stepping outside the comfort zone

We went out for brunch this morning to D Light Café and Bakery, a new place we had read about which looked promising. It was indeed a delight (no pun intended), everything was delicious and the owners and their staff couldn’t have been nicer.

This bit in the article caught my eye:

And then there’s the Capuorange, a double shot of espresso mixed with orange juice. “It sounds strange,” admits Vira, who says the unusual wake-up concoction has earned a dedicated following.

Well that’s…. different. Sounded like it could be really interesting, really disgusting, or anywhere in between. The description brought back an unhappy childhood memory of the time I got the brilliant idea that if my orange juice and my bowl of Cheerios each tasted good, they would taste even better together! Spoiler: they did not. At all.

Past experience be damned, I figured I had to find out how this combination tasted.

I have to say…… it was actually very good! It was light, refreshing, tilted a bit more in taste toward the orange than the coffee, and very warming. With each sip, you get a slightly muted orange taste followed by a coffee finish. The concept may seem very odd at first but ultimately makes sense, if one thinks of the positive citrus impact of a lemon twist on an espresso. I definitely would not try to recreate this at home, however. The balance of flavors seemed to be on a razor’s edge and I imagine the results from getting the espresso/o.j. ratio at all wrong would be disastrous.

My only problem with the drink is the name. Capuorange doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, especially with Orangeccino ready for the taking. Also the ‘cap’ part doesn’t fit as there’s no milk – thank goodness, that would make it undrinkable. I’m not clever enough to come up with the perfect, utterly appropriate name but it’s out there, I can feel it. Espressorange……. Caffe Arancio……. I’m sure something gangbusters will occur to me tonight at 2:30am.

This little adventure came a few days after my attention was grabbed by this picture on my Facebook feed:

It was posted by a friend and former colleague, Wito, who lives in Jakarta. It’s a specialty from The Coffee Academïcs, a Hong-Kong based chain with outlets across Asia (and yes, they do spell their name using an i with a diaeresis). Interest piqued, I asked Wito a few questions and he was kind enough to share some info with me.

This creation, the Coffee Conette, is a piccolo served in a small, chocolate-coated waffle cone. Seems you drink the coffee from the cone, then eat it. The chocolate keeps the piccolo from leaking and the cone from getting soggy. I would imagine, however, there’s no guarantee the cone will keep you from spilling the coffee on your shirt, so one should probably dress carefully and proceed with caution the first time trying it.

I’m not a big mocha guy, but it’s quite a clever concept and I’ve not seen anything like it. If I can ever get myself back to Asia I’d certainly give it a try.