Kohana Coffee Company – Cold Brew Concentrates Available Now!

Kohana Coffee’s mission with cold brew coffee is to let the consumer be the barista – whether working at a coffee shop or using the coffee at home. The instructions are simple: Open bottle. Be creative.

Taking its name from kohana flowers – the small white flowers that bloom just before the arrival of the coffee fruit on the plant. The flowers herald the coming of the coffee beans, just as Kohana’s beverages usher in a new day when incorporated into your morning routine. The name itself has a shared origination with both the Japanese and Native Hawaiians.

Here, at Houston’s, we carry Kohana’s 32oz Cold Brew Concentrates in three varieties: House Blend, French Vanilla, & French Roast. The 1:2 concentrate is elegantly composed, impeccably smooth, and naturally sweet. You can enjoy it hot or pour it over ice. Ultimately, this is a very versatile staple for any coffee shop as it can be used in a wide variety of applications. It’s even a great option for intrepid chefs who want to include the richness of coffee in their dishes.

Some advantages to cold brewed coffee are:

• Low acidity
• Extended shelf life
• Smooth & bold flavor
• Ready for drinks or cooking
• Easy to take on-the-road
• Highly Customizable

As a recent addition to the Houston’s product line-up, Kohana Cold Brews are ideal for quick, easy, and delicious chilled coffee drinks. And peak-season for promoting cold brew is rapidly approaching with the warmer weather of Spring and Summer. The House Blend is easily customizable with any flavored syrup, or blend with ice for a thicker consistency frappe. The options are endless!

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Roasted veggies are a great side dish or even a great main dish. Photo credit: Liz West

Marinade:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons Beaver Brand Deli Mustard

Vegetables:

½ cup zucchini, cut into chunks

½ cup summer squash, cut into chunks

½ cup onion, cut into chunks

½ cup bell pepper, cut into chunks

½ cup green beans, trimmed and cut in half

½ cup eggplant, cut into chunks

½ cup carrots, cut into chunks

Directions:

Combine ingredients for marinade in a large bowl.  Add vegetables and toss well to coat.  Make two packets out of foil (or buy premade foil packets) and add half the vegetables to one packet, the other half to the other.  Cook on grill over medium heat until vegetables are crisp-tender.  Remove from foil and serve while hot.

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So why not experience coffee on the same level?

This approach, known as the “third wave of coffee,” aims to educate coffee enthusiasts in order to help them look for the subtle tastes of coffee.  Gone are the days of coffee as simply a means to a jolt of energy in the morning or late afternoon (replaced by the Starbucks and other coffee shops “second wave” of coffee), and even as we speak the second wave is waning.  The evolution of crafting the perfect cup of coffee, of finding that “sweet spot” of flavor when roasting, is breaking in to the coffee scene and craft shops are cropping up nation-wide, emulating such establishments as Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Oregon, who are seeking out ways to help their consumers more fully understand the coffee they are drinking.

Like wine and its grape counterparts, coffee has regional nuances that aid in determining the flavor profile.  Coffee beans grown in Kenya will impart different flavor notes than coffee from Latin America, and Hawaiian coffee will vary from that hailing from India.  Teasing out the subtleties is part of the allure of a good cup of coffee, and those well-versed in tasting can detect such flavors as herbs, chocolate, caramel, plums, and even lemon grass.

Roasting these delicacies is a big part of the third wave of coffee, and knowing where the coffee is grown in part determines how it is roasted.  Light roasting African coffee that has a typical grapefruit/coconut flavor, for example, is going to draw out the citrusy aroma characteristics because the acids and oils will be more prominent.  The roast allows the sweetness to develop to optimal levels, and enhances the natural subtle flavors of the bean.

Coffee roasters are also starting to share information about the growers whose beans they roast—information about the farm and about the relationship between roaster and the farm, as well as pictures of the production process of the beans that they buy serve to deepen the enjoyment of consumers, and, maybe even more importantly, to know a little bit about the grower—who they are, what they do, what they stand for, and other tidbits of information that help to form a relationship.  It’s the coffee-world version of “going local,” a way to ensure quality beans without exploitation of the growers, and it’s a trend that is rapidly grabbing a toehold among coffee lovers.

This third wave of coffee, then, proves that coffee can be a culinary experience similar to that of beer or wine tasting, and it’s likely just a matter of time before we start to see a trend of pairing coffees with foods to enhance their flavors.  Are you as excited as I am to see where this third wave leads?

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Some coffee experts say that dark roasting ruins a good coffee. Light roasting is the best way to get the delicate, subtle flavors out of high quality beans without the bitterness of its dark-roasted counterpart. These roasts have a complex, toasted grain taste and pronounced acidity. And lightly roasted coffees are wonderful in that they retain more of the specific flavor characteristics of the region where the beans were grown. Think of sweet, complex coffee with a hint of blueberry. Or lemon. Or even chocolate. The subtlety of these flavors enhances the cup of coffee you are enjoying. Accordingly, light roast coffees are aptly named for the regions where the plantation is located (Ethiopian, Guatemalan, Colombian, etc.)

