.
Café Quindío
Cafe Quindío S.A.S. is a coffee roaster founded in 1991 with three employees in Armenia, Quindío, Colombia. Over the years the company has grown to include a full scale roasting operation in Armenia and forty-two coffee shops located across Colombia. In addition to its Colombian outlets Café Quindío has a US outlet located in Florida whose online address is https://www.cafequindiousa.com/. For coffee and coffee treat lovers in the USA this is a great source of coffee products.
Coffee Treats
Outstanding coffee treats offered by Café Quindío include merenguitos, coffee caramels, and coffee cookies, both with and without sugar. For those unfamiliar with merenguitos, these are Cuban meringue cookies made with sugar and egg whites baked at low temperature to come out crispy and light. Other types of common coffee treats include roasted whole coffee beans covered with chocolate, hard candy infused with coffee, toffee with coffee added, and coffee gummies.
Are Coffee Treats Good for You?
We have known for years that coffee is good for us. It reduces the likelihood of getting type II diabetes, various forms of cancer, heart disease, stokes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and more. We also know that a lot of coffee drinks contain sugar, cholesterol, and other items that may work against the beneficial effects of a cup of black coffee. Such is the case with coffee treats. For example, the maximum benefit of diabetes reduction with coffee is about 33% when one drinks six cups a day. If you are getting obese because of high sugar intake, you are working against the beneficial effects of your coffee. In such a case you would do better drinking black coffee and skipping the treats. Having said that, coffee treats in moderation are tasty and coffee is good for you in many ways.
Easy Coffee Merengue Recipe
If you like to bake at home you do not necessarily need to buy your coffee treats but rather can make them yourself. An easy coffee merengue recipe includes egg whites, sugar, vanilla, and espresso powder. Beat the egg whites at progressively faster speeds until peaks form. Then fold in sugar until it is dissolved, the mix is shiny, and peaks are very hard. At this point you should be able to turn the mixing bowl on its side or even upside down and not have any dripping. Then fold in vanilla and espresso powder to taste. You can either beat more until you have a uniform color or you can just beat until it has a swirly appearance. Then lay out waxed paper and cover with dollops of the merengue mix. This works best on a cold and dry winter day and can be a bit troublesome in a hot and humid climate. The taste will be the same but light and crispy can be a challenge when the air is humid and hot.
Impact of Starbucks Strike
Workers at Starbucks outlets in Seattle, Chicago, and New York went on strike with just a few days left until Christmas 2025. Starbucks has offered a 1.5% raise which workers say does not even keep up with inflation. How will the Starbucks strike affect your morning latte, and will it affect the price of your coffee going forward? It occurs to us that the folks most responsible for getting you a good cup of coffee are the ones who are paid the least. Coffee farmers and the folks who brew your Java are at opposite ends of the coffee supply chain and get the least while the “middlemen” always seem to get a healthier cut!
Starbucks Strike
According to CBS News workers at more than 500 Starbucks outlets have voted to unionize, are in negotiations with Starbucks, are unhappy with Starbucks’ contract offers and are striking. It should be noted that Starbucks has more than 10,000 outlets in the USA. Thus only five percent of Starbucks stores are involved in the strike. Issues include unfair labor practices and failure to come to an agreement in 2024 as promised by the company. The biggest issue, however, is the paltry wage increase being offered by the company at a time when wagers are rising across virtually all industries and the economy is humming along in good shape. Meanwhile the Starbucks CEO is expected to make $100 million in 2024! The company notes that they already pay an average of $18 an hour and that benefits include paid family leave, free college tuition, and health care. They contend that total benefits average $30 a hour for a barista who works at least 20 hours a week.
Working at Starbucks
The average income for a Starbucks barista is $25,000 a year and Starbucks pays a fourth of its yearly revenue in salaries. As a point of comparison the average worker in the USA makes $68,000 a year. However, the average Starbucks worker is 23 or 24 years old. The average weekly income in this age group is $757 which comes to $37,850 for a fifty week working year. The point is that Starbucks workers not only make less than the national average but also make less than the average for the age group of their workers. Another point of comparison is that entry level restaurant workers average $29,000 a year and the average salary is $39,000. Those who have the most experience can make closer to $70,000 a year.
