][1]Don’t know about you but I could use a coffee to get today kick started. If sales are anything to go by, the 5pm Dining blog is not alone in its caffeine craving.
Each year, UK consumers shell out some £6.3 billion for takeaway coffee. That’s a lot of latte. Interestingly, depending on what sort of coffee you prefer, your daily dose might be 80% or more milk. Which leads to some interesting questions about how different types of milk can influence the flavour of your coffee.
Milk matching
Coffee connoisseurs may know their cafetière from their Chemex but are they overlooking one of the most important factors in a cup of coffee: the type of milk used?
To answer that conundrum, Graham’s The Family Dairy has teamed up with the award-winning Artisan Roast coffee shops to help consumers match milk with their preferred coffee serve. Darryl Docherty, manager of the Artisan Roast café in Edinburgh’s Bruntsfield, experimented with the Graham’s range of milks in different styles of coffee. By pairing different varieties of milk with different styles of coffee, the collaboration has come up with the Great Graham’s Coffee Guide.
If you are mad about your mocha, it’s well worth a squint. The results showed that different varieties of milk had a pronounced effect on the flavour of the final serve. For example, Darryl found that when making flat whites ‘the reduced fat content of Graham’s semi-skimmed allows our house blend to sing through the milk. In the cup we get syrupy chocolate and amaretto, finished with a beautiful butterscotch linger.’
Allows coffee character to shine
Similarly, Darryl found that the low fat content of Graham’s organic skimmed milk allowed more of the coffee’s character to come through in the small, but mighty, piccolo. Graham’s Gold Jersey milk was perfect for making lattes as the creamy texture and butterscotch sweetness worked with Artisan Roast’s Janszoon blend to make a lavish milkshake.
Carol Graham, marketing director of Graham’s The Family Dairy explained: ‘Our friends at Artisan Roast have been educating us during caffeine fuelled afternoons, while we have been sharing our own insight into the fat and protein content of our different milks that subsequently impact the serve and taste of every cup.’
Tasting event
If you want to learn more about matching milk to coffee, Darryl will be demonstrating how Graham’s The Family Dairy can perfect your coffee at a tasting evening taking place in its Brunstfield café in Edinburgh on Wednesday 5 March 2014.