Swiss Mocha Coffee Recipe

Makes: 6 

Preparation Time: 5mins 

Total Prep Time: 5mins 

Whip up a batch of Swiss mocha mix for your co-workers

Mocha mix: * 

- 1 cup instant coffee 

- 1 cup granulated sugar

 - 2 cups powdered milk 

- 4 teaspoons cocoa

Coffee: 

- 6-12 tablespoons mocha mix 

- 6-10 cups boiling water 

Instructions: 

1. First, prepare the mocha mix. 

2. Add the coffee, sugar, powdered milk, and cocoa to a food blender or processor and process to a powder. Store in an airtight re-sealable container and take to work the following day. 

3. When it’s time for a coffee break, add 1-2 tablespoons of the mix along with 1 cup of boiling water to a mug and stir to combine. 

4. Repeat the process depending on how many cups you intend to make. 

*Store for up to 6 weeks in an airtight, re-sealable container at room temperature.

Ibrik Coffee

Coffee character: Rich, dark and intense, since this coffee isn’t filtered, its texture is a bit on the, well, muddy side 

 Good for: Going back to the roots of coffee brewing 

Grind: Very fine and powder-like 

Brew time: Can take around 10 minutes total

An ibrik (known in Turkey as a cezve) is an ornate little coffee pot with a long handle, the type that you might have been given by your sister that time she went to Istanbul. The coffee is boiled over a flame before being poured straight into a drinking cup. This isn’t exactly specialty coffee territory, but it makes a very distinctive brew with a history as old as coffee itself. And don’t think for a second that ibrik connoisseurs aren’t as serious as espresso or siphon coffee devotees: the World Cezve/Ibrik Championships are held annually in Europe and competition is fierce.

Traditionally, this coffee is drunk on special occasions—unsweetened for sad times, such as funerals, and with sugar for happier occasions, such as weddings. It’s also common for brewers to add a pinch of cardamom for a spicy, woody aroma. For ibrik coffee, the beans need to be pulverized until they’re superfine and powdery. Most grinders aren’t capable of that, so get your coffee as fine as possible then grind it further with a mortar and pestle

To use: 

 - Pour 90g (3 oz) of cold water into the ibrik. 

- Add 10g (about 2 tablespoons) of superfine coffee. 

- If you’re adding sugar or cardamom, do so now and stir (don’t fill the ibrik more than halfway). 

- Put the ibrik over medium heat. 

- When the coffee starts to boil, lower the heat and let it sit for 1 to 2 minutes. 

- Once the coffee has settled, turn the heat back up and repeat the previous step twice more, turning the heat down as soon as the coffee boils. 

- On the third and final boil, take the ibrik off the heat. 

- Slowly and gently pour the coffee into pre-warmed cups. 

Arabic, Turkish, Cypriot, Greek: for the uninitiated these styles of ibrik coffee may seem exactly the same, but keep that opinion to yourself. Follow the cues your hosts give you, and no matter what you do, never ever call a Greek’s brew “Turkish coffee.”

Strategies for Buying

 

Before contacting sellers, potential buyers should prepare a document that outlines for themselves their desired sales price, terms, and conditions. 

You also will need to consider the shop’s investment yield, taxes, and the effect the business will have on your personal life. Basically, buyers should be looking for establishments that will meet their numbers and ones that they are going to be happy working at 12 to 14 hours a day. 

Buyers should prioritize their objectives and consider the trade-offs that must be made to attain them. Buyers generally want to accomplish the flowing objectives:

• • Best possible sales price. Serious buyers and sellers compromise on the sales price, terms, and conditions in order to reach a mutually satisfying end. Buyers are usually willing to trade price for terms and conditions. Most buyers will draw the line at a sales price that exceeds the shop’s replacement cost. 
• • Reasonable down payment. Most serious buyers are willing to maintain a 1:1 debt-to-equity ratio. Many buyers want to lower their down payments to reduce risk, and unfortunately, find themselves with businesses that cannot support their debt load. 
• • Reasonable initial investment. Serious buyers are willing to match dollars of debt equally with dollars of personal equity. Buyers do want most of their equity to go towards the down payment. 
• • Maximum future profits. Buyers are buying a shop’s current financial performance but always are looking for the highest potential revenuegenerating business. 
• • Reduced possibility of failure. Only one out of five established businesses that are purchased go under. That is much better than the four-out-of-five failure rate of new businesses. 
• • Enhancement of borrowing power. Most lenders prefer financing an existing, profitable operation to a new venture. 
• • Minimizing tax liabilities. Buyers need to be aware of the tax consequences of the shop they are buying. Both buyer and seller should work at minimizing taxes. The only way to ensure that this happens is for both parties to hire accountants.

