First things first - have you ever listened to the song "Coffee Mug" by Descendents? Oh. My. Lord.
Moving on. If you don't know me, then you might not know that I am serious about coffee. Seriously serious. I take it everyway but I.V. drip. Most of you may have even experienced me showing up to your photoshoot with a nice cold latte in my hands (it fuels the creativity in me). Actually I come from a long line of coffee drinkers - my mom, sister and I can't even start a descent shopping spree or road trip without hitting up a coffee shop first. It's practically impossible. Anyway I had found this recipe through Pinterest and decided I had to try it and, like most photographers I am privy to, I had to document it. Have you ever documented something with photos then thought, after uploading them all onto your hard drive, what now? Start a blog and share - that's what I do!
Ok, so firstly you're going to buy 1lb of strong, dark roasted coffee and a gallon of water. Soak your grounds in the water for at least 12 hours or longer. This is called "cold-brewing". I didn't get a picture of this - sorry! But you can imagine it -it's really not hard. You want to make sure your grounds are completely saturated with water so mix or stir it up really well then walk away....
They should look like this the next day:
Once your 12 hours are up (I know the anticipation is great - hopefully you're able to sleep that night!) you are going to strain your now condensed coffee mixture using a mesh strainer and filters or several layers of cheesecloth. I had a very very TINY mesh strainer I borrowed from my mom for this project so it was taking a very...very...v.e.r.y. long time...
So eventually I got tired (and lazy AND impatient..) of using and squeezing out the coffee filters so I used a new approach; pouring it straight in to the mesh strainer and praying no grounds would fall through.
Hallelujah - it worked! Now that I know I like this recipe, I will buy myself a bigger strainer and might possibly have to use the coffee filters (or cheesecloth) in addition - it's all experimentation folks!
Just look at this frothy, yummy goodness that you end up with!
I saved the gallon container from a Chick-fil-A sweet tea and poured all my cold-{delectable} goodness into it. So do that now and then give it a sweet little peck - things might seem formal now, but once you've developed a relationship with this drink, you'll be french-kissing in no time!
You know that old saying "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it?" Well, coffee and I, we were just dating before apparently because now - its official!
Here comes the creamy goodness part : sweetly simplistic and oh-so-cheap!
Seeing as how I am an extreme penny-pincher, I DID buy off brand, especially since I was at first extremely skeptical this recipe would actually be any good. So stick with me now even if you are a kitchen snob and I've offended you.
Mix those two together into some sort of sealable container that you can keep in the fridge. The only thing I had on hand was a canning-jar-turned-into-Irish-Wake-cup from McGuires. I suppose you could use a tupperware bowl but they don't pour so well.
It will look disgustingly rich at first but trust me (and thank me later).
Now, I'm not going to get too extremely detailed on this next part just because who am I to tell you how to mix up your own morning hit but I will say this: the original recipe calls for a little over half of coffee and then fill rest with sweet cream - that was too sweet for me. So really, it all depends on how you like your poison so play around with it 'til you find the perfect sweet spot.
Then whip one up for a loved one, interrupt a phone call of theirs insisting on taste-urgency and watch them do this:
Move on over average-store bought creamer - there's a new cowboy in town and he's here to stay!
