Ice Cream Ireland

 Being in Mallorca, drinking very tasty coffee, brings one of our coffee quandaries into sharp relief. Here, as in virtually everywhere on the continent, baristas do not scald their milk. Coffees with steamed milk are served ready to drink, in terms of temperature, which is much cooler than you will find in most Irish cafes.

I have written about the temperature of steamed milk before, here and here. Yet the biggest cause of complaints in our shops by far is about the temperature of our coffees containing steamed milk. Although we regularly have people tell us our coffees are the best they have tasted in Ireland, just as regularly people (almost exclusively Irish and English) tell us their drink is “cold.” 

I assume it is mostly a function of us going from a nation of tea and instant coffee drinkers - both made with boiling water - to latte and cappuccino drinkers without understanding that the latter are fundamentally different drinks. The difference is the milk - overheat milk and there is a chemical change - the proteins and fat separate out and the result is watery, bitter, scalded. A latte in our shops will seem cold compared to tea, even though we heat the milk to a greater temperature than the Italians or the Spanish.

Our quandary, then, is this:

We believe that the way we make cappuccinos and lattes, using a thermometer to obtain an exact temperature that is as hot as possible while keeping the milk intact, ensures the highest quality. However, at the same time we want our customers to be happy, and a large number of them are not. It causes us great pain that people are going away grumbling about “cold” drinks. We will always (and happily) serve a drink extra hot if asked, recognising that people´s tastes differ.

My brother and I have spent hours on this issue, trying to find a solution. We have tried to ask everyone who orders whether they want it extra hot, but that hasn´t worked well, since “hot” is such a relative term, and people are usually just confused. We have written about it on our menus and our menuboards. We have tried to explain the issue to customers who complain (after heating up their drinks), that it´s not a mistake but a choice, but that isn´t always successful. The last time, the customer said, ”Can you believe it? These guys serve cold lattes on purpose!”

I am at a bit of a loss. If we raise the temperature across the board, the quality will suffer. In my opinion, it´s the single largest reason Irish coffees are generally sub-standard. At the same time, keeping our customers happy is certainly much more important to us than whatever we think about the temperature of steamed milk. But is it worth it to lower the quality for everybody to pacify those who think our drinks are too cold?

Suggestions welcome!

Technorati tags: coffee, temperature, milk, cappuccino, latte, Irish

 There seems to be more and more new companies roasting their own beans for the ever-increasing Irish coffee market. We’ve just received a sample of beans from the latest - Pónaire (the name is “bean” in Irish), a family operation in Tipperary.

The quality is very high, with a mild, smooth taste, and I would be happy to recommend them to anyone in the Midwest region. We’ll stick with our existing beans, though, since we’re happy with them (and our suppliers) and since they are Fairtrade…

Technorati tags: espresso, fairtrade, Ponaire, coffee, Tipperary, bean

 I just came across the interesting news that Starbucks was rated lower for its coffee than McDonalds in a taste test of mega-chain’s coffees by Consumer Reports. Apparently Starbucks coffee “was strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water…â€? McDonalds, the winner, had the rather lukewarm review: ”…decent and moderately strong. Although it lacked the subtle top notes needed to make it rise and shine, it had no flaws.â€?(Newsmax)

I guess if it’s good coffee you want, one way to do it is to follow the lead of Morning Coffee and Afternoon Tea and make it yourself! Me, I’m just delighted that our shops are back open and the espresso machine is waiting for me in the morning…

Technorati tags: Starbucks, McDonalds, Consumer Reports, coffee, taste test

 Over the last year, we have been on a hunt for good Fairtrade beans for our espresso bar. Our coffee supplier brought us an excellent  Fairtrade and organic bean in the spring that is great for our non-espresso coffees, which we serve in a cafetierre. It’s full flavoured and certainly makes a nonsense of anyone saying one has to suffer for organic!

The espresso bean has been harder, because there are limited options, and most, it must be said, are quite poor. We are not willing to suffer any drop in taste. Our existing bean has made so many of our customers happy; it would be foolish to give them anything that doesn’t match up.

It’s also tricky - what might taste great in an espresso might not be so good in a cappuccino. It’s hard to find a bean that tastes good across the range of espresso bar offerings.

However, if the likes of us don’t push for fairtrade and organics, the options are unlikely to improve. So, we pushed.

It would seem as if our coffee supplier has come through again. Last week he dropped in a bag of Fairtrade (though sadly not organic) beans that are a mix from small farmers in Brazil, Tanzania, Guatamala, and Columbia. They are very good indeed, and I think we will make the switch. If our customers are as happy as we are, it’s a keeper!

Technorati tags: espresso, fairtrade, cappuccino, coffee, organic, Ireland

 A cappuccino should be a decadently frothy, silky concoction with a strong coffee hit. It’s a coffee drinker’s drink as opposed to a latte, which is for those who like their coffees weak. With a good cappuccino, the foam should be as much a sensation as a taste - a vehicle for the espresso. Unfortunately, it is rarely so. It is one of the most abused espresso bar drinks in Ireland.

The cappuccino is thought to derive its name from the Capuchin monks, or more specifically their hoods - capuccio. In Italy it’s generally a breakfast drink, but elsewhere is enjoyed all day long. The proportions are generally agreed to be 1/3 espresso, 1/3 milk, 1/3 foam.