Buyers, too, should develop a purchase plan that lists potential sellers, analyzes their motivations for selling, analyzes the businesses, and develops planned responses to counteroffers. Research into a seller’s motivation is crucial here and can serve the buyer in a number of ways. The following is a list of major seller motivations:

• • Owners who want to retire 
• • Disillusioned owners who do not know how to remedy their problems 
• • Owners with tax problems 
• • Owners with other investment opportunities 
• • Owners with di stressed properties and insufficient cash flow to fund remodeling 
• • Distressed owners with profitable operations, but troubled personal relationships

Once a buyer has responded to a sales solicitation, he or she will receive enough information to determine if the shop meets or exceeds investment requirements. The buyer should do more preliminary work to find out further specifics about whether a shop is a good business opportunity. One of the best indications is the shop’s real property lease payment. If it is less than or equal to 6 percent of the shop’s total sales volume, it is probably worth further investigation. 

When a buyer decides to pursue more research, he or she should tour the facility, learn the lease highlights and other purchase options, and evaluate the neighborhood, competition, customer viewpoint, history of ownership, and the owner’s reason for selling. After doing a deeper analysis of the shop, the buyer must once again determine if it meets his or her investment requirements. If so, an earnest money deposit and offer should be delivered to the seller in return for detailed information on the shop.

HOW DO I KEEP MY COFFEE FRESH?

 

YOU JUST PURCHASED A BAG OF COFFEE AND YOU NOTICE THAT JUST A LITTLE BIT ABOVE THE MIDWAY POINT OF THE BAG THERE IS A SMALL HOLE! IF YOU SQUEEZE THE BAG, YOU HEAR GAS ESCAPE THROUGH THE HOLE AND, HOPEFULLY, YOU SMELL SOMETHING WONDERFUL. 

WHY ON EARTH IS THERE A BELLY BUTTON ON THE BAG? YOU ALREADY KNOW THE SIMPLE ANSWER: TO LET OUT AIR. OF COURSE, IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT. THAT HOLE IS PART OF A BIGGER DISCUSSION OF COFFEE FRESHNESS AND HOW BEST TO STORE ROASTED COFFEE TO MAINTAIN FRESHNESS.

Presumably, since we know the major factors that cause coffee to stale— gas evolution, high temperatures, oxidation, and humidity—we ought to able to control them to extend the shelf life of the coffee. By teasing some of the data available in the myriad of research on the topic, we can make some general statements that will help. However, without direct research to support our hypotheses, and the ones of the coffee industry at large, some of our conclusions will have to be educated guesses.

Let’s address each staling factor individually, starting with gas evolution. Since smaller coffee pieces allow the release of more gas, keeping the coffee as intact as possible will help. Thus, grinding coffee ahead of time is a poor practice. Rather, grinding should occur just prior to brewing. The other potential way to slow down gas evolution (and all chemical reactions) is to decrease the storage temperature; cooler temperatures slow down chemical reactions and chemical mobility. Thus, storing coffee in the refrigerator or freezer will accomplish this. Unfortunately, I can’t find any sensory data that explores specific taste changes when stored at cooler temperatures. 

Coffee geeks abhor the idea, but, at best, they have some personal, anecdotal evidence to support it. Freezing coffee could run the risk of creating crystals that could shatter cells, much like grinding. Freezing could also lead to freezer burn, which probably isn’t a flavor anyone wants to introduce to a coffee. Arguably, the biggest reason not to store coffee in the freezer is the risk of condensation forming on the beans as the beans come out of the freezer. This water may then lead to a deterioration of the quality by hastening the natural staling of coffee when the coffee is out of the freezer or by allowing ice crystals to form on the coffee if it is returned to the freezer. Refrigeration doesn’t run the risk of crystal formation, but the condensation is still an issue. 

