Holiday Hot Chocolate

If you’ve been enjoying a white Christmas, then why not continue the festive cheer with this holiday hot chocolate? What’s more, this vanilla-scented treat takes just seven minutes to prepare.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lauren Braun Costello (@itslaurenofcourse)

Triple Chocolate Hot Cocoa

For an extra-sweet chocolatey sensation, there’s this triple chocolate hot cocoa. With three types of chocolate and a hint of hazelnut, this decadent drink is not for the faint-hearted.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Suze Morrison | Food | Lifestyle | Video (@gourmetglow)

Minty Hot Chocolate

This refreshing beverage is perfect for freshening up while feeling cozy. With mint extract and peppermint sticks, this minty hot chocolate is quick and easy to prepare.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CERES (@cerestucson)

The post Hot Chocolate Ideas to Warm You Up This Winter appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Berit Nordstrand (@bnordstrand)

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups coconut milk
• 1 ½ cups almond milk
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1 pinch ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup/honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

1. Add the coconut milk, almond milk, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, vanilla, and honey or maple syrup to a small saucepan. 
2. Whisk to combine and warm over medium heat. Heat until hot to the touch but not boiling (about 4 minutes), whisking frequently.
3. Turn off the heat and taste to adjust the flavor to your taste. For extra intensity, add more turmeric or ginger.
4. Serve immediately, with some cinnamon on top if you’d like. Leftovers can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. 

The post This Golden Milk Will Help You Nod Off appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Ingredients:

• Black tea
• Milk
• Sweetener
• Cinnamon
• Cloves 
• Ginger
• Nutmeg
• Allspice
• Cardamom
• Black pepper, coriander, and anise (optional)

Instructions:

1. Start by putting your milk in a saucepan over low heat with all your spices. If you have whole spices, it’s better to you use them here so you won’t have any grittiness, but ground works just fine too. Let your milk heat up slowly, giving it lots of time to soak up flavor from the spices.
2. Be sure not to let it boil, as it may burn. Once it’s beginning to simmer, add your tea and let it steep for around five minutes. If you prefer a thinner, less rich tea add boiling water along with the tea.
3. Once it’s steeped for long enough, add your sweetener to taste, strain out the spices and tea, and serve.

The post The Best Way to Make Chai at Home as the Weather Gets Cold appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

One of the main reasons that people find so much value in both coffee and tea is their caffeine content. Both of these drinks provide a boost of caffeine, a mild nervous system stimulant that is lauded for its role in helping humans maintain attention and staying awake.

So, if you are looking for a caffeine boost, which of these two drinks should you choose? Let’s explore further.

Tea

Tea is a drink that is made by pouring hot water over dried leaves that are taken from a plant that is cultivated in mild, wet places. 

While green tea and black tea have significant production and flavor differences, both contain about the same amount of caffeine per 8 ounce cup. You will typically find between 25 and 35 milligrams of caffeine in an average cup of tea, which is considered to be a mild dose.

Coffee

Coffee is a drink that is made by adding hot water to the ground form of beans obtained from a genus of flowering plants that are native to Africa and Asia and cultivated in warm tropical environments.

Coffee is commonly drunk either in an espresso-based or a drip brew-based format. One shot of espresso, which measures about an ounce, contains about 50 to 60 milligrams of caffeine.

Meanwhile, a larger, eight-ounce cup of brewed coffee typically contains anywhere between 100 and 160 milligrams of caffeine, depending on the strength of the brew. Coffee is definitely your best choice for a big caffeine boost!

The post Which Has More Caffeine: Coffee or Tea? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Here are some additions that you can put in your green tea to make it a little more exciting.

Honey

One of the most classic combinations in the hot drink world is tea and honey. We especially like combining natural honey with green tea because the honey’s sweetness does a fantastic interplay with the light tannins of the green tea.

Pomegranate Juice

Green tea goes together fantastically with pomegranate, and I think the best way to incorporate the flavor is to add a splash of the fruit’s juice. This combination is equally delicious when cold or hot.

Mint

Put green together with green and add a little bit of mint to your green tea! Spearmint, whose light mint flavor and wonderful aroma do a good job of complementing the drink’s natural flavors, can be added into your mug in order to create an absolutely delicious creation.

The post Try These Green Tea Additions appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Served in beautiful and ornately-decorated metal or ceramic jars and poured steaming hot into cups, this tea is delightful and delicious. It’s the perfect way to start your morning or to settle down your tastebuds after a spicy meal.

