June 2022
Flavor to Savor
Coffee
Cold beverages with coffee foundations gain popularity on restaurant menus, grocery store shelves - Part 2
Flavors and frills are defining the next generation of coffee beverages. Video courtesy of: Getty Images / InnaDodor
By ERIC NAKATA, Contributing Culinary Editor
In the mood
Whether the desire is reduced mental and physical stress, lowered anxiety, or a boost of energy and concentration, CBD and functional nootropic ingredients are key components in the concurrent growing trends of coffee substitutes and replacements for dairy creamers. Ingredients such as medicinal mushrooms and botanicals are finding success in both.
A number of mushroom “coffee” makers have sprung up of late, and infused creamers are evident in products by Clover Sonoma Dairy Co., specifically its “Moon Milks” line in Blue (blueberry-lavender), Pink (cherry-berry-hibiscus), and Golden (turmeric-ginger). A similar line is now offered by plant milk maker Good Mylk Co. Its “activated creamers” offerings are available in oat or almond and contain the tocotrienol form of vitamin E, extracts of reishi and lion’s mane mushrooms, and the botanicals Astragalus propinquus and turmeric.
Specialty brewed coffees, such as the popular nitro coffee, are getting a flavor and health boost from fruit and floral botanicals. Photo courtesy of: Florida Food Products, LLC.
No hard cell
Cell-based meat and precision-fermented dairy are now a reality. Yet for several decades, the idea of cell-based coffee was equally intriguing to some scientists. Then, last fall, a team of researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre in Tampere, Finland, succeeded in brewing a cup of cell-based joe. Created in the same way as other cell-based products, the coffee cell lines are grown and then cultivated into biomass in nutrient-infused bioreactors. With coffee shortages anticipated to occur in the next couple of decades due to climate shifts, the idea is that lab-grown coffee cells, which proved in the VTT experiments to have the flavor and aroma of naturally grown coffee when the biomass was dried, roasted, and brewed, can fill the need. It was also noted that cell-based plant cultivation is far less costly than cultivating cell-based animal protein.
The coffee pod technology that revitalized instantized formats to deliver perfectly brewed coffee also allowed for a limitless range of flavors and enhancements. Photo courtesy of: Caffe Pontevecchio Firenze, SpA/ Alfonso Petrella
The big food companies are not ignoring this “better-for-you coffee” wake-up call. Nestlé NA recently launched its “Boosted Brew” line of what it terms “coffee enhancers,” such as its “Keto Coffee” take on the popular butter coffee craze of a few years ago. The Nestlé version is a stir-in creamer that includes MCT oil and dairy butter, touted for energy and increased metabolism. The company also launched a separate keto creamer. Lightly sweetened with allulose, it also avoids bitterness and off flavors that can come with other coffee enhancer products.
This coffee trend doesn’t suck
Vacuum-siphoned coffee, a 200-year-old technique, is making a big—and sophisticated—comeback, thanks to modern technology. The combination of a vacuum that draws the volatile flavors and aroma from the beans and steam that gently brews the coffee is said to deliver smooth, crisp, and clean flavors while preserving the rich toasted bean notes and full body of the coffee’s natural aromatic oils. While coffee shops and other retail outlets will likely start adopting siphoned coffee in the coming months, expect beverage makers to begin offering the beverage in bottles and cans in the next year or so.
Developing such beverages using indulgent flavors, and even mixed with wellness ingredients, offers consumers a more digestible approach to trying new products. In coffee, they allow for less fear of disappointment and lowered risk of an unpleasant coffee experience. Coffee beverages are the perfect vehicles because of coffee’s familiarity, clean energy, and the multiple consumption occasions in which it can be enjoyed. PF
Eric Nakata is an experienced creative brand strategist driving results through innovation and product development for more than two decades. He is the Chief Executive for En-voke, LLC, a business development company working with food, beverage, and CBD companies. Previously, he served as VP of Innovation for S&D Coffee and Tea, Inc.; Newly Weds Foods, Inc.’s strategic development chef for McDonald’s Corporation; director of R&D for Mont Blanc Gourmet; and senior corporate innovation chef for Nestlé NA. You may reach him directly at enakata.envoke@gmail.com.
June 2022
