When it comes to coffee companions, everyone has their own habits. Foods that are mild and easy to obtain, such as sugar, milk, condensed milk, and cream, have always been everyone's first choice in daily life.
But whenever people are asked whether honey can be added to coffee, whether it tastes good after adding it, and whether it is harmful, etc., they immediately show a puzzled expression, and then silently go to Du Niang for answers. In the end, they get a lot of different opinions. For a moment, they don’t know who to listen to. Front Street today will specifically talk about honey, a controversial coffee companion~
Can I drink coffee with honey?
In fact, adding honey to coffee is a very ancient way of drinking coffee and has a history of hundreds of years. For example, the origin story of cappuccino in Front Street's article "Vienna Coffee, it seems to have changed!!!" contains honey:
The timeline can be traced back to 1684. The Polish Kurzki was rewarded with a generous bounty for successfully rescuing the siege of Vienna, as well as a large amount of coffee beans that fell after the Turks were defeated. So, after the war, he stayed in Vienna and opened a Blue Bottle Café. In order to cater to the taste of Austrians, he came up with the idea of using a cloth bag to filter Turkish coffee to remove the hard-to-eat powder residue, and added cream, honey and spices to enrich the taste. This drinking method soon became a favorite of Viennese people.
As a natural sweetener, honey has long been used to add sweetness and aroma to foods. Modern research believes that honey contains about 70% glucose and fructose, as well as proteins, inorganic salts, organic acids and other substances. Therefore, it is not only rich in nutrients, but also has a good dietary auxiliary effect. So to the question of whether honey can be added to coffee, the answer is obviously yes.
How to add honey to coffee to make it taste better?
Compared with sugar and other condiments, honey is not only sweet, but also has a unique smell. It tastes sweet and warm. High-quality honey also exudes an elegant floral aroma. Therefore, when we add honey to coffee instead of sugar, it can not only increase the sweetness, but if used properly, it may even be combined with coffee to create a new complex taste.
When paired with honey, you can choose medium-roasted coffee beans with a balanced taste. For hand brewing, you should use products with outstanding aromas, such as Front Street Bird of Paradise, Front Street Queen's Manor, and Front Street 2013 Yunnan Tiepica. They have nutty flavors and moderate sweetness. They can be drunk alone or added with honey for seasoning.
Front Street learned from the elders in the family that the water temperature for brewing honey is also very particular, because too high a temperature will destroy heat-labile nutrients such as enzymes, vitamins, and polyphenols in honey, and scalding temperatures will make honey sour, resulting in a worse taste. At present, mainstream research believes that brewing honey at a water temperature below 60°C can avoid the loss of heat-labile nutrients, with water temperatures between 40 and 55°C being optimal.
Black coffee, such as hand brewing and hanging ear coffee, will be brewed with high-temperature hot water close to 90°C. Usually the temperature of the coffee will be 65-75°C or even higher. Therefore, in order to avoid a bad taste, we might as well wait for it to cool down slightly, and then add an appropriate amount of home-made honey according to taste.
For example, Front Street left the brewed Brazilian Queen's Manor indoors for 6 to 8 minutes, then added 2 tablespoons of honey and stirred it, waiting for it to completely melt before tasting. The coffee did not burn your mouth, but also had a honey aroma and sweetness, which was very comfortable.
If you want to add honey to latte/cappuccino/Australian white, then we need to pay attention to the amount, because if you add too little, it will be easily masked by the coffee flavor, if you add too much, you will worry that the milk coffee will become too sweet. In this regard, Front Street tried multiple parameters and found that the best effect was to control the ratio of honey to coffee liquid at 1:2, that is, 1 part honey corresponds to 2 parts espresso.
The first choice for espresso is the Front Street bean blend series. Taking into account the sweetness and warmth of honey, it is suitable to be paired with the Front Street black cocoa basic blend. It is a combination of Yunnan small grains and Brazilian cerrado. It has the aroma of nuts, chocolate and plums. The overall taste is soft and the price is affordable. It is suitable for families and stores.
For example, Front Street uses oat milk to make cappuccino and mixes it with honey. First, 20g of Nuanyang coffee powder is used to extract 40g of coffee liquid;
Then pour 180ml of oat milk and 20g of honey into the milk vat, and create fluffy and thick milk foam. The temperature is controlled at 50-55°C, which is suitable for drinking directly;
Finally, fuse the two, and the honey oatmeal cappuccino is finished~
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