Fortunately for us, even if you don’t live in Morocco, this tea is easy to prepare at home. Here’s how.

Ingredients

• 1 liter of water
• 3-4 bunches of fresh mint leaves
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 2 tablespoons of loose-leaf green tea

Instructions

Start off by pouring the liter of water into a tea pot and placing it on the stove to oil. Wait until the tea pot screeches and the water is boiling.

Once it’s done and has cooled off just a tad, add the mint leaves and the 4 tablespoons of sugar to the water and stir.

Next, you’ll want to place the loose leaf tea in an appropriate container and put it into the teapot. Let the tea brew for 3-4 minutes, approximately.

Take the tea leaves out, and you’re done! Pour from height into the tea cups in order to aerate the beverage.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Make Moroccan Mint Tea at Home appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This hot drink, originally from South America, is an infusion made from the dried leaves of a plant called yerba mate. The beverage produced by these leaves is beloved in countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, and has started to grow in popularity worldwide.

It can be tough to learn to make a mate the correct way, but it really isn’t that hard! So let’s go for it.

Ingredients

Mate gourd
A “bombilla” (a silver straw that filters)
Yerba mate
Cold water
Hot water (around 180 F), in a thermos

Instructions

Start off by filling your mate cup about 2/3rds of the way full with the yerba mate leaves.

Once you’ve done this, place your palm on top of the mate gourd and begin to gently shake the leaves back and forth a few times. This will help arrange the mate leaves into a “little mountain” that will form an incline inside of the cup once upright.

When you’ve set the cup down and the “little mountain” has formed, filling one half of the cup on an incline, add the silver “bombilla” to the empty side of the gourd, leaning against the “little mountain.”

Fill about half of the empty space with cold water. This will prevent hot water from burning the leaves and producing a bitter mate.

Next, fill the rest of the mate gourd with hot water.

Allow to steep for a couple minutes, and you’re ready to start sipping!

You can keep adding hot water until the beverage loses its flavor.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Prepare a Perfect Mate appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This technique is known as “latte art,” when coffee makers and baristas use their artistic skills to guide the steamed milk contained in the beverage to make a type of drawing on the top layer of the drink that is served.

While the coffee drink named in the this art form is latte, latte art techniques can also be applied to making other hot drinks that contain milk. For example, many baristas also make latte art with flat whites, hot chocolates, and cappuccinos.

To make latte art, it’s essential for the hot drink and the steamed milk to be in the correct temperature and consistency. The milk should be between 140 and 180 degrees and the coffee or hot drink should be fresh and hot.

One of the keys of the art is to also use a commercial wand heater for the milk. This allows the “microfoam” to form, and this ends up becoming the base of the layer in which latte art can be created.

The final touch is to use stencils or free-hand to create beautiful latte art designs. Creativity is the name of the game!

The post What is Latte Art? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

So, what is a metal thermos, and what can it do?

Metal thermoses are a type of cold and heat-retaining beverage container. They have the capacity, in short, to keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot for long period of time. Many brands advertise that they’ll keep hot beverages warm for over 12 hours, and cold beverages warm for 24 hours.

They are a great option for people that live in climates that vary.

I often start off my day in a rush, and the cold mornings where I live make it tough for my coffee to stay warm on my walk to work. My metal thermos fixes this problem, however, keeping my coffee piping hot no matter what. It’s also a great option for other hot beverages such as tea.

Thermoses work the other way around, too. When I go to the beach on hot summer days, I often put my cold water or beer inside of the very same container! Despite the heat outside, my drinks always stay cold.

It’s both an environmentally-friendly option that reduces the need for disposable plastic bottles as well as a convenient life-saver.

Be sure to start using a metal thermos if you aren’t already!

The post A Metal Thermos is Essential for Simplifying Your Life appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Recipe

1. Start off by pouring two cups of water in a pot. Add to that 2 cloves, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, and allspice each.
2. Whisk the spices in the water and turn on the heat to medium. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat for 5 minutes.
3. Then, turn the heat back on and add in 2 bags of black tea along with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey.
4. Bring it up to a boil and then turn it off and let everything steep for another 5 minutes.
5. Strain the mixture and keep it in a jar to use for lattes!
6. To make the latte, add in 1/2 cup of the chai to a cup, and heat up 3/4 cup of any type of milk on the stove or in the microwave. You can also add in another tablespoon of maple syrup if you like it sweet and cinnamon if you want it spicier.
7. Use an immersion blender to froth the milk and pour it on top of the chai.

