Since it arrived, everyone in the shop has been dreaming up new ways to use Coffee Cherry Tea. Of course all the usual tea steeping ways. Iced tea with an elder flower syrup is phenomenal and definitely a favorite.
Coffee Cherry Iced Tea
- 7g coffee cherry tea (heaping teaspoon)
- 4oz just boiled water
- Steep 5 minutes
- Strain into mason jar filled with ice and shake
- Pour over ice
- shot of botanical syrup (optional)
Then Jason went and made it into a syrup. Whole. New. World.
At the shop we have an old timey spritzer bottle, so making Italian Sodas and Creamosas was an easy first step.
One of the fun things about Ames is the ISU Surplus Sale — where you can pick up all kinds of old lab equipment. We love using them to measure for our drinks and quantify our blends.
Coffee Cherry Tea Italian Soda (Creamosa)
- 1oz shot Coffee Cherry Tea syrup
- Seltzer Water
- Ice
- Cream on top (optional)
Making the coffee cherry tea into a syrup also lead to a most delicious steamer — milk and syrup steamed together.
Coffee Cherry Tea Steamer
- 1oz shot of coffee cherry tea simple syrup
- 8oz milk
- Put together in pitcher, steam, dash of cardamon powder
And then someone was like – let’s pull shots!
Coffee Cherry Tea Espresso Shot
- 10g coffee cherry tea, tea cut
- Red Espresso restricted flow porta filter
- 30 sec pre-infusion
So now, the entirety of our TeaEspresso menu that we developed with RedEspresso and yerba mate can be used with Coffee Cherry Tea. I over packed the porta filter, but still had good results. It’s more flexible than white espresso or rooibos. It bulks A LOT. One of the things that’s easy to forget about Coffee Cherry Tea is how fibrous it is.
Coffee Cherry Tea Latte
- 2oz shot coffee cherry teaspresso
- 6oz whole milk, steamed
- shot simple syrup (cardamom is pretty delish)
- dash apple pie spice on top
At Little Woods we do a lot of careful development of our menu… but sometimes inspiration strikes I drop something on the menu and get super lucky and it works out great… Thus the Tea Spritzer. I had fresh lemon balm from the garden. A new ol’ timey Water Seltzer bottle and we were debuting our new Tea Espresso menu. I wanted to put them all together. Thus the Tea Spritzer is born.
Coffee Cherry Tea Spritzer
- A shot of Elder Flower Syrup.
- A Double Shot of Rooibos or coffee cherry tea.
- Shaken with ice.
- Seltzer water.
- Sprig of fresh aromatics like lemon balm or chocolate mint…. holy basil is also great.
Coffee Cherry Tea (tea cut) we use in our espresso machine
Rooibos we use in our espresso machine
Elder flowers we made our simple syrup with
Last week Andrea was a guest teacher at Cook’s Emporium and co-taught a class on simple syrups. During the prep for the class we took a ton of photos of how we make our simple syrup for Little Woods, so we’ll be sharing the recipe for that here on the blog soon.
Up next, our blends! Andrea knocked it out of the park with Oasis, debuting in our brick and mortar this afternoon.
Until Next Time.
