This one's about coffee
Welcome to the newsletter!
I’ve got that playlist again—I’ve added new songs! Enjoy!
I figure one of these days I’ll have made it into a complete, world-class coffee shop playlist—one you can listen to all day without getting tired [of it], but still allow baristas to hear orders and customers to have meetings.
For those of you I’ve told “reach out to me!” and then never sent you an e-mail, the e-mail you can reach me at is “newyorkcoffeenewsletter@gmail.com”.
Also, we’ve got a Beli now! It’s a free app that lets you rate restaurants, cafés, etc.—it ranks your places based on how you consider it in relation to others.
I snagged the username @newyorkcoffee (finally).
If you aren’t on Beli yet, here’s my invite link. It’s only on an app right now, so I’m very slow adding places. I’ll soon get the 200+ nyc coffee shops (😭) I’ve tried on there, just give it a little time. I’m not making any money for this shoutout, just wanted to have a ranking for y’all.
Right now, Qahwah house, Dayglow, and Arabica are on top, with La Colombe, Felix, and Blank Street at the low end. You should still click the link though! Check out the whole list.
This week’s coffee shop spotlight!
It’s…
WATCHHOUSE.!
WATCHHOUSE.!
WATCHHOUSE.!
This brand-spankin’-new coffee shop chain just opened their first international spot in midtown, near Rockefeller.
I took a lot of pictures, and then made a friend take lots of pictures because the ones I took were bad.
I got a specialty coffee; they do a list of what they call “rarities”, and then freeze them (surprisingly) to keep them at “peak flavor”. I tried the Deiro Garcia a.k.a. “Lord Voldemort” and it was pretty good.
The rarity came with not seltzer water, but instead distilled jade cloud tea [green tea], which was pretty amazing. I almost liked it more than the coffee.
We also got a blood orange pastry croissant thing, which, as long as you got a bit of the creme inside in every bite, was absolutely delicious.
Here’s a menu.
Here’s some more pics. If you want to go, here’s their website.
What’s new, Jude?
Conwell Coffee Hall in FiDi
Hi-Note and Daytime have both relaunched their coffee programs as they switch to Loveless coffees
Break time!
This weekend is the Coffee Fest, an absurdly expensive coffee festival that takes place over three days at the Javits center. This is apparently a bigger coffee festival than the “New York Coffee Festival” (NYCF) in October, but aimed at industry people.
Tickets are $70 in advance just for general admission, and then hundreds if you want to attend classes. Is this money going towards helping small farmers attend and advertise their product? Or maybe towards giving attending baristas rental help, or new gear, like a coffee grinder?
Unlike NYCF, who donates all their proceeds to Project Waterfall, probably not. I’ll begrudgingly attend and report back.
Also, the NYCF is only $35. I volunteered last year, so it was free for me, and got away $750 worth of free stuff. I hope I can do something similar here.
Vive la révolution!
If you want to go, I’m going to be there Sunday and would love some hands to help carry things!
And now…
Coffee news!
Royal Coffee put out “The Coffee Fermentation Flavor Continuum”, a free book explaining different fermentation types and taste profiles.
Kuku is kickstarter-funding a “centrifugal coffee maker”. It uses centrifugal force to apply pressure against the coffee grounds.
European regulations for “deforestation-free” coffee is receiving pushback, citing small farms ill-equipped to handle the requirements.
“coffee.org” will sell to me for $140,000.
The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation launched “Cafix”, a platform which creates a direct-to-consumer sales method for farmers, allowing more democratization of coffee sales.
The Recipe Section
A nice kismet dinner of elites, serving christmas wines and honey dishes.
ugh, it’s blueberry and clove
My jovial comrades, today’s delicacy is a curious alchemy is a blueberry syrup with cloves. Conveniently, it’s “blueberries are on sale” season!
I spent $20 bucks making different versions so you can choose what fits your needs, from a simple syrup made with just blueberry juice/sugar/cloves, to a much more complicated one that uses the berries themselves (it’s cheaper!).
For the syrup version 1
1 cup blueberry juice, preferably not from concentrate but they’re using the cheapest blueberries they can find anyway so it doesn’t really matter
9/10 cup [180g] of sugar, preferably natural cane sugar or demerara
11 or more cloves, to taste
Add the ingredients together into a saucepan over medium-high heat. If you like a more complex flavor, start with just the sugar and stir it constantly until about half of it is melted or lightly browned. You can continue and develop the sugar into a lightly caramelized sugar, but that’s a different recipe.
I’d recommend crushing the bulbs of the cloves with your fingers to draw out a little more flavor. Keep in mind the crushed pieces may not strain out without a cheesecloth. Safe to eat, might not look as good.
When the mixture is at an angry boil, change the heat so that the mixture is foaming, but not getting any bigger. Let this sit for 15–20 minutes. You can go longer or shorter, this recipe is forgiving.
When the syrup is at a mesmerizing boil, remove from heat and strain.
This recipe calls for special sugar because it helps add complexity where it’s missing in the blueberry juice.
We use 180g sugar instead of 1 cup/200g because blueberry juice has 20g of sugar in it per cup.
For the syrup version 2
Note: After some trials, ghee may or may not curdle your milk. Be careful with the preparation and test well before serving. Also, keeping the pulp from the straining step is a great sub for jam.
2 teaspoons ghee or butter (optional)
2 cups blueberries
3/4 cup sugar (preferably white)
13–17 cloves (not crushed)
1/3 teaspoon salt
Start your saucepan on medium heat, and as it heats up place the ghee or butter inside and let that melt.
Wash your blueberries, then hold the strainer or flick some water into the saucepan to check if the ghee is ready [if it is ready, a droplet of water will immediately boil away].
Raise the heat to medium-high, add the blueberries and cloves, and let them sit until the fire alarm goes off, and then about 30 more seconds.
Stir to reduce the heat and then add the sugar.
If you’re using butter instead of ghee, just stir constantly and lower the heat. Ghee can handle a much higher heat than butter can.
Same as before, bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium, and stir frequently. After about 15–20 minutes of stirring, taste, and add salt.
Strain, making sure to get all the liquid out by pressing it in your strainer.
To make this vegan, omit the butter. You can probably get away with sunflower/neutral oil, but you may want to lightly caramelize your sugar before putting it in.
Note: If you taste this a little after the sugar melts (about 3 minutes) it’ll be this complex, delicious flavor I can’t quite place. If you like this flavor for your recipes, strain it at this point and then lightly simmer to reduce into a syrup.
For the drink
I just made these syrups, I don’t have time to go and make coffee, too! This is crazy! These expectations are ridiculous!
Here’s some ideas, though, so you don’t get up in arms:
Matcha, of course. Blueberry matcha is a thing, But Why Stop There??
Tea, specifically, red oolong. You shouldn’t go for an earl grey no matter how good it is, if only because red oolong is going to be so much better.
A very specific blueberry coffee from Peet’s, or many fruity coffees that are fermented while still inside the [coffee] cherry.
*I think this is probably a very bad idea, but if you add heavy cream to the end of your blueberry syrup and quadruple the butter, you can create a frankensyrup combining butterscotch and blueberry. It is going to be delicious, and it is still a very bad idea.
Thanks for tuning in!
Today’s challenge is to listen to your customers’ gossip and summarize it in an e-mail to newyorkcoffeenewsletter@gmail.com.
Enjoy your coffee!