The post Make Your Own Chai Latte at Home! appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Holiday Hot Chocolate

If you’ve been enjoying a white Christmas, then why not continue the festive cheer with this holiday hot chocolate? What’s more, this vanilla-scented treat takes just seven minutes to prepare.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lauren Braun Costello (@itslaurenofcourse)

Triple Chocolate Hot Cocoa

For an extra-sweet chocolatey sensation, there’s this triple chocolate hot cocoa. With three types of chocolate and a hint of hazelnut, this decadent drink is not for the faint-hearted.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Suze Morrison | Food | Lifestyle | Video (@gourmetglow)

Minty Hot Chocolate

This refreshing beverage is perfect for freshening up while feeling cozy. With mint extract and peppermint sticks, this minty hot chocolate is quick and easy to prepare.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CERES (@cerestucson)

The post Hot Chocolate Ideas to Warm You Up This Winter appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Berit Nordstrand (@bnordstrand)

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups coconut milk
• 1 ½ cups almond milk
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 1 pinch ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup/honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

1. Add the coconut milk, almond milk, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, vanilla, and honey or maple syrup to a small saucepan. 
2. Whisk to combine and warm over medium heat. Heat until hot to the touch but not boiling (about 4 minutes), whisking frequently.
3. Turn off the heat and taste to adjust the flavor to your taste. For extra intensity, add more turmeric or ginger.
4. Serve immediately, with some cinnamon on top if you’d like. Leftovers can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. 

The post This Golden Milk Will Help You Nod Off appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Ingredients:

• Black tea
• Milk
• Sweetener
• Cinnamon
• Cloves 
• Ginger
• Nutmeg
• Allspice
• Cardamom
• Black pepper, coriander, and anise (optional)

Instructions:

1. Start by putting your milk in a saucepan over low heat with all your spices. If you have whole spices, it’s better to you use them here so you won’t have any grittiness, but ground works just fine too. Let your milk heat up slowly, giving it lots of time to soak up flavor from the spices.
2. Be sure not to let it boil, as it may burn. Once it’s beginning to simmer, add your tea and let it steep for around five minutes. If you prefer a thinner, less rich tea add boiling water along with the tea.
3. Once it’s steeped for long enough, add your sweetener to taste, strain out the spices and tea, and serve.

The post The Best Way to Make Chai at Home as the Weather Gets Cold appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

One of the main reasons that people find so much value in both coffee and tea is their caffeine content. Both of these drinks provide a boost of caffeine, a mild nervous system stimulant that is lauded for its role in helping humans maintain attention and staying awake.

So, if you are looking for a caffeine boost, which of these two drinks should you choose? Let’s explore further.

Tea

Tea is a drink that is made by pouring hot water over dried leaves that are taken from a plant that is cultivated in mild, wet places. 

While green tea and black tea have significant production and flavor differences, both contain about the same amount of caffeine per 8 ounce cup. You will typically find between 25 and 35 milligrams of caffeine in an average cup of tea, which is considered to be a mild dose.

Coffee

Coffee is a drink that is made by adding hot water to the ground form of beans obtained from a genus of flowering plants that are native to Africa and Asia and cultivated in warm tropical environments.

Coffee is commonly drunk either in an espresso-based or a drip brew-based format. One shot of espresso, which measures about an ounce, contains about 50 to 60 milligrams of caffeine.

Meanwhile, a larger, eight-ounce cup of brewed coffee typically contains anywhere between 100 and 160 milligrams of caffeine, depending on the strength of the brew. Coffee is definitely your best choice for a big caffeine boost!

The post Which Has More Caffeine: Coffee or Tea? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Here are some additions that you can put in your green tea to make it a little more exciting.

Honey

One of the most classic combinations in the hot drink world is tea and honey. We especially like combining natural honey with green tea because the honey’s sweetness does a fantastic interplay with the light tannins of the green tea.

Pomegranate Juice

Green tea goes together fantastically with pomegranate, and I think the best way to incorporate the flavor is to add a splash of the fruit’s juice. This combination is equally delicious when cold or hot.

Mint

Put green together with green and add a little bit of mint to your green tea! Spearmint, whose light mint flavor and wonderful aroma do a good job of complementing the drink’s natural flavors, can be added into your mug in order to create an absolutely delicious creation.

The post Try These Green Tea Additions appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Served in beautiful and ornately-decorated metal or ceramic jars and poured steaming hot into cups, this tea is delightful and delicious. It’s the perfect way to start your morning or to settle down your tastebuds after a spicy meal.

