I thought I had heard of most kinds of coffee. But strangely, I had never heard of flash coffee before, also known as flash brewed coffee. Flash coffee is a Japanese pour over coffee method that makes a cold, iced coffee.
It seemed interesting, but also confusing as to how it was different than regular pour over ice coffee. So I did some searching and found a coffee shop in Dallas that makes flash brew pour over coffee and drove their to check it out for myself. I asked the barista some questions about it and even took some photos so you can see for yourself how it works.
Are you into the third wave kind of specialty coffee taste, with lots of sour and citrus notes? If so, you will love Merit Coffee! If you like more mainstream coffee notes like chocolate and nuts, you might not be as fond of the coffee there.
When I visited, I ordered a decaf Americano, a macchiato (the true Italian style that’s a shot of espresso with a spoon of milk foam), and a drip coffee. They are into the “coffee snob” notes and everything has a very sour taste. The drip coffee was described as Honduran with vanilla, rose and anise notes. The Americano had some citrus or fruit notes, but compared to the drip coffee it was more mainstream. Lots of people were buying bags of coffee beans that morning, which I rarely see at other shops.
Way back in the early 2000s, there was a new high end drip coffee machine in town, called the Clover. The Clover machine made drip coffees one at a time, and allowed amazing detail and precision for brewing a coffee. You could choose the exact water temperature and extraction time, allowing you to really dial in exactly how you wanted a coffee to taste.
The Clover was a breakthrough drip coffee machine, and only a few speciality coffee shops had them. They cost around $11,000 at the time, and were designed for commercial use and not really intended for individuals to own as a home coffee maker.
Perhaps you remember from more than 10 years ago when Starbucks bought Clover, a high tech coffee machine company that could make individual cups of coffee with extremely precise water and temperatures. High end independent coffee shops had been buying the machines to make extremely good drip coffee until Starbucks bought the entire company, taking them off the market to anyone but Starbucks.
The original plan was to roll out these Clover machines at Starbucks locations around the US, and perhaps around the world.
There was one at my local Starbucks in Dallas, Texas. But it was one of only two or three in the entire state! And it turns out that Starbucks never really rolled them out nationwide like they had planned.
In fact, I recently drove over to my Starbucks to take a photo of the Clover there, and they have taken it out of the store. It’s no longer there. I had to drive to a different Starbucks Reserve store in Dallas to find one. I’ve heard there’s also one in a Starbucks in Dallas on Park Lane.
I walk between the stands in the crowded market hall. From all sides come beautiful and intriguing smells: oriental spices, teas, delicious cheeses and meats… One aroma, however, stands out above the rest. It’s a smell so distinctive that any coffee lover would recognize it awake in the middle of the night. A sign in Polish appears to my eyes: “Coffee stronger than Bruce Lee’s kick.” I’m standing in front of a small stand, on whose counter two golden Aeropresses shimmer. I have reached my destination: I’m at Cafe Targowa.
In one of our previous articles, we wrote about “plujka” coffee, a popular brewing method that was the only brewing method available in Poland during the socialist era, when access to high-quality beans was much more difficult. So how, in just 30 years since the political change in Poland, has it come to a situation where specialty coffee is available almost universally, in every major supermarket, and Polish baristas are very successful internationally? Today we would like to present some arguments for why every coffee lover should pay attention to Eastern Europe when looking at the world map.
QUESTION: On my recent road trip, I had Breve coffee after a Barista recommended I try it. The coffee looks like a latte but tastes so much richer and more satisfying. I have since left the town, so I cannot talk to the Barista again. Can you explain what Breve coffee is and why it tastes so rich?
NIGEL ONG FROM CLEARLY COFFEE ANSWERS: You can consider Breve coffee (or Caffe Breve) as a variation of many coffee-with-milk recipes, such as Latte, Cappuccino, Cortado, and more.
Need to order a Starbucks box of coffee for work, church, a gathering or some other event? Here’s what you need to know!
The Starbucks traveler box of coffee comes with 96 ounces of coffee, which is enough for 12 separate 8 oz cups of coffee. It comes with the cups and the lids. It also comes with an array of sweetener options and stir sticks. And finally, it comes with a full cup of half and half with a lid and a stopper.
Budapest is a very unusual city, combining a complicated, difficult, and often paradoxical history, wonderful monuments, and beautiful modern developments. It is a place lying very often on the axis of historical conflicts, to which it owes its unique character. The streets of Budapest are magical, morning walks through this city give the feeling that we are in the beating heart of Europe – ubiquitous tourists and friendly locals mingle on the busy streets of the city.
Being in the city, you feel that it was here in the 1920s and 1930s that the café culture flourished and developed. Even at that time, Budapest had almost 500 cafes in constant operation, which were places for poets, artists, and politicians to meet and discuss – and staying in Budapest you can feel this rich past.
As for coffee culture, today, in the 21st century, Budapest is still the site of a clash: this time between traditional coffee culture and the third wave of coffee, introducing new methods, popularizing pour-over coffee and minimalist, aesthetic spaces. When I was first given the opportunity to taste coffee from the pioneers of the Hungarian specialty coffee scene – Casino Mocca – a few years ago, I knew that a visit to Budapest would be an unforgettable experience for me. I was not mistaken. Although I was in Budapest in transit, just one day, I managed to have a taste of what modern Budapest coffee culture is like. Here are the two coffee shops I think every coffee lover must try, when in Budapest.
The history of the development of coffee culture in different countries is fascinating. By following history, we can see for ourselves how prevailing material conditions influenced the development of coffee-making methods. But what if conditions make it impossible for people to have access to any brewing method? This is exactly the situation we will look at in this article. So let’s learn together about the history of Polish “plujka” (or, in literal translation “spit-it-out”) coffee.
Coffee Under Socialism
To understand exactly what “spit-it-out” coffee is, we need to look into the complicated history of Poland. After World War II, Poland became a socialist state. Destruction after the war, an unstable economic situation, and a high susceptibility to crises meant that Poland was not one of the rich countries. Many things that might have been taken for granted in other countries were luxury goods. The same was true of coffee-making devices, which were already experiencing a boom in popularity in the West. In Poland they simply… did not exist!