For anyone looking to learn how to make their coffee a little more flavorsome, it helps to know how to add that extra flavor to the bean. Everyone knows how hard it is to get their quality of coffee just right, and at Hot Coffee we’ve been there many a time. Having spent a lot of money on store-bought coffee that comes with inbuilt flavor, though, most of the time we feel it’s simply not good enough.
So, if you find yourself in the same positon, this guide might be of use to you. We’ll take a closer look at your coffee and find out what kind of difference can be made if you use the right kind of coffee and flavor yourself. It’s not really that hard, and in this guide we’ll look at how you can bring your cup of coffee to life and make it taste just as you would have intended.
So, let’s look at how to flavor coffee beans at home.
How to flavor coffee beans at home
To start off with flavoring your coffee at home, you need to start off with some bean that do not have a flavor already. This is quite easy: you can buy unflavored coffee beans relatively easily. Once you do this, you can select a syrup to use in the coffee yourself: you can choose from so many different styles. Cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut etc. are all common coffee flavorings that many people use to great effect.
By adding in the beans straight from the roaster when they are still warm (check out our simple guide to roasting coffee here) and you should be much closer to getting what you are looking for. Once the beans go into the mixer, you simply need to add enough syrup to make up around 3% of the weight of the beans. Any more than 3% and it can become overpowering and make the coffee lose much of the original taste.
Once this is in there, you simply need to give the syrup time to be soaked into the beans. Allow the syrup to sit there and the beans to spin in your mixer for around 10-15 minutes. Once you do this, you should be left with a much stronger coffee taste that has a new, rich flavor added in there for effect.
If you do this, then you are left with a coffee that tastes absolutely outstanding and follows the exact taste profile that you would have expected it to in the long-term .
Can you put vanilla extract in your coffee
Yes, most certainly. In fact, vanilla extract is one of the most common add-ons to a cup of coffee. If you like to add a nice sweetness to it without that tart taste that many other forms of sweetener can add, then you simply need to use vanilla extract.
We find it to be one of the most enjoyable items you can add into the coffee. This helps to make sure you can have a rich taste in the background without it being overpowering or tasting processed and off-putting. Simply add in a few drops of vanilla extract and you should notice a really rich taste.
This can usually be bought in bottles, so you simply need to add in that vanilla syrup and follow the plan above. Do this, and you can be left with a very impressive and enjoyable tasting drink that should more than live up to your expectations.
How do you get flavored coffee beans
As any true lover of coffee will know that flavored coffee beans happens because of the texture of the bean itself. Since coffee beans are so receptive to other aromas and tastes, the can soak up, absorb and utilize the taste and flavor of just about anything that you can think of. For that reason, many people like to use this kind of coffee blend on the basis that it adds a new way to improve the flavor and general enjoyment of any cup of coffee that they make.
Flavored coffee beans are very easy to make, and will often help you to make the most of your drink. If you find that a coffee is too dark, then you can improve it by adding something sweet and light. If you feel it’s too bitter, you can improve that with the taste of anything from almond to hazelnut. You have many options for what you can sweeten your coffee with; thanks to the sheer variety of options, you should find it very easy to put together a much more specific taste that suits your own personal requirements.
You also get flavored coffee beans because, in many cases, companies try to cover up the low quality of their coffee products with the help of flavoring. We recommend that you use flavored coffee beans when you want to add flavor and depth but never to try and hide or disguise a poor quality of bean in the first place.
What can I use to flavor coffee
Really, you can use just about anything that you wish to add a flavor to your coffee. Coffee is an object that can take in its substance from just about anywhere. That’s part of what is so good about it: you are not stuck to using the same old stuff. Unlike other beverages where you are mostly limited to what you can put into the drink, with coffee you can go wild!
- One common choice that many people use is to blend together some coconut milk with their coffee beans. This is a good way to add an extra blending of flavor to the coffee, adding in a lovely depth of sweetness and creaminess that simply was not there. You can do this as a fine little example of just how to make your coffee a bit more specific to yourself.
- Another popular choice is to mix in egg. Yes, that’s right, egg!
- Many Scandinavian cultures swear by this; mixing in a raw egg with your coffee can be a good way to make it taste amazing. It leaves the drink perfectly colored and free of any kind of sediment. While it’s a little awkward and out there, this has grown since its early days in Scandinavian culture and today is used all across the world.
- Of course, another classic is to use a little alcohol to make it a bit more grandiose. While we don’t recommend doing this before work, and only on your post-dinner coffee, it’s a fun way to add a nice kick to the drink. It helps to make it quite strong and, with the right booze, can really bring out the depth and flavor of the coffee.
- Cinnamon is another common choice for those who want a bit of extra quality to the drink. Alongside nutmeg, this might be the most common addition to a cup of coffee if you want it to taste even better. This can help to make the cup a little spicier and can add an extra touch of quality to the drink thanks to the positive effects that cinnamon has on our bodies and our immune systems in general.
- Do you find that your coffee is too bitter? Then add in a tiny sprinkling of salt. Not as much as you would use as a condiment, but it’s a powerful way to help add a bit of extra quality to the coffee roast in the first place. Overly bitter coffee can be horrible, so put an end to that problem with the help of salt: a small amount can be enough to really activate the depth of flavor that is hiding and waiting for you inside every cup of coffee that you have the pleasure of drinking.
So, as you can see, coffee is very much down to your own personal choice and preference. You can choose the kind of coffee additions that you like, with each one adding real depth and quality to the way that you drink your coffee. For personality and personalization, you should do everything that you can to get away from being so basic.
If you find that your coffee maybe needs more a kick to make it worth drinking, then be sure to consider everything we just mentioned: you might find it helps to turn a basic and dull cup of coffee into something far more enjoyable!
Paul Mason
coffee blogger
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