Orange coffee as in orange juice in the coffee is a powerful tasting combo. You may be scratching your head wondering how that odd combo is… that works unlike other citrus.
Below I share a couple orange photo inspiration as to what brought this on me…
And I understand if you need a ‘lil nudge because we’re used to separate cups and glasses for the two drinks.
Part of a popular American breakfast has both OJ and coffee.
But you gotta admit adding orange juice to your coffee sounds convenient (one less cup). ☕️
If you’re at a breakfast buffet, it’s one last cup you have to carry.
I’d say… also a smart idea that makes sense for boosting the immune system during holiday travel season… and calming anxious moods that oranges do. It’s good to carry one on ya!
Plus, orange 🍊 adds a nice flavor to your black coffee. Think of it like orange and chocolate or cocoa… another drink idea. 💭
Oranges brighten up your cup o’ joe choices.
And if you’re a Vata, you love the variety and oranges!
In a cup of coffee ☕️, the orange flavor comes through nicely… half orange (or at least 1/3) to half coffee makes it a brightened, pleasant taste…
The best way is with liquid orange juice you can freshly squeeze or mix with prepared juice. You can also use orange zest if you don’t mind the solid textures.
Those are the best ways for the zesty flavor punch to come through.
…Cold brew coffee has less acidity than regular brewed coffee ways. And fresh orange juice has less acidity than concentrated juices you would buy at the grocery stores.
If acidity is a concern, you can add spices like cinnamon and ginger to help tone down and counteract effects.
The caffeine in coffee btw is loaded with antioxidants that are good for not only quick cognitive reasons, but also improving heart health.
We all love that! ❤️🔥
And when you use fresh whole oranges, you bypass sugar added to processed orange juice from concentrate.
You get the Vitamin C and A antioxidants plus minerals and fiber.
Orange juice sales ramp up in the cooler winter months when people are thinking about ramping up on Vitamin C for cold and flu season.
And as helpful nature would have it, oranges are winter fruits.
That’s a great way to start the morning!
They support happy hormones and reducing stress hormones. Gotta love that too! 😀
Your choice of orange is based on your preference and where you are.
For a sweeter orange, you could select a blood orange, navel orange, or a Cara Cara orange.
You can also sometimes find oranges year-round depending on if there’s a good sunshine season.. That’s why Florida and California are the abundant king and queen orange states. ☀️
A Florida orange has thinner skin than California navel, and are more like Valencia oranges that are the most common kind internationally and around the world.
You can tell where you are located just by the oranges in the stores and trees. 🍊
…Like these Spanish ohh-ahh orange trees I saw. Can you imagine these fresh ones for breakfast?
I had my first Sevilla orange for the first time years ago and it was coffee life changing. That was one of the years I spent Thanksgiving overseas.
And then back home n the States, had Sevilla orange coffee that was inspired by my fun visit to Spain.
Coffee milkshake is a nice option along with many coffee drinks out there… coffee lattes, macchiatos, cappuccinos… and the list keeps growing as coffee interest grows. ☕️
I was a late coffee bloomer if there’s such a thing… starting a morning routine decades into life.
It was a bitter acquired taste to my younger self.
But I realized after some years into the happy habit, around the 7-year switch (like allergy changes), that my gut couldn’t keep up with my cup o’ java demand… so I switched to homemade cold brew coffee.
Because I didn’t wanna give up my new healthy routine.
Afterall, black coffee is a healthy plant-based antioxidant beverage choice. Tea has its own special place in my drink world, but after noon. 🕛
…And with a cold brew coffee milkshake, you don’t have to choose, you can enjoy anytime of day!
It’s a great treat option (…yes/maybe?) especially when it’s still warm temperatures outside. And that can be closer to year round in these climate change days.
And just seconds if you’ve been on the cold brew coffee bandwagon for a while, and have your setup and coffee grounds available.
…I could make you a nice cup in a minute and it’d be ready to drink in that same minute. 😊
I started making cold brew daily in 2019.
That’s when I discovered that I could not have a regular morning coffee routine because of the acidity. Whether it was the fasting day next morning or it was breakfast time, my stomach needs water and food first!
…Maybe yours is like that too.
But I can enjoy cold brew coffee at ease with some small food (like a banana, yogurt, or some fiber) in the gut.
So if you have a sensitive gut or lining, that’s something to consider… and maybe you don’t have to give up a coffee habit or coffee morning routine if you don’t wanna.
…And this light creamy coffee milkshake is a nice complement.
