Coffee, Milk and Mad Science. · 11:51pm Jul 26th, 2017
So a while ago I decided to perform a little experiment: I had been thinking about what would happen if you brew coffee on milk - as in actually replacing the water with milk rather than mixing some into the finished coffee - and what the resulting beverage would taste like.
A few days ago I finally decided an empirical test was in order. I tried both brewing with ground coffee beans and using instant coffee, and will now outline the results since I have nothing better to do.
Experiment 1: Brewing coffee on hot milk.
Method: Since I didn't want to actually fill the coffee machine with milk, especially since I was using my parent's coffee maker, I instead heated the milk in a pan on the stove and then just poured the milk into the filter with the coffee grounds.
Notable issues: While the theory is sound, I immediately encountered a practical problem in that coffee filters are made for water and not milk. Turns out the milk is too thick and sorta clogs the filter, causing it to drip through extremely slowly. I had set out to make two cups, but only managed to brew one before I got fed up and poured the rest of the mixture out. Still not sure how to pull this off in a more efficient way.
Result: The resulting beverage was visually indistinguishable from normal white coffee and totally drinkable. I wasn't sure what exactly to expect, but the taste did surprise me a little: It tasted like milky coffee. And yeah, obviously, but what I mean is that it didn't taste like coffee with milk in it. It actually tasted a lot more like black coffee, but milder and with an undertone of milk that didn't really affect the primary taste. Speaking as someone who doesn't like black coffee, I actually found it pretty agreeable. Unlike the somewhat diluted taste of white coffee, this stuff still packed a bit of a punch but unlike straight black coffee it wasn't being unpleasant about it.
Experiment 2: Mixing hot milk with instant coffee.
Method: I simply heated a cup of milk in the microwave, added instant coffee granules and stirred it.
Notable issues: None. It's exactly as easy as making instant coffee on water. The only issue was that I misjudged the proportions of my first cup and ended up making it weaker than it should have been. However, this did not affect the results to any notable degree. (See below.)
Results: Again, the mix simply looked like ordinary coffee with milk in it. I had expected it to taste pretty much the same as the brewed version though of somewhat inferior quality, but it turns out I was completely wrong about that - in fact, it was actually the opposite, somehow. The best way I can put it is that it tasted very much like warm chocolate milk, except with the chocolate flavor replaced by coffee. It had a very prominent character of milk and the coffee had no bitterness to it. Since I made my first cup too weak, I tried again with the proper proportions, but the only difference was a slightly more potent coffee flavor. On a personal note, I found this beverage to be kinda delicious.
Conclusion:
Aside from the trouble filtering the brewed coffee milk, I found either method to be totally valid, resulting in beverages that both had interesting albeit quite different tastes. Though I doubt I'm the first person to ever try this, given the results I'm a bit surprised milk-based coffee drinks aren't a legit, widely known thing as far as I've been able to tell.
Well, there you have it. Hope this was interesting to someone.
Milk is a little too carby for my diet, but I wonder how well the methods would work with something like pure heavy cream. Would be incredibly rich, and expensive, but that'd be one helluva cuppa in the morning.
try a french press next timeimages-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41vhRjsDkUL.jpg
and thanks for doing this. its one of those things i wanted to do.
4613878
Oh, I shouldn't be drinking much milk either what with my diabetes, so I can't really make a habit out of this. Still, I felt I had to try it regardless.
Cream is an interesting idea, my give that a shot as well. Though, I actually dislike having cream in my coffee, I find I don't like the taste at all. Then again, given the results using milk, it might surprise me.
4613884
Good call.
The 'official' way of doing this is adding hot milk to coffee. It's called 'Café au lait'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_au_lait
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That's different, though. A café au lait is just water-based white coffee or espresso where the milk is warm instead of cold. In fact, all types of coffee with milk as far as I can tell are still brewed on water.
The point was to see what happens if you make coffee using milk instead of water.
4616944
I understood. It's just that it's the closest official drink that I heard of to your idea.
Friends of mine (drunk due to sleeplessness) tried to prepare coffee with an energy drink. Results : Months of a sweet odor in the room, a destroyed coffee maker and an anecdote.
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Which is exactly why I didn't pour the milk into the coffee maker.
That said, he might have pulled it off had he been sober/rested and thought the whole thing through a bit better. My concern would be whether or not you want to preserve the carbon dioxide. That, and I can't really stand sugary coffee. I'm guessing it would basically taste like coffee except flavored with whatever the energy drink tasted like. Also lots of caffeine.