Home-Brewed: DIY Drinks
Hello again! Hopefully my last post helped you save a few
dollars and cents on your past several coffee runs! Especially with the holiday
season fast approaching, every penny is going to count when buying gifts for
friends and family. With that, I wanted to provide yet another way to be
value-conscious, and save on your coffee habits: DIY coffee (Babin &
Harris, 2016, p. 115).
While I am obviously guilty of quite frequent café runs, I
have found myself brewing coffee at home much more often this school year.
Noticing how much my coffee purchases were adding up, I adopted habitual
decision making, choosing to more frequently make my own coffee at home (Babin
& Harris, 2016, p. 254). Getting a travel mug can be key encouragement to brewing
at home. I just got a new one for my birthday, and aside from the pillow of my
dog my friend gifted me, it has been one of my favorite gifts thus
far (see both below). They encourage me to sip at home during breakfast, or make a cup to bring
to my morning classes. So, here are a few of my favorite coffee recipes easy to
make at home!
Mocha:
The Mocha was a drink I frequently purchased at Starbucks
when my brand loyalty to the Coffee Giant was at an all-time high during my
high school career (Babin & Harris, 2016, p. 254). However, realizing that
a weekly Mocha was not cost-efficient for a high school student’s budget, I had
to perform an external search via the Internet to find at-home alternatives
(Babin & Harris, 2016, p. 259). Here is one of the better recipes I found
via this external search:
- 1 cup hot brewed coffee
- 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp white sugar
- 2 tbsp milk
Cold Brew:
A much smoother and less-acidic alternative to your regular
brew, cold brew has become one of my favorites, especially in the summer
months. As I’ve mentioned in my past blogs, my mom is a Starbucks barista, and
has thus been a strong familial primary influence in my coffee purchases (Babin
& Harris, 2016, p. 158). And, after noticing my frequent cold brew
purchases, Mom soon used persuasion to convince me to start making my own
batches of the iced drink at home so I could save a few (or more) bucks (Babin
& Harris, 2016, p. 138). It’s a super simple process, and arguably almost
as easy, if not easier, than defaulting to your Keurig, or brewing in your
traditional coffee maker.
- 1/3 cup ground coffee (medium-coarse grind preferable)
- 1 ½ cups cold water
Caffé Misto:
While crafting a drink with foam may seem daunting at first,
it’s a lot easier than you may think. My first home-made Misto was a product of
group influence (Babin & Harris, 2016, p. 157). Last year, my friend
invested in a milk frother to start making homemade lattes. So, not wanting to
invest in a frother of my own, I decided to conduct some research to find out
how I could make my own froth, without having to invest in a kitchen gadget. It’s
super simple and only requires some milk, a lidded jar, and a microwave, so
check out the Misto recipe below and the step by step provided for frothing your
own milk!
· 1 cup hot brewed coffee
· 1 cup milk
Directions: Brew cup of coffee, and pour into mug. Using a lidded jar, pour milk into jar, screw on the lid, and shake the jar until foam forms. After removing the lid, quickly place the jar in the microwave, and microwave until hot. Finally, pour frothed milk into coffee. (Note: While a Misto is traditionally equal parts coffee, equal parts milk, for a stronger drink, opt for a little less milk/foam.)
For a quick step by step on frothing/foaming your milk, check out this video: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/18/foamed-milk-in-the-microwave_n_6698088.html
Flavored Coffee:
This is a really quick and easy trick to add a little kick
to your coffee, without need for the extra sugar or added syrups. When limited
time serves as a situational influence when I have class early in the morning,
or need to rush to get to a meeting, I can always rely on this trick when I don’t
have time to make some of these homemade drinks that require a bit more labor
(Babin & Harris, 2016, p. 27). This trick only requires adding some spice
to your coffee grounds before brewing (see directions below). My favorite is
cinnamon, but I’ve mentioned a few others, so take your pick!
Directions: Simply add your favorite spice to
your coffee grounds, and brew as usual. I’m
partial to cinnamon, nutmeg, and though it’s not a spice, cocoa powder. Pumpkin
pie spice, cardamom, or vanilla beans also work.
Dirty Chai Latte
I had first heard of the Dirty Chai Latte through word of
mouth (Babin & Harris, 2016, p. 168). Before becoming an extremely
dedicated coffee drinker, my best friend was already what I considered a coffee
“expert.” She frequented many small shops outside of the big chains, and always
seemed to be ordering something different. So, once she recommended the Dirty
Chai, I tried it and immediately got hooked. It became my drink of choice for
quite a few months. Luckily my Starbucks loyalty program membership saved me
some money here and there, but the cost was still adding up (Babin &
Harris, 2016, p. 317). So, I decided to learn how to make it at home. Check out
the recipe I always use!
- 1 chai tea bag (I use
Tazo's version)
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1/2 cup strong brewed
(dark roast) coffee
- 1/3 cup milk
- Cinnamon
Thanks for reading!
Babin. B., & Harris,
E. (2016). In CB 7 (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Liz,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog and can't wait to try some of these recipes! Firstly, I agree that getting a travel mug is a great way to keep yourself from spending extra money on coffee during the day. I have recently started to try and do the same, especially after tracking my purchases in the previous few weeks. I believe it is important to create a new habit loop to effectively transit ion from daily Starbucks purchases to Keurig K-Cups. To do this, one has to review the habit loop and remember that the cue and reward stay the same but the routine is what changes (Duhigg). My cue is that I begin to feel tired, my routine was to stop on the way to class and get coffee, and the reward was the energy boost. Now, however, my routine is to wake up and make coffee at home and bring it in my travel mug. Reading your blog when it was cold and rainy out made me want a warm drink to sip on in this weather. I realized that with this cold weather I like being able to warm my hands on the side of my cup during class. The time of the year, a temporal factor, has an effect on how often I buy coffee (Babin, 2016, p. 230) As you were talking about reusable mugs, I thought you might be interested in this article I found about why people are still using disposable cups for their coffee; check it out!
Article: https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2016/04/07/Reusable-Coffee-Mug/
Babin, B. J. (2016). CB 7 (8th ed.). Cengage Learning. Duhigg. C. (2014).
Power Of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.
I loved the variety of recipes you gave in this post! I’m particularly interested in trying the caffe misto. When I saw the picture, I thought there was no way I’d be able to make it without investing too much time but you make frothing milk sound extremely easy. One of my roommates bought a < $3 milk frother from IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30301167/) at the beginning of the year and we loved it so much. However, it seems to have gone missing and I did not realize how easy it would be to make frothed milk without it until reading this post.
ReplyDeleteYou mention how to make flavored coffee without added sugar or extra syrups. I wonder if you find value creating home-brewed drinks not only for economic reasons but also for functional reasons as the homemade beverages are healthier (Gupta, 2014). My house is trying to cut down on coffee shop purchases for both economic and health reasons, as being frugal and calorie-conscious are important to our self-concepts (Angell, 2017) We still want the experience of fun coffee drinks, though, and bought these syrups off of Amazon (they get the job done but aren’t great) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OM7RJ2O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.
I’m excited to try these recipes!
If you want to hear more about my roommates, check out my blog here: https://a2vortex.blogspot.com/
Angell, A. (2017, September 20). Chapter 6: Personalities, Lifestyle, and Self Concept. Lecture presented in Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Gupta, S. (2014). Marketing Reading: Creating Customer Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30301167/)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OM7RJ2O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.