You can keep adding cold brew to your milkshake that can be a breakfast shake (or more like a light cappuccino). 🧋
And it’s a healthy breakfast dessert drink because it’s light but also has egg protein. 🥚
With a plant-based milk like almond milk added, this does your body good. 🌱
Since cold brew coffee is less acidic in the process, you can start your morning with any ground coffee that you can sift through the coffee filter, that is “the brew” process in cold brew.
You can use light, medium, or dark black coffee grounds. Whatever suits your fancies.
And to top it all off, the optional sweet zhugh is chocolate shavings. If you use dark chocolate then you gain some additional healthy polyphenol anti-inflammatory points. 🎉
That’s all the sugar needed in this coffee milkshake drink, if any.
It’s not loaded with sugar like so many cool coffee beverages you buy that give even my inner child a sugar skin crawl attack just looking at how many grams of sugar. 😮
This milkshake can have no added sugar and be wickedly good!
…And not only is this a low-sugar beverage, you gotta love that this is 3-ingredient easy shake steps… where you focus mostly on the drinking enjoyment!
Layer and freeze each layer before adding another layer.
Layer 1: milk
Layer 2: layer with black cocoa, gluten-free flour, and milk (or cream) that's more creamy and good for beverages.
Layer 3: cold blueberry tea
Layer 4: cold brew coffee (or coffee of choice)
Layer 5: milk
Add a few blueberries if you like.
Make plant-based pandan ice cube. Add pandan mixed with water and freeze
Add the ice cube to the top frozen layer.
Bring drink out to regular room temperature about 10-15 minutes before you want to consume if semi-frozen and 30 minutes or longer if frozen solid. Watch your planet beverage change before your very eyes! For kids, you can swap cocoa or chocolate milk for the coffee layer.
Organic cold brew coffee is the coffee you can drink regularly if you’re a cuppa joe in the morning type of person and want to be more healthy.
You can use the information below s to make your organic cold brew coffee and routine. ☕️
Let’s break this down into two parts.
Brewed coffee (or the regular coffee process) yields a more acidic coffee than cold brew in the process.
So if you want a lighter feeling coffee with a medium taste, then cold brew has its body health benefits.
…And why I do organic coffee cold brew daily.
Then, the organic coffee part is important because the bulk of coffee is sprayed with pesticides that we’re ingesting.
And if you’re noticing brain fog or blips in short-term memory has got you these days and you don’t know why, if you do drink regular coffee (cold brew or regular brewed) then the coffee could be the offender.
Switching to organic coffee for a month is a good idea to see if you feel a difference.
Organic coffee to buy can be more expensive and slightly harder to source, but you get to ask yourself what your health is worth and if you want to make the additional search effort.
These are just a few organic cold brew coffee benefits:
☕️ You can make and drink cold brew coffee faster than you can wait for hot coffee to brew (and wait for it to cool some).
I describe below 👇 how you can make your own below if you’ve never made before.
☕️ Cold brew also has health benefits. It’s less acidic through the cold brew process than regular hot coffee or espresso. This is good especially if you have a sensitive stomach or gut lining, and feel heartburn effects from coffee.
☕️ With cold brew, you may not need to eat your first meal first before your first cup as it’s more gentle and doesn’t need the food buffer.
…Many of us wake up groggy and tired, and we want our coffee first thing. But first we need a soft pillow of food in our stomach, that’s not the preference when you’re not quite awake and ready yet for eating.
So that’s where cold brew ROCKS… and is ready for you as you can make the day before or batches days or a week in advance and refrigerate!
☕️ If you gave up on coffee because it tears up your stomach or gives you heartburn, then cold brew coffee could be a good option so you can bring the healthy drink back. This point can’t be emphasized enough. ‼️
Or if you want a lighter cup of coffee during your day that won’t affect your sleep at night, cold brew coffee could be the way to go!
☕️ Cold brew coffee is great for hot weather days as your coffee is served cold. You make at room temperature and then refrigerate.
Making cold brew at home is also a mindful, relaxing activity. And it doesn’t have to end there…
If you know me, you know I like to zhugh up any food or beverages (probably from my catering background), so I’ll share how I do that too below!
What you will need for basic cold brew coffee:
-Ground coffee
-Mesh catcher (with a lip or rim)
-Coffee filters
-Spoon
-Water
-Deep bowl at least 6” high/deep OR pitcher with a large opening almost or just slightly larger than the mesh catcher diameter is ideal (but as long as most the mesh catcher sits inside the pitcher, it’ll work).
If you use a pitcher, you won’t need another pitcher to pour your finished coffee into as your cold brew coffee can go straight into the pitcher and fridge.