Work Experience at Starbucks vs Starbucks Business Prospects
Despite the fact that some Starbucks stores are unionized and are on strike, as a rule Starbucks workers give the job a high rating for job satisfaction. Part of this is the fact that the benefits are considered good. Job satisfaction at Starbucks ranks in the top 20% of companies of similar size. Looking at the company point of view, Starbucks has issues that it needs to deal with. One of these we wrote about, which is the huge number of drink options for a company that sells coffee. Waits can be long, which leads to unhappy customers. The company has spent a lot of time and effort on its management team but seems to have overlooked the folks who make the daily business work, the baristas. In the end we expect to see more Starbucks stores unionize and more strikes!
How Good Is Dunkin Donuts Coffee?
People who want a great cup of coffee commonly go to their local coffee shop. Folks in places in Manhattan, San Francisco, or Seattle may go to their local “third wave” coffee shot where they know the precise location where their coffee was grown down to the coffee farm. If you go to a Starbucks you are going to be deluged with choices. If you go to a “third wave” coffee shop you may end up paying an exorbitant price for a unique coffee that is not more enjoyable or satisfying that you could brew at home. Many folks find that they can get a reliably excellent cup of coffee where they pick up their donuts, namely at Dunkin Donuts. How good is Dunkin Donuts coffee?
A Good Cup of Coffee or Just Showing Off?
Years ago this author came to a decision regarding the purchase of a bottle of wine. The prices involved will indicate how many years ago it was and the economic circumstances of the writer at the time. My basic price for a bottle of wine was $5 but sometimes I would splurge on a $10 bottle because I could tell the difference between the two and felt that the extra price was worth it. However, when I tried a $20 bottle of wine I discovered that I did not appreciate a similar increase I quality as I doubled the purchase price. In other words, the move up to better grapes for a $10 bottle of wine was worth the price. The move up to a $20 bottle of wine was just showing off for my friends and dinner guests.
My point is that the same reasoning can be applied to a reliably good cup of coffee at a good price. Starbucks generally has great coffee and your local “third wave” coffee shop may have even better coffee. But is the uptick in quality worth the uptick in price and the fuss and bother of choosing from hundreds or even thousands of options? If you want to get a reliably good cup of coffee at a good price, consider getting your coffee at the same place that you pick up a donut or a dozen, Dunkin Donuts.
Dunkin Donuts Coffee
Dunkin Donuts serves high quality Arabica coffee. It does not serve just black coffee. It also does not have thousands of options. Think of their coffee menu as a trimmed down list of traditional coffee shop options. An advantage of this approach is that their staff is not overwhelmed by requests for endless variations of flavored coffees. Another is that they can focus on making basic and great coffee every time. Part of this approach comes from the fact that they are not a chain of coffee shops but rather sell donuts, bagels, muffins, breakfast sandwiches, wraps and snacks. By limiting their coffee menu they can focus on the food that they sell and use their good coffee as simply an additional selling point.
Cenicafé and Coffee from Colombia
Colombia grows great coffee. Its production is virtually all arabica coffee. Colombian coffee commands a price generally higher than the world coffee market price because of its quality. This great quality comes from coffee being grown in rich volcanic soil by families that have been in the coffee farming business for generations. However, Colombians have had to overcome various threats to their coffee business including the arrival of coffee leaf rust and the destruction of significant portions of their coffee crop. The Colombian institution that has repeatedly come to the rescue of Colombian coffee production in the face of plant diseases and pests is Cenicafé, the Colombian National Coffee Research Center. Cenicafé also works with coffee farmers to promote sustainable coffee farming, natural resource preservation, and continued production of great coffee in the face of a changing climate.
Cenicafe and New Colombian Coffees
A major threat to coffee production everywhere is coffee leaf rust, Hemileia vastratrix. This fungal disease first affected coffee crops in the East Indies and around the Indian Ocean in the middle of the 19th century. It was a big reason why growers in places like Ceylon (Sri Lanka) switched to tea and the English came to drink tea instead of coffee. The disease spread across Africa to the Atlantic coast by the 1950s and reached Brazil in 1971. It reached Colombia in 1983 and caused as much as 30% crop loss by the 21st century.
