CAFE SESSION WITH STEVE: OCTOBER 2022

Welcome to another cafe session! First and foremost, I want to wish you all a Happy Halloween! I hope you’ve all been out there celebrating, having a good time, and toasting with tequila shots to all things scary! And if you’re going out tonight, a reminder to be careful - just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do… 

Okay, now that I’ve gotten the obligatory Halloween salutation out of the way - I can’t post a cafe session on Halloween day and not mention it at all – but now we can move on to the more important stuff. No, that’s not a segue into football either - the Broncos suck this year and I have nothing more to say about them than that. I’m talking about coffee - and a bit about alcohol too, you all know me at this point - and the questions that come along with it. So, as always, you asked, and I am here to answer! Read on to learn about coffee, cake, salt, beer and more! 

DOES COFFEE CAKE HAVE COFFEE IN IT?

Contrary to its name, coffee cake does not actually contain coffee in the recipe, but rather was given its name to accompany a cup of coffee. While there are many varieties of coffee cakes out there, the majority will have a sweet cinnamon taste to them and be a light, fluffy, pound cake type breakfast or after dinner treat. My favorite thing to do with coffee cake is to dunk a good piece of it in my cup of coffee and allow the cake to absorb some caffeine goodness and add a hint of actual coffee flavor to it!

DOES ADDING SALT TO YOUR COFFEE MAKE IT LESS BITTER?

I have to admit, I have never heard of this one. The first time I ever saw salt added to a drink, aside from lining the glass of a margarita or shot of tequila, was when I visited the old ESPN Zone in Denver with my grandpa. It may have been my first purchase of a beer (legally) while sitting with him and after a few minutes I saw him take the saltshaker and add a dash or two to his beer which made it froth up some more.

Now there has to be some sort of agent in the salt that reacts with beer that way, but I’m not sure this translates into coffee. The only time I have seen coffee perform similarly to this is when pouring a Nitro Cold Brew, which inherently creates a nice frothy head to your cold coffee, making it a more enjoyable cold brew experience. To learn more on coffee versus cold brew, check out our blog: How To Choose: Iced Coffee or Cold Brew? 

Sorry I got side-tracked talking about booze again...Salt actually blocks the bitter and sour taste receptors in your mouth which can then improve the coffee flavor (and may also be a good alternative to adding sugar and milk to the coffee if you aren’t big on that). So, I suppose the answer to this question is, yes, salt can make coffee less bitter.

To go a bit further into coffee and salt for fun, another, slightly odd, benefit of adding salt to your coffee comes from the phrase I like to use, "coffee in, coffee out." As caffeine is a natural diuretic, it causes an increase in urine production thus depleting your bodies sodium levels, so adding a bit of salt to your coffee not only improves the taste but replenishes your sodium levels as the coffee leaves your body, (e.g., helping the coffee out portion of the saying).

If you have a topic or question you’d like me to tackle next month, don’t hesitate to ask! Submit a question or problem in the comments below!