Fortunately for us, even if you don’t live in Morocco, this tea is easy to prepare at home. Here’s how.

Ingredients

• 1 liter of water
• 3-4 bunches of fresh mint leaves
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 2 tablespoons of loose-leaf green tea

Instructions

Start off by pouring the liter of water into a tea pot and placing it on the stove to oil. Wait until the tea pot screeches and the water is boiling.

Once it’s done and has cooled off just a tad, add the mint leaves and the 4 tablespoons of sugar to the water and stir.

Next, you’ll want to place the loose leaf tea in an appropriate container and put it into the teapot. Let the tea brew for 3-4 minutes, approximately.

Take the tea leaves out, and you’re done! Pour from height into the tea cups in order to aerate the beverage.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Make Moroccan Mint Tea at Home appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This hot drink, originally from South America, is an infusion made from the dried leaves of a plant called yerba mate. The beverage produced by these leaves is beloved in countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, and has started to grow in popularity worldwide.

It can be tough to learn to make a mate the correct way, but it really isn’t that hard! So let’s go for it.

Ingredients

Mate gourd
A “bombilla” (a silver straw that filters)
Yerba mate
Cold water
Hot water (around 180 F), in a thermos

Instructions

Start off by filling your mate cup about 2/3rds of the way full with the yerba mate leaves.

Once you’ve done this, place your palm on top of the mate gourd and begin to gently shake the leaves back and forth a few times. This will help arrange the mate leaves into a “little mountain” that will form an incline inside of the cup once upright.

When you’ve set the cup down and the “little mountain” has formed, filling one half of the cup on an incline, add the silver “bombilla” to the empty side of the gourd, leaning against the “little mountain.”

Fill about half of the empty space with cold water. This will prevent hot water from burning the leaves and producing a bitter mate.

Next, fill the rest of the mate gourd with hot water.

Allow to steep for a couple minutes, and you’re ready to start sipping!

You can keep adding hot water until the beverage loses its flavor.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Prepare a Perfect Mate appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This technique is known as “latte art,” when coffee makers and baristas use their artistic skills to guide the steamed milk contained in the beverage to make a type of drawing on the top layer of the drink that is served.

While the coffee drink named in the this art form is latte, latte art techniques can also be applied to making other hot drinks that contain milk. For example, many baristas also make latte art with flat whites, hot chocolates, and cappuccinos.

To make latte art, it’s essential for the hot drink and the steamed milk to be in the correct temperature and consistency. The milk should be between 140 and 180 degrees and the coffee or hot drink should be fresh and hot.

One of the keys of the art is to also use a commercial wand heater for the milk. This allows the “microfoam” to form, and this ends up becoming the base of the layer in which latte art can be created.

The final touch is to use stencils or free-hand to create beautiful latte art designs. Creativity is the name of the game!

The post What is Latte Art? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

So, what is a metal thermos, and what can it do?

Metal thermoses are a type of cold and heat-retaining beverage container. They have the capacity, in short, to keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot for long period of time. Many brands advertise that they’ll keep hot beverages warm for over 12 hours, and cold beverages warm for 24 hours.

They are a great option for people that live in climates that vary.

I often start off my day in a rush, and the cold mornings where I live make it tough for my coffee to stay warm on my walk to work. My metal thermos fixes this problem, however, keeping my coffee piping hot no matter what. It’s also a great option for other hot beverages such as tea.

Thermoses work the other way around, too. When I go to the beach on hot summer days, I often put my cold water or beer inside of the very same container! Despite the heat outside, my drinks always stay cold.

It’s both an environmentally-friendly option that reduces the need for disposable plastic bottles as well as a convenient life-saver.

Be sure to start using a metal thermos if you aren’t already!

The post A Metal Thermos is Essential for Simplifying Your Life appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

Recipe

1. Start off by pouring two cups of water in a pot. Add to that 2 cloves, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, and allspice each.
2. Whisk the spices in the water and turn on the heat to medium. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat for 5 minutes.
3. Then, turn the heat back on and add in 2 bags of black tea along with 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey.
4. Bring it up to a boil and then turn it off and let everything steep for another 5 minutes.
5. Strain the mixture and keep it in a jar to use for lattes!
6. To make the latte, add in 1/2 cup of the chai to a cup, and heat up 3/4 cup of any type of milk on the stove or in the microwave. You can also add in another tablespoon of maple syrup if you like it sweet and cinnamon if you want it spicier.
7. Use an immersion blender to froth the milk and pour it on top of the chai.

The post Make Your Own Chai Latte at Home! appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.