Cenicafé, which was founded in 1938, took up the task of protecting Colombian coffee production from coffee leaf rust even before the plant disease arrived in Colombia. The most recent leaf rust resistant arabica coffee developed by Cenicafe is Cenicafe1 which is a cross between the Caturra variety and a leaf rust resistant strain from the East Indies on the island of Timor. The strain is also resistant to coffee berry disease.
Previous varieties developed by Cenicafé include Castillo, Colombia, and Tabi. Castillo is a cross between a Timor hybrid and Caturra which is a rust resistant mutation from Brazil. Likewise Colombia is a cross between Caturra and a Timor hybrid. Tabi was developed by crossing a Timor hybrid with Bourbon and Typica. Each of these has qualities making it the best choice for specific areas and altitudes in Colombia.
Where Is Cenicafé?
While the main Cenicafe facility is in Chinchiná, Caldas, they have eight research stations scattered throughout the Colombian coffee producing region. These stations can be found throughout the three parallel mountain ranges that comprise the Andes as they pass through Colombia and include a variety of microclimates.
Who Buys Colombian Cenicafé Coffee?
The biggest buyer of Colombian coffee by far is the USA at about 29 kilotons a year. The next step down is Germany followed by Canada, Japan, and Belgium each in the 50 kiloton to 55 kiloton range. The total sum of exports to all other nations comes to about 200 kilotons. The biggest individual coffee exporter from Colombia is the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia or Colombian National Coffee Growers Federation which is the parent organization of Cenicafé.
Brazil Drought Drives Price of Coffee Up
Brazil is having its worst drought in seven decades. The result for the coffee market is less and higher priced coffee. In late November of 2024 the NYMEX coffee price topped $3.30 a pound, up from $2.50 in October and $1.40 in October of 2023! Although the price of coffee has more than doubled that does not mean that there is less than half as much coffee available. Rather it means that the market is bidding up the price to make sure that individual buyers get as much coffee as they want. This situation is bad news for coffee farmers in Brazil but good news for coffee growers in Central America, Mexico, Hawaii, and parts of South America not affected by the drought.
Pacific Weather Patterns and the Climate in the Americas
The weather has turned dry in large parts of Brazil due to La Niña. La Niña is the opposite Pacific Ocean weather pattern from El Niño. Cold water rises to the surface along the west coast of South America. This happens because strong equatorial winds drive warm air and water west across the Pacific Ocean towards Indonesia. El Niño and La Niña do not limit their climatic effects to the Pacific Ocean, however. North Americans are familiar with the torrential rains across the western US states and storms across the Midwest with El Niño. That part of the oscillating pattern that concerns us in this instance is that La Niña causes much less rain in the coffee producing regions of Brazil and much more rain across the Amazon regions of Colombia and Venezuela. However, while rainfall can be plentiful in the Colombian Cafetero, it generally helps produce good harvests as it is typically not so excessive.
Where Is Coffee Coming From?
Brazil and Vietnam are still the leading coffee producers despite drought conditions in both nations. However, coffee production in both nations could well be off by twenty-five to thirty percent in each case.. In an average year Brazil produces about 39% of the world’s coffee and Vietnam produces about 17%. The next leading producer is Colombia with 7%. If there is a 30% reduction in production from Brazil and Vietnam that means 57% x 30% = 16.8% less coffee produced in a given year. That is what is driving the price of coffee to levels not seen in fifty years. The previous highest coffee price was in 1976 at $3.13 a pound, which gives us an idea of how unusual this situation is.
How Long Will the Price of Coffee Stay This High?
The current high price of coffee has to do with the current relative scarcity compared to market demand. Until climate conditions improve in Brazil and Vietnam and another harvest ensues, we can expect to see the market price of a pound of coffee to stay historically high. How much this will affect the price of your cup of coffee is a different matter. What the coffee farmer receives for a pound of green coffee beans is a small fraction of what we pay for a espresso, latte, or cappuccino at our local coffee shop or what we pay for a bag of whole bean roasted coffee at the grocery store. As such, we may see a few percent increase at the consumer level but nothing like the doubling of price for bags of coffee fresh from the harvest.
