Verdant Coast Coffee

Peach Iced Latte

Enjoy in-season peaches with your coffee. Fresh puree under a cold latte.

Base

Espresso or cold brew

Makes

1 tall glass

Time

5 min

Either roast works here. The medium keeps it bright and its citrus runs alongside the peach. The dark sits underneath the fruit and gives the glass more body. Oat milk suits both.

What you need

• 2 shots Verdant Coast espresso (about 2 fl oz), or ½ cup strong cold brew
• 2–3 tbsp peach puree
• ½ cup milk, or oat
• Ice, and a tall glass
• Optional: a pinch of cinnamon, or vanilla cold foam

Method

1. Spoon the peach puree into the bottom of the glass.
2. Fill with ice and pour in the cold milk. Stir until the peach works its way up through the milk.
3. Pull the espresso and pour it slowly over the top so it settles in layers.
4. Give it a stir before you drink it. The peach sinks otherwise.

Peach puree from scratch. Blend two ripe peaches, skin on, with a teaspoon of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. That is the whole recipe. It keeps about four days in the fridge, and it is worth doing while the fruit is good.

For the adventurous

• Frozen peach slices in place of ice. They chill it without watering it down.
• Vanilla cold foam on top instead of stirring the milk through.
• A pinch of cinnamon over the foam.

Demerara Espresso Martini

Hamilton 86 and Mr Black over fresh dark-roast espresso — richer and more molasses-forward than the vodka original.

Base

Dark roast espresso

Makes

1 glass

Time

5 min

This is the drink our dark roast was made for. The longer development gives you cocoa and body, and body is what survives rum, sugar, and thirty seconds of hard shaking. A lighter roast gets buried here.

What you need

• 1½ fl oz Hamilton 86 Demerara rum
• ¾ fl oz Mr Black cold brew coffee liqueur
• 1 fl oz fresh espresso, dark roast
• 1 tsp liquid cane sugar
• 3 coffee beans, to garnish

Method

1. Put a coupe or martini glass in the freezer while you pull the shot.
2. Pull 1 fl oz of dark roast espresso. Don't let it sit — the crema is what gives you the foam cap, and it collapses within a couple of minutes.
3. Add the rum, liqueur, cane sugar, and the hot espresso to a shaker. Fill with ice immediately.
4. Build the foam by shaking hard. The shaker should be painfully cold when you stop.
5. Double strain through a fine mesh into the chilled glass. Let the foam settle for about 20 seconds, then float three coffee beans on top.

Balance. Mr Black is drier than Kahlúa and dark roast brings more bitterness, so a full teaspoon of cane sugar is about right. Taste before you shake. If your roast is on the ashy side, go to 1½ tsp; if it's a sweeter dark roast, back off to ½.

The rum. 86 proof reads hotter than vodka, so the 1½ oz pour is deliberate. Going to 2 oz makes it boozy at the expense of the coffee.

For the adventurous

• No espresso machine? Use 1 oz of strong cold brew concentrate plus 2 drops of saline solution, or a tiny pinch of salt, to make up for the lost body. Foam will be thinner but the flavor holds.
• Whiskey variation. Swap ¼ oz of the rum for a peaty Islay scotch, rinsed around the glass. Smoke plays well with Demerara.

Summer Cold Brew

Cold water takes its time. Over eighteen hours it pulls the sweetness out of the bean and leaves the sharp edges behind — which is exactly what this lot was roasted for.

We roast La Virgen Estate medium to protect what the farm gives us: orange, floral, a little cocoa. Brewed cold, the orange leads and carries the whole glass. Brewed hot, the floral and cocoa come forward and round it out. One bag that works all summer, either way.

Ratio

1:8

Steep

16–18 hours

Makes

About 3 glasses

What you need

• 100 g Verdant Coast, ground coarse — roughly 1½ cups whole bean
• 800 g cold filtered water — about 3⅓ cups
• A jar or carafe, and a fine-mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth; or a fine filter of your choice. Cheesecloth catches the fines without stripping the body a paper filter would

Method

1. Grind coarse, about the texture of raw sugar. Finer than that and the brew turns muddy and over-extracts.
2. Combine the coffee and water. Stir gently until every ground is wet — dry pockets brew unevenly.
3. Cover and steep 16–18 hours in the fridge. Room temperature works in 12–14, with a little more body and a little less clarity.
4. Strain into a clean carafe. Don't press or wring the grounds; that's where the bitterness is hiding.
5. Serve over plenty of ice. It keeps about a week refrigerated.

Want concentrate for the week? Brew at 1:5 instead, then cut it 1:1 with water or milk as you pour.

For the adventurous

• A splash of milk or oat brings the cocoa forward.
• A twist of orange peel leans into the citrus already in the cup.

Mont Blanc

Orange peel steeped into the cold brew, a vanilla cream cap poured over the top, dark chocolate and zest to finish. Named for the white peak.

Base

Cold brew

Makes

1 glass

Time

5 min, plus 2 hours

What you need

• 150 ml Verdant Coast cold brew, from the 1:8 batch above
• Peel of half an orange, in wide strips
• 60 ml heavy cream and 30 ml whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp sugar, or maple
• Dark chocolate and orange zest, to finish. Plus ice

Method

1. Drop the peel into the cold brew, cover, and rest it 2 hours in the fridge. Fish the peel out. Brewing a fresh batch? Add the strips for the last two hours of the steep instead.
2. Fill a glass with ice and pour the cold brew two-thirds of the way up.
3. Shake or froth the cream, milk, vanilla, and sugar until it just thickens. You want it pourable, still loose enough to settle.
4. Pour it over the back of a spoon so it sits as a cap on the coffee.
5. Grate dark chocolate over the top and finish with orange zest.

The aroma is in the peel's oil, so steep the strips and leave the juice out of it.

For the adventurous

• Oat instead of cream holds a cap better than you'd expect with a little maple.
• Grate the chocolate coarse. Fine shavings disappear into the foam.
• A splash of Cointreau if it's evening.