Mmmmmm….dot candy energy drink…..
It has taken a while, but we finally did it — we now have “coffee”! The “dot candy” seeds we’ve got from our excursions roast real well, but Hanna & I could not get it to brew. We tried various roasts, and grinds, but came up short…until we tried it the really old fashioned way: Turkish style.
In order to have a cup of “coffee,” you have to grind the seeds down to a very fine grind. Then you put it into a cup or small pot, pour hot water in and stir. So far very standard Turkish coffee (no filtering out the grind). But the thing about this new stuff is that it is ready to drink within a minute, and it thickens the water a bit to more of a hot chocolate consistency.
Because it thickens, you can’t let it sit for longer than 30 minutes or it becomes too thick. Hanna is going to play with that sludge and see if she can come up with a use for it (fudge? chocolate-substitute? oil??).
As a result of the sludge factor, it is best to brew the stuff as you need it. The downside of this for Hanna is she can’t just serve coffee instantly as she can now. We both agreed that because it was only 1 minute, if someone couldn’t wait that long (which is quicker than even ordering a latte), then they could munch on the seeds to get a quick “hit.” Oh yeah, so far we can’t figure out a way to do espresso, not that anyone has had an espresso drink since Earth anyway.
The thing that will take the longest to get used to is that it doesn’t taste like Earth coffee! It has a much earthier, rich taste to it than Earth coffee — Sumatra is the closest I can think of to compare it to, though the new stuff is much richer.
I actually like it better than the usual coffee (though that may be because our usual stuff is not very good…one of the things I miss about Earth is roasting my beans myself and always having ultra-fresh coffee!).