Coffee Price Chart Courtesy of Business Insider
Will Tariffs Raise the Price of Your Coffee?
In the runup to the 2024 US presidential election one of the topics repeated over and over was that of tariffs on things imported into the USA. Trump talked about putting tariffs on virtually everything and Harris supported selective tariffs to protect American industry and national security. Where does coffee fall in this argument? Is it possible that the US will someday put high tariffs on all foreign coffee? If so, how much will tariffs raise the price of your coffee?
How Much Does the Cost of Green Coffee Beans Contribute to a Cup of Coffee?
As a rule, about one percent of a $4.00 cup of regular black coffee or $.0.01 goes back to the coffee grower. Coffee coops and large exporters earn more than coffee farmers do. Shippers earn more than coffee farmers do and distributors within destination countries make more than coffee farmers do. Since the vast majority of coffee that people buy is roasted from the store, coffee roasters make far and away more than other folks before them in the supply chain. When you get your coffee from a fancy coffee shop, their markup is also substantial as they receive green coffee beans and roast them before brewing your coffee.
How Much Are Current Tariffs on Coffee?
Current tariffs, at least before the next administration takes over, are such that imported green coffee pays no tariffs. Nor do roasted coffee beans, decaffeinated coffee, ground roasted coffee, or extracts and concentrates of coffee. However, roasted coffee with sauces or syrups added is subject to tariffs as is instant coffee. All coffee imports pay harbor maintenance fees and merchandise processing fees at the point of entry. If you buy coffee while on vacation and bring it back to the USA there is no tax but you do need to declare it.
Why Would Anyone Put Tariffs on Coffee?
For many years small countries all across the globe have put substantial tariffs on American cigarettes. The tariffs are paid upon entry and simply add to the cost of the cigarettes for the consumer. This is a very effective way to tax people without seeming to be levying a tax. The argument made against Trump’s desire to tax all imports from everywhere was that this was simply a poll tax that fell more heavily on the poor than the rich. Like the taxes on cigarettes in many countries such taxes would not be seen as taxes by consumers but rather as price gouging by merchants everywhere in the USA thus sparing the ruling party the pain of a consumer backlash.
A common reason prior to the Trump era for putting tariffs on things has always been to protect American producers. Many Asian countries have been guilty of currency manipulation as well as subsidies to their industries. This has made them able to undercut American prices. When an American industry has sufficient clout they can often get Congress and the President to enact tariffs on competitors even when the result is excess profits for the industry and not really protection against unfair competition.
How Politically Connected Are Hawaiian Coffee Producers?
The only coffee grown in the USA comes from Hawaii. Hawaii produces less than one percent of the world’s coffee. Hawaiian coffee is popular and expensive. Because of its high quality and fame, Kona coffee has substantial pricing power. And nobody else gets to (legally) sell “Kona” coffee but the folks in Hawaii. Because Kona producers can charge pretty much what they want and are selling all of their production it is unlikely that they are going to ask the government to put tariffs on all foreign producers.
What Would a Twenty Percent Tariff on Imported Coffee Raise for the Government?
The US is the biggest coffee importer in the world at $8.3 billion in 2023. Coffee from Colombia and Brazil was the biggest part of all imports. A twenty percent tariff would raise $1.66 billion revenue. The total price paid at coffee shops for coffee in the USA in 2023 was $48 billion. the total price for packaged coffee including instant coffee was more than $90 billion in 2023. If you tally up total retail sales it comes to about $140 billion a year. If tariffs on coffee imports were simply passed on to the consumer they would only raise the final coffee shop or grocery store price by about four-tenths of a percent. If, however, grocers and coffee shops chose to use tariffs as an excuse to raise prices it could be more!
African Coffee Varieties and Leading Brands
Although we tend to write about coffee from Latin America and especially Colombia, there are other great coffees in the world. Coffee originated in Africa where there are many variety and several popular brands to choose from. While you may still prefer your gourmet Colombian coffee at grocery store prices, from time to time trying another variety or brand of coffee from somewhere else in the world can be an enjoyable experience.