Ultimately, individual drinkers will have to decide this on their own, at least until some new research surfaces. Preventing or minimizing oxidation reactions is as simple as keeping oxygen away from the roasted coffee beans. Of course, with the atmospheric concentration of oxygen at about 21 percent, that isn’t so easy. Simply putting just-roasted coffee in an oxygen-impermeable container and sealing it doesn’t solve the problem since the air trapped in the container is full of oxygen. Besides, even if coffee were sealed up in a container, the container would likely explode as a result of the pressure build-up from all the volatile compounds being released! So, either the air has to be completely sucked out of the container before it is sealed or all the air must be replaced with a gas that is completely inert, like nitrogen.

I have no knowledge that any company packages just-roasted coffee and then evacuates the air before sealing it, though it seems like a worthwhile strategy. Many larger roasters do flush bags with nitrogen before sealing them. Some research supports this as an effective means of extending the acceptability of the coffee farther from the roast date than by using normal air. Lastly, controlling the amount of water coffee is exposed to is fairly simple. If the coffee is packed in an oxygen-impermeable container, then the container is also likely to be water impermeable. After the container in opened, keeping the coffee in an air-tight container that is waterproof should help minimize exposure to any humidity in the air, although, if the air was full of moisture when the coffee was sealed or closed in a container, then the container won’t offer any protection.

So, what’s the story with the bag and its belly button? The bags that have them are made out of oxygen-impermeable materials. Generally, they prevent many gases from passing through. Thus, as mentioned before, if freshly roasted coffee is sealed in a bag, it is liable to explode. The belly button, more formally known as a one-way valve, is a crafty device that allows gas to exit the bag but prevents any gas from entering. It is a release valve; the carbon dioxide and other volatile compounds can escape but oxygen cannot enter. The one-way valve is a fantastic tool but it has its limitations. 

For one thing, unless the air trapped in the bag while sealing it is replaced with something inert, preventing oxygen from entering is irrelevant; the bag is already full of it (though the valve still prevents the bag from exploding). Secondly, once the bag is opened by the consumer, any internal protection is lost and the consumer must repackage the coffee as best as possible. Ultimately, we aren’t able to prevent the staling process from occurring. At best, it can be delayed. However, if coffee is drunk within a few weeks of roasting, the need to delay staling is most likely unnecessary. After all, the freshly roasted coffee will still be pretty fresh!

Determining Price from a Buyer’s Perspective

Potential buyers must do a thorough financial analysis of the shop. They should study its current profitability carefully and use this information to determine its potential capacity for generating revenue. There is a very close relationship between a shop’s current profitability and its likely sales price. Understandably, sellers are not particularly eager to divulge their financial records to buyers. 

However, if a seller is forthcoming with this information, it can signal to the buyer that he or she has nothing to hide. It is a good idea for the buyer to hire an accountant to assist in this financial analysis. This will help determine whether the deal meets the buyer’s investment requirements. Buyers also should consider hiring other specialists to work with contracts, unemployment compensation, insurance, and banking. Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) throughout the country offer free consulting services to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. 

The buyers also should complete at least a rough market and competition survey before performing a financial evaluation. This will ensure the buyer’s familiarity with the shop’s location and will help when estimating future revenues and expenses. If the buyer is unfamiliar with the area, an independent consulting service can be hired to provide a useful survey. A seller expects a written offer with price, terms, conditions, and an earnest money deposit before allowing a potential buyer to review confidential financial information. It must be agreed that the buyer can withdraw if he or she is unhappy with the financial records. This is because the earnest deposit is at risk unless the right to retract the offer is in place. When reviewing the seller’s financial records, the buyer should expect that an independent CPA has never audited them. 

Auditing is a costly process, and most small coffee and tea shops do  not do it unless they absolutely have to. A lucky buyer is one who is given audited financial statements. Buyers need to reconstruct historical financial statements to show what they could have been, had the buyer been operating the business. This is usually done from only the previous year’s statement. Patience is important here; this is a time-consuming process. If errors are made, the estimate of the business’ sales price may be inaccurate. Sellers will tend to overestimate customer counts and check averages and underestimate utilities and other expenses. The inexperienced buyer should be wary when evaluating these numbers and may want to hire professional counsel. 