It is unusual, however, to get more than a few millimetres of foam on a cappuccino in most cafes in Ireland. This has to do with over-heating the milk - I have talked about the importance of milk temperature before, and a general lack of care. In fact, there is often no difference between a latte and a cappuccino except the powdered chocolate.

In our shops, we generally like to think of cappuccinos slightly differently from the proportions above, which we consider slightly misleading. We don’t like the three elements to be separate but rather espresso with frothed milk that has doubled in volume but stays intact. Scalded milk with some egg-white-like foam perched on top doesn’t do it for us.

Interestingly, this time of year it’s harder to froth the milk. As the cows go off a diet of grass and start eating silage, the protein levels in the milk fall. We have noticed the difference in the past few days. The milk bubbles become larger and less stable (see right), and they tend to readily collapse again.

Since we use a dairy that renowned for its fresh taste and that doesn’t alter or stabilise its milk, we feel the change acutely. It is possible to get milk that is controlled for protein, and I have seen it in more and more cafes in Dublin, but the taste definitely suffers.

So I guess we just have to take even more care and look forward to the cows on the grass again!

Technorati tags: espresso, coffee, cappuccino, milk, frothing

[youtube]CZqR8PKhunY[/youtube]

I opened up a YouTube account, and here’s my first meagre effort. I do think ice cream would have been better for an opening attempt, but I was in the shop all day today making coffee, so that was what was on my mind…

Technorati tags: espresso, coffee, YouTube

 A customer in our Dingle shop told me about a coffee drink that she had come across in Italy. I had never heard of it and so I tried it out with good results. It’s very simple - you take a glass of very cold milk and add a shot of espresso. With all the hot weather we’ve been having here it makes a refreshing way to get a coffee hit. The only downside is it is not a sipping drink. You tend to reach the bottom of the glass in a hurry!

Technorati tags: espresso, coffee, latte, freddo

  I’m afraid I was making coffees for most of the day, and hence I feel another coffee rant coming on. I’ll limit it to two points.

1. Even before Starbucks made its inevitable entrance into Ireland, many cafes have tended to look more toward Seattle than Rome for a model. What Starbucks sell, in my opinion, is a feeling of validation about being busy, and that fits in well with the new Ireland. In other words, “I am so busy, I need a coffee THIS big to keep me going.” We’ve recently bowed to customer pressure and increased the size of our take-away cups on our lattes, and sizes seem to be increasing rapidly all around us. The entire definition of a cappuccino or latte is rapidly changing away from the Italian model, and I think that’s a bit of a shame. Is bigger always better? I always liked that little cup at an Italian street-side cafe…

2. Why do people order take-away espressos? I’m happy to serve anything to-go, but where are you going to take 1 oz of espresso? How far are you going to get? Will it not be cold before you get there? Wouldn’t you rather have it in a warmed cup, down it in a few seconds (after all, it is called “Espresso” i.e. “fast”), and be on your way?

Technorati tags: espresso, coffee, cappuccino, latte, Irish

 One of my favourite treats in the whole world is the Affogato al Caffe, and I just wish that more people knew about it! After all, it combines two of my favourite things - coffee and chocolate. If I make an affogato with chocolate ice cream, it includes three, although vanilla would be the more popular option…

In any case, the name Affogato means “drowned in coffee,” referring of course to the ice cream, and when I came across it, I thought I was in heaven.

To make it, you simply take a scoop of ice cream (we like to serve it in a small coffee cup) and pour over some espresso (we use a single shot run long, in other words, an espresso lungo). In the shops, we serve the shot of espresso on the side and let the customer do the pouring.

I think I must do more research now, and have another one!

Technorati tags: espresso, caffe, affogato, coffee, cafe, ice cream

When I briefly talked about coffee in Dublin in a previous post, I don’t think I was quite fair. I do think that coffee has improved, and certainly we’ve come a long way in the last five years or so, but there is still quite a way to go. Before I wrote that post, I had one of the worst cappuccinos I have ever attempted to imbibe in a mall in South Dublin, and I paid €3.50 for the privilege. And I though we were expensive!

I suppose the entry into Ireland of Starbucks, whatever people might think of them, will nudge cafes to up their game. Already, milk thermometers are beginning to appear, and certainly not scalding the milk is one of the best ways to improve coffee drinks.

A big change that I noticed in some of the better coffee houses in Dublin is a huge improvement in the foam on cappuccinos. This is certainly welcome, though it does come with a downside, since it’s mostly due to the introduction of UHT Milk. Ultra heat treated milk is the rule on the continent and is what you would get when you order a cappuccino or latte in Italy, Germany, etc. A new product on the Irish market now is Cappuccino Milk, which is controlled for protein, which means consistent foam. I saw it in several coffee houses.

I have to say that although I’m a fan of progress and welcome new products to improve coffees, I’m a bigger fan of fresh milk, and we are certainly going to stick with it in our own shops. It might be harder to froth, especially when the cows are off grass in the winter, but it can be done with a little care, and even if it’s not quite as silky as the UHT milk, I think the end product is superior when it comes to taste.  

Technorati tags: coffee, Dublin, milk, cappuccino, latte, Irish