Coffee From Africa
Coffee was first picked and brewed as a drink in Ethiopia (Africa) before it was exported to Yemen across the Red Sea. Today arabica coffee is grown in commercial quantities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Africa also produces robusta coffee which also originated on the continent. Robusta is grown from Rwanda through Western and Sub-Saharan Africa to as far away as Angola. There are many arabica varieties in East Africa including Yirgacheffe and Sidamo from Ethiopia and Tanzanian peaberry from Tanzania.
A Few African Coffee Brands
There are many famous African coffees. Here are just a handful. Kula coffee is grown in Rwanda on the slopes of Mt. Karisimbi. As a medium-dark roast this coffee has chocolate, sweet, and fruity flavors.
From Kenya the Spring Valley roaster provides Peaberry, Elgon, Zamanee, and Mashariki coffees. Their coffees are generally only found in stores and cafes in Kenya.
An African coffee that can be found in the USA is CxffeBlack, an arabica coffee roasted and sold by a Memphis, Tennessee company which sells it online.
Another African coffee available in the USA is Itadi Coffee from a family farm in Togo in West Africa. This is rich coffee with caramel, spice, and chocolate flavors.
donating a portion of its proceeds to support farmers and communities in Togo. Reviews of Itadi Coffee praise its rich, complex flavor, dark roast coffee, and smooth flavor.
An arabica coffee from the Kenyan highlands is Kahawa with a fruity, bright, and acidic taste. This coffee is available primarily in Kenya.
Boon Boona Coffee in Renton, Washington roasts Arican coffees from small Tanzanian, Kenyan, Ethiopian, and Burundi coffee farms. This company was founded by an Eritrean expat. The coffee is complex with acidic and fruity flavors. Varieties include Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Burundi, and D.R. Congo.
A coffee from Ghana is sold by Bra Fie in London. This coffee comes from small Ghana coffee farms. It is a smooth coffee with hints of citrus and chocolate. It is available in Ghana and London, England. The name means “come home” in the Twi language of Ghana.
For Londoners who want an Ethiopian hand-roasted coffee, Addis in Brixton, offers organic Ethiopian coffees with excellent flavors along with Ethiopian cuisine.
Another London coffee enterprise, Coffee and Fripes offers coffee from Guinea along with world cuisines.
Folks in the USA who want a one stop source for a variety of African coffees can come to Starbucks for their blond espresso roast, spring day blend, or fall blend coffee. These are African coffees although Starbucks does not specify where on the continent the beans were harvested.
How African Coffee and South American Coffee Differ
As a general rule, African coffees are fruitier and more floral and South American coffees are nuttier and more chocolatey. Most South American coffee comes from the Bourbon variety and its offshoots and much more coffee in South America is grown at much higher altitudes than in many parts of Africa.
Does Coffee Cause or Prevent Cancer?
We would like to revisit an issue we addressed a few years ago, the relationship between coffee and cancer. There is a lot of evidence that drinking coffee reduces cancer risk. And there was a concern that the chemical acrylamide in coffee could cause cancer. There was even a questionable lawsuit in California years ago seeking damages for every person who drank coffee! Where is the issue today and should coffee drinkers be concerned about the safety of coffee or plan to drink more to reduce their cancer risk.
The Acrylamide Lawsuit Against Coffee Roasters and Distributors
The lawsuit regarding coffee, acrylamide, and cancer had to do with California’s product warning requirement 65. Proposition 65 stipulates that, among other things, businesses must warn Californians if a product has chemicals that pose a significant risk of birth defects, cancer, or reproductive harm. The goal of the lawsuit was to collect lots of money from coffee roasters and distributors for everyone who drank coffee and was not properly warned. The problem that the law firm pursuing the lawsuit had was that they could not demonstrate cause and effect in regard to coffee and cancer risk. In fact, as we noted in our previous article, there was a lot of chicanery involved such as setting up websites that appeared to be authoritative sites but where just all show and no substance.