Also, it is important to be aware that sellers usually will include only the financial details they initially want to reveal. Buyers should evaluate this information carefully, with special attention to the apparent net cash flow, before spending a lot of time and money on detailed analysis. During this analysis, it is important to note that the typical beverage outlet purchase will not appear to generate enough money to provide sufficient cash flow, give the buyer an appropriate salary and ensure a return on the initial investment. Do not be put off too quickly, however. Solid analysis often reveals that a change in ownership can enhance an operation’s profitability considerably. This analysis should examine all relevant tax filings to determine the most likely annual sales volume that the shop will generate. 

The profit figures included in these filings will be used to determine an accurate sales price. Personnel records are crucial in determining if there have been any Department of Labor judgments against the current owner, or if there are any pending judgments that could impede the transfer of ownership. It is a good idea to meet with a Department of Labor representative to find out if the shop is currently under investigation. Cost of equipment, beverages, food, and miscellaneous supplies are a specialty beverage business’s biggest expenses. 

The potential buyer should take a random sample of cancelled invoices and check their consistency with the cost of goods sold and direct operating supplies expenses listed on the current income statement. Cancelled invoices are a good test of the current owner’s purchasing skills. Potential buyers also should analyze balance sheets and income statements carefully. Balance sheets can reveal the anxiety level of a seller. As a buyer, it is important that you keep in mind that you are basing your price on current income, but purchasing the operation’s future revenue-making ability; this is one of the most critical tasks the buyer will perform.

Mint Frosty Recipe

 

Makes: 2 

Preparation Time: 5 mins 

Total Prep Time: 5 mins

A cold and minty coffee, which despite its name is perfect all year round.

Ingredient List: 

- 1¼ cups black coffee  

- 24 ice cubes 

- 1 teaspoon vanilla  

- 1 teaspoon chocolate extract 

- ¼ cup sugar 

- 4 fresh mint leaves 

Instructions: 

1. Combine the black coffee, ice cubes, vanilla, chocolate extract, sugar and mint leaves in a food blender or processor and blitz until frothy. 

2. Serve chilled and enjoy.

All in the Timing (and Weight)

 

Coffee brewing is all about the coffee to water ratio. Too much water and the coffee will be weak and flavorless, too little and you get bitterness. You can play around with the ratio until you get the result you want, particularly if you’re using filter or steeping methods of brewing, but if you want to replicate a coffee, you’ll want to be measuring your ratios. 

Just how finicky you are when it comes to your coffee will inform just how careful you should be with your measurements. “Two tablespoons of coffee, with the water poured up to around here” may be all the measurement you need, but if you want more control, weighing your coffee and your water is the best option. Scales are an important tool for specialty coffee baristas, and to ensure accuracy, they tend to measure out both the coffee and water in weight instead of volume. You can get a trendy, programmable, coffee specific digital scale if you want, but your run-of-the-mill kitchen scale should be enough to ensure you get a consistent brew. 

Similarly, whether or not you feel the need to time your coffee brewing down to the second is totally up to you. There are some great smartphone apps, a lot of them free, which can help you with timing and with planning your ratios for various brewing methods. Embrace technology! 

There’s Something in the Water . .

If you don’t like the taste of your tap water, it’s worth investing in a water filter. This is also important if you live in a hard water area, which is high in alkalinity and can neutralize the acids that give coffee its bright and subtle flavors. Also, don’t forget that water can be too hot and scorch the coffee. Most brewing methods are most successful when the water is about 194 to 200°F (90 to 92°C). If you’re fastidious, use a thermometer, but if you can’t be bothered just wait a minute or two after the kettle boils before you start pourin 

Thai Iced Coffee Recipe

Makes: 4 

Preparation Time: 10 mins 

Total Prep Time: 2 hours 10 mins

It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that condensed milk was first added to the iced coffee. The milk was originally sold to Thai locals by American, military base commissaries.

Ingredient List: 

- 1 cup ground coffee 

- 4 cups water 

- 1 cup sweetened condensed milk 

- ¾ cup milk 

- Ice

Instructions: 

1. Using a coffee making machine, brew the coffee along with 4 cups of water. 

2. Transfer the strong coffee to the fridge until chilled. 

3. In a small mixing bowl, combine the condensed milk along with the whole milk and stir until silky smooth. Transfer to the refrigerator to chill. 

4. When you are ready for a coffee break, fill four glasses with ice and divide the coffee mixture evenly between them. Top up with the milk mixture and serve