Cold Brew Setup:
Bowl: Find or buy a right-size mesh catcher that works comfortably for your cold brew coffee prep setup, where the coffee filter fits in easily.
Rest the mesh catcher to then rest on top of the bowl.
Set the coffee filter to sit in the catcher as flat or parallel to the table surface as best it can, so you don’t have coffee and water in the filter dripping or tipping over. Then you have your bowl setup.
Or…
Pitcher: You can put your filter/catcher ontop of a wider-opening pitcher. If you use a pitcher, you want most of the bottom half of the catcher to sit inside the pitcher so your coffee brewing doesn’t spill over in the sides.
So then you have your setup from one of the options above.
Good job!
Next, you can bring on the ground coffee grinds. See what I did there… ground grinds. 😊
I like to make cold brew coffee in the morning to get a good whiff of the coffee grounds, and as a sensory experience and relaxing mindful activity. 🧡
You can even pull out your setup the day or night before if you just want to make a cup in the morning or a batch for a couple days.
Mind you, the fresh-made coffee will be room temps warmer than when you refrigerate, but that’s actually better for your stomach in the morning when you’re getting your day started.
The stomach prefers room temperature liquids, and preferrably a big glass of plain water first.
And then in choosing coffee types, use ground coffee types. It’s easy to get enamored by coffee flavors, packaging, and brands, but be sure it’s “ground” otherwise they’ll be “whole” and you’ll need to make the grounds.
It’s better to use a mix of superfine ground coffee and a coarser ground coffee so the grounds don’t fall through the filter. Or find one that is just perfect for you and stick with it.
They stay grounded 😉
How to Make Cold Brew Coffee
To start making cold brew coffee, pour your ground coffee mix (about 1/2 cup to ¾ cup coffee grounds total for a large batch) in the filter. Every coffee grind is different. You can use less if you just want to make a cup.
You can start with 1/4 cup coffee grounds to make a cup or two of coffee. These will be the strongest cups from the grounds.
With a spoon, mix the ground coffees up a little in your catcher-filter setup before you pour in water to possibly prevent fine ground coffee from falling through the filter.
Pour cool water over the coffee grounds. Filtered water is good. The cold water is the process secret to keeping the coffee from becoming more acidic (healthy benefit). You can use room temperature water and it will be fine.
After you refrigerate it will be served “cold brew.”
In the beginning, the water will go through the filter fast and you will get a light brown/caramel trail of coffee water in your pitcher or bowl.
That won’t be the final coffee you’ll be drinking.
When you keep pouring into the catcher-filter, then the darker coffee color comes out that you were probably expecting.
Troubleshooting: If your ground coffee mix sends some of the grounds through the filter or you accidentally spill some grounds in your ready-made coffee, then you can simply start over with a new coffee filter in a second bowl.
The second bowl can catch the second round of coffee being made that sometimes can turn out better. Pour your first setup coffee and coffee grounds into the filter of the second.
So back on track… from time to time, take a spoon and stir the coffee ground and water in your filter, trying not to have coffee water overflow.
Keep pouring water as it filters down. And if you pour into a cup, watch it drip darker coffee after the first half of a cup or so.
More Coffee… thinking ahead for tomorrow
Then if you want to add more ground coffee, you can make a bigger coffee batch or a pitcher with your current setup.
This less potent coffee is good for lighter coffees.
…I like to make cappuccinos with after the first two cups of cold brew coffee.
You can make foam or froth milk (I find unsweetened coconut milk the easiest to get a good froth with a frother), or you can use a little whipped cream.
Then I add a dash of cocoa, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, or cardamom.
Oh, and one final cold brew coffee benefit: If you make cold brew coffee at home, you’ll never again be without coffee if the machine doesn’t work! You can always make your own instant coffee without a machine.
You can also pair your plant-based coffee habit to some great plant-based breakfast ideas to break away from the sugar breakfast habits or adding sugar to coffee. Sugar we know accumulates and works to destroy the biome.
So organic cold brew coffee and healthy eating together can be a better habit.
After you have your cold brew coffee setup, pour water through. The first 30 seconds of water pours will go right through. Examine if you're getting the medium to dark brown coffee color (if not, pour the watered down coffee into a temporary glass and then pour through again). If the coffee is too finely ground or too coarse, this can happen. If too fine, add/blend about a tablespoon of a slightly coarser ground coffee to the filter. This should even out the coffee grinds.
Keep pouring water and pour your first cup of coffee (will be the strongest). You can keep going until the cold brew coffee is weaker strength or turning lighter color.