The proposition 65 acrylamide lawsuit was resolved in 2020 and an appeal dealt with in 2022. No risk of cancer from drinking coffee was found and, in fact, an appeals court said that the suit was and any potential label warnings would be a disservice to the underlying purpose of proposition 65 which was to protect Californians and not mislead them!
Coffee Is Good for You and Helps Prevent Cancer!
For several years we have known, based on scientific research, that drinking coffee helps reduce the risks of colorectal, liver, breast, and head and neck cancer. Our current best understanding of why this is has to do with the hundreds of antioxidants in coffee as well as the caffeine in your Java. Caffeine, lignans, flavonoids, and other polyphenols are found in roasted coffee. These substances increase energy output, regulate genes responsible for DNA repair, block cellular damage, block or slow cancer metastasis, and have a wide range of other anti-inflammatory functions. In addition, coffee reduces the risk of type II diabetes by reducing insulin resistance. This in turn helps reduce risks of breast, liver, colorectal and endometrial cancers and mortality from these cancers.
How Much Coffee Should You Drink to Get Its Health Benefits?
When scientists develop drugs for treating diseases one of the issues is called a dose to response curve. How much do you need to consume in order to receive the benefits of the medicine? The other issue is called a therapeutic window. At what point does the medicine benefit you and at what point is it toxic or does it cause harm? For coffee and its health benefits, simply drinking an 8 ounce cup of coffee each day helps reduce the risk of type II diabetes, the risk of various types of cancer, and even Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. There is typically an increased benefit with more coffee per day up to about 6 cups at which the degree of benefit seems to level off. This is also the amount of coffee that commonly causes the jitters, anxiety, a faster heart rate or even an elevation of blood pressure.
Adding Flavor to Your Coffee
Here at Buy Organic Coffee we routinely promote coffee from Colombia. We do this because Colombian coffee has excellent aroma and flavor. Colombian coffee purchased at a local grocery store in cities like Manizales are essentially gourmet coffees as regular coffee prices. It is of note that when people in Colombia order tinto (the common name for coffee here) they ask for it black, with milk, or sugar. You never hear anyone asking for anything fancier than a cappuccino and certainly don’t hear a lot of people asking for flavored coffee. By way of contrast in the USA fully a third of coffee drinkers drink flavored coffee. When you are adding flavor to your coffee are you covering up the original taste or providing taste to stale coffee that is well past its shelf life. If you are adding flavor to your coffee what are the best choices?
Complementing Coffee’s Natural Taste
If you want to mask the bitterness of your coffee there are several flavor choices including peach, banana, orange, strawberry, and raspberry. Flavors that are commonly used to complement coffee’s natural taste include chocolate, coconut, hazelnut, vanilla, almond, and caramel. In each of these cases your best option will depend on if you are drinking a dark, medium, or light roast. The goal should be to enhance the natural flavor of great coffee and not cover it up.
A Favored Coffee Courtesy of Starbucks
Providing Taste to Tasteless Coffee
A strange thing happened to the world of coffee shops over the years. Peet’s and then Starbucks and the rest brought us very high quality coffee every time. Then they started adding flavors and it has gotten to the point where Starbucks offers as many as 170,000 different flavor, coffee, sweetener, combinations. While it may make sense to add lots of sweetener and or flavor to old, tasteless coffee, why would a person want to ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee by overpowering the natural taste.
Sweet Caffeine Drinks
If a person simply wants to consume caffeine in order to wake up in the morning and keep going later in the day, coffee is generally the easiest and most available choice. An 8 ounce cup of Starbucks coffee contains as much as 180 milligrams of caffeine. Tea contains at most 48 milligrams of caffeine. A diet coke contains 46 milligrams of caffeine. While 8 ounces of Red Bull contains 84 milligrams of caffeine you get 200 milligrams in sixteen ounces of Celsius Original. The popularity of bottled soft drinks with caffeine attests to the desire for folks to get a caffeine kick in a sugary drink. A substantial portion of coffee drinkers fit into this category. For these folks it does not really matter if they are getting high quality coffee or coffee that was warehoused for years before being shipped to the roaster and then sat on the shelf again for months or years before being purchased and consumed.
