Braver Homes and Gardens: Coffee

I was seduced. I admit it. For as much as I prefer to eat foods in their natural state, and stay away from fake foods, sometimes I fall for them anyway. Especially if they’re cheap. This time it was tins of the red lidded International flavored coffee mixes. These normally sell for about $3.49 but I found them at my discount store for $1.50.

I read the back where I found I could enjoy “the delicious paring of luscious caramel (yum!) and sweet vanilla (heavenly!) and how it would be “sinfully superb”. What Catholic girl doesn’t want a way to be sinfully superb? I took the tin to work and heated up a mug of full-fat milk. You know, for extra sinfulness. I dumped a spoonful of the “coffee” mix on top.

And for a second I thought I had mistakenly made a bowl of Rice Krispies. As in snap-crackle-pop. My mug of coffee was crackling as the mix dissolved.

Since when does coffee crackle??? And what the hell is in this stuff? That’s when I did what I should have done in the store - read the ingredient list. My $1.50 “coffee” is made with sugar as its first ingredient, partially hydrongenated oil (um, yum??) and other such “foods” as cellulose gum and silicon dioxide.

I took a sip. Naturally it tastes nothing like caramel. Or vanilla. It just tastes like really sugary milk. The tin told me it would be “your own coffeehouse indulgence right at home”. I guess. If drinking melted plastic is considered an indulgence.

Gross. Turning to my cupboards I found the yellow lidded and the brown lidded hot chocolate mixes. But a scan of the "ingredient" list proved equally as disgusting. Did you know if you let the brown lidded stuff sit out and spoil, it turns.....green!

Then I remembered that I have two mokka pots which are coffee percolators made in Italy designed for steam coffee at home. The coffee comes out a cross between espresso and Turkish coffee. I have a 2 oz. and a 9 oz. pot by the original brand, Bialetti. The two-ouncer goes for $20 and the nine-ouncer (which makes about one mug of coffee) goes for $40. Thrifty gal that I am, I found both at Goodwill only about a week after I made a mental note to try and find one. I paid $9 total for them both.

The pots separate into three parts - the bottom where you put water, the cup that holds the coffee grounds, and the top. As the water heats, it's pushed up through the grounds and into the top.

While the coffee perked on the stovetop, I happened to notice a third container of "coffee" mix that I had left unopened overnight. It dried out to the point where the entire top looked like a sheet of plastic:

What kind of "coffee" turns to a sheet of plastic just from exposure to the air?? What IS this stuff?

For fun, I got out my drill:

Now that is just wrong. Ok...enough fooling around. I took the coffee off th stove and heated a mug of milk. I poured in the espresso, added a spoonful of cocoa and a spoonful of powdered sugar.