On the other end of the roasting spectrum are the dark roasts. These beans are darker in color and typically are glazed with the oils that have come to their surface. Fuller bodied, dark roasts will generally taste a bit smoky or even burnt, and often have a slightly bitter flavor. Although less complex than a light roast, dark roasts are typically fuller in body with a stronger aroma, which comes from the gases released by brewed coffee. Much of the flavor is achieved from the roasting process, and are thus named accordingly (French Roast, Italian Roast, Spanish Roast, etc.)

In the middle of these two extreme ends lie medium and medium-dark roasts. Medium roasts boast a balanced flavor, aroma, and acidity, and they lack the toasted grain flavor of a light roast. Don’t expect to find oils on the surface of the bean, they have not been roasted long enough to bring these oils out. A medium-dark roast will be darker in color, with some oils beginning to form. They are heavier in body and have a rich, dark color.

Contrary to popular opinion, light roasted coffee and dark roasted coffee actually have the same caffeine content. According to Red Rooster Coffee Roaster, the difference lies in the volume of the coffee used to brew a cup rather than the chosen roast. This is because lighter roasted beans are smaller and therefore more can fit into a scoop. If you want to ensure the amount of caffeine is equal from cup to cup, regardless of the type of coffee a customer chooses, simply weigh the beans rather than scoop them.

Another misconception is that light roasted coffee is milder than a dark roast. While it is true that the roasting process, longer versus shorter, changes the complexity of the coffee, “strength is not the issue as much as character, complexity, uniqueness, and personal preference” according to Red Rooster Coffee Roaster. One represents the flavor of a region (lighter roasts) and the other represents the flavor profile of the length of roasting time (darker roasts.) The enjoyment is personal, and differs from consumer to consumer.

In 2014 Alton Brown, celebrity chef and host of the Food Network’s Good Eats, traveled America in search of top coffees. He sought out smaller markets, including Wichita, Kansas, where he chose Reverie Coffee Roasters as a favorite. Customers have now frequented the store if only to experience the greatness of the roasts that Alton Brown found so delectable. Andrew Gough, owner, is a fan of Alton Brown and meeting him “was kind of like meeting a rock star,” he told Daily Coffee News. One can only imagine how proud Mr. Gough must be, knowing that a celebrity known for his excellent tastes found Reverie’s carefully crafted roasts to be amazing.

In 2015, Alton Brown plans to continue his quest, and will tour 37 cities in America in search of “seriously good coffee and signature espresso drinks, sourced, roasted, and brewed with care.” Do you have a favorite coffee shop you would recommend to Mr. Brown? We’d love to hear about it!

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As medical researchers learn more about the health benefits of the darker-roasted coffee beans, touted for their higher level of antioxidants, Americans are buying into the slightly bitter taste of espresso, for example. Consumers who used to brew pots of Folgers in their homes are now heading out to coffee shop where they are “more than willing to wait over a minute for their ground-on-the-spot, individually brewed cup of Joe,” states Katherine Sacks of CulinaryTrends.net. And customers are essentially putting their foot down when it comes to “waterlogged coffee made with over-roasted beans.

Chocolate, likewise, is gaining momentum in the world of healthy eating. The latest research backs up claims that dark chocolate, without being deluged with sugar, milk, and butter, is good for you, working well with exercise to strengthen your cardiovascular health, and thus lowering your risk of heart attack. And the chocolate that we reach for when we are stressed? Imagine our joy at learning that stress hormone levels are reduced as we indulge in a dark chocolate bar!

But what is bitter, exactly? Turns out it is more difficult to define, if not nearly impossible, because the taste is so complex and somewhat elusive. Often it is our tastebuds that determine a bitter flavor, but seemingly as often our sense of smell detects it before our mouth does. And, crazy as it may sound, it may be the texture of a food, or the temperature, that tip us off that a food is bitter. Even scientists are a bit baffled because the “compounds that are perceived as bitter do not share a similar chemical structure,” as concluded by A. Drewnowski in his article written about the science and complexity of bitter taste in an NCBI article published on PubMed.gov.

And this complexity and elusiveness is precisely what is causing the bitter trend expected in 2015. Try it out for yourself with a small piece of 65-70 percent dark chocolate; simply put the piece in your mouth and experience it on your tongue. Your tastebuds pick up many different flavors, and its texture is much more exciting than a bite of mainstream milk chocolate. The same complexity is found in hoppy, bitter beers; in cocktails with a splash of Angostura bitters; in foods that impart a touch of bitter with sweet or with creamy. “It adds a new dimension, and perks up the tastebuds,” says Jorge de la Torre, dean of culinary education at Johnson and Wales University. “It makes you want the next bite.” As Americans are exposed to more exotic tastes, you can bet chefs and brewers, chocolatiers and coffee roasters will continue to experiment with bitter as a means to entice their customers in 2015 and beyond.

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