Flavors That Enhance the Taste of Great Coffee
If your goal is getting the taste and aroma of great coffee your approach to coffee flavoring should be different than if you want sweetness, caffeine and are not interested in the original coffee taste and flavor. If you are covering up poor taste to make up for absent taste and flavor. If you are covering up poor taste to making up for absent taste in your coffee it does not matter what flavors you use or how much you use. If you want to preserve and enhance great coffee flavor then you need to use a light touch when added flavoring and should try to use flavors like hazelnut, chocolate, or vanilla and adjust to taste. In all cases you will want to start with the best coffee for Colombia.
Uses for Old Coffee Beans
Coffee is best when it is fresh. As we have often noted, green coffee beans properly stored remain fresh for up to three years. Roasted coffee beans that remain in the package can be good for up to a year and coffee that you roast and store properly remains fresh for at least six months. When you open a container of ground coffee or grind coffee at home the coffee retains its flavor, aroma, and antioxidant potency for only a few days as air contact with what had been the interior of the coffee bean hastens oxidation. And, of course, there may be time when you forget about stored coffee, leave on a trip and come back months later, etc. You will probably want to buy new coffee and start over and then you need to think of uses for old coffee beans.
Use Old Coffee to Fight Insects and other Pests
Although we may love our coffee, such is not the case with all living things. In fact, coffee can be toxic for many of the pests that tend to infest gardens and damage plants around your home. Even snails and slugs tend to avoid crossing areas covered with coffee grounds. Simply sprinkle old coffee grounds around plants that you wish to protect. Unlike with the use of insecticides, you are not damaging the environment and won’t have to throw out your old coffee. The same approach works for protecting your pets from fleas. Apply coffee grounds after shampooing the pet’s hair and then rise off. Do not leave coffee grounds on the hair as your pet may ingest coffee grounds which may be toxic to your dog or cat.
Old Coffee as Fertilizer or Compost
Although your old coffee may lack taste and aroma it does not lack potassium, nitrogen, or calcium. Thus, make use of your old coffee by fertilizing your garden. As with all fertilizers, use in moderation to avoid causing excess soil acidity. In addition, a layer of coffee grounds can also act as compost but with the additional benefits of fertilizer. Simply add old coffee grounds to you bin or pile of compost and mix in well.
Absorb Noxious Odors With Old Coffee Grounds
Like when you put a box of baking soda in your frig to absorb odors, you can do the same with a bowl of old coffee grounds. The same approach works in bathrooms and pantries. Rather than throwing out old coffee grounds, recycle them and save on the next box of baking soda or other deodorizer that you were going to purchase.
Use Old Coffee Grounds As an Abrasive to Scrub Pots and Pans
Coffee grounds are mildly abrasive. As such they work well in helping scrub away food residue stuck to pots, pans, and dishes. Just sprinkle on the pots or dishes and scrub away. Simply make sure to rinse well afterwords to avoid coffee stains. The same approach works for an abrasive material to wash your hands and to remove odors from work or from cooking with onions or garlic. In fact, if you are looking for an effective exfoliant, look no farther than your container of old coffee grounds. Mix with coconut oil, olive oil, or your usual exfoliant and scrub for your face and body.
Use Old Coffee As a Natural Dye
Take advantage of how coffee can stain fabrics or paper and use it to enhance your arts and crafts or even clothing.. Just fill a pot of boiled coffee grounds and soak your fabric or paper. The result is a light to medium brown depending on how long you soak and how much coffee you use.
Temporarily Reduce Cellulite With Old Coffee Grounds
Because the caffeine in coffee stimulates release of adrenaline, it also can temporarily improve blood flow. In the case of cellulite, its appearance is briefly improved by applying coffee grounds to the skin.
How Do You Know That Your Old Coffee Has Gone Stale?
If you really think that coffee that has sat opened on the shelf for years is ok, brew it and taste it. Sniff to discover if any aroma remains. The odds are strongly against old coffee being anything but a tasteless vehicle for providing caffeine. In that case, try one of our suggestions for using old coffee beans.