Month: November 2011

Seattle’s Best Coffee New Christmas Inspired Drinks and Partnership with World Vision

A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to the launch of Seattle’s Best Coffee’s new Christmas-inspired drinks and their new partnership with World Vision, the world’s largest child sponsorship agency, an advocacy we support so we gladly came to celebrate with them along with fellow bloggers. While waiting for the program to start, we went in their cafe and ordered Mocha Javakula, Strawberry Milkshake and their Oreo cheesecake.

We ordered Seattle's Best Coffee's Strawberry Milk shake, Mocha Javakula and Oreo cheesecake

The program started a little late at around 7pm when the hosts finally came on-stage – Divine Lee and her beau Victor Basa. They first introduced us to Seattle’s Best new blends in time for Christmas – Chocolate Cherry, Coffee Hazelnut, Cookies and Mint, and Coffee Cream Pie.

Seattle's Best new Christmas inspired blends

Just by the names of these new blends, you’d know they sure will tickle your taste buds. We got to try a hot cup of Coffee Hazelnut with white chocolate that night and we loved the sweet nuttiness of this blend. Surely, there’s one flavor that will be your favorite. 🙂

After the presentation of the new flavors, they shared with us the story behind the partnership of Seattle’s Best and World Vision by calling on the 4 ambassadors of the said advocacy here in the Philippines – Tintin Bersola-Babao, Cristalle Belo, Marc Nelson and Miriam Quiambao.

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Benmore Four Casks Scotch Whisky

Ken is celebrating his birthday today and we both had a celebration on my birthday last week, October 30th. Our closest and long-time friends came over to celebrate with us. 🙂

Our friends who celebrated with us

I remember whenever we have a celebration like our birthdays, we always have wine, beer, and other alcoholic drinks available for our friends. Though we strongly agree that you don’t need alcohol to have fun, it’s been part of tradition in our circle of friends to drink the night away ‘cause it makes everyone more willing to grab the mic and sing along our videoke (yep, we have our own setup here! :D). We usually end up with beer, but our most recent discovery is sure to be enjoyed by our friends at our future parties – Benmore Scotch Whisky.

Party the night away with Benmore Four Casks Scotch Whisky

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Something Interesting and Sweet about Chocolates

I never met a chocolate I didn’t like.

– Deanna Troi, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Who doesn’t love chocolates? I mean, seriously, we see anything with the word CHOCOLATE and we start drooling. Come on admit it! 😀

Do you remember those days when a chocnut is just what you need to cheer you up? Nowadays, however, we are bombarded with a variety of chocolates. How, then, do you know you’re getting the good stuff?

First off, we need to know that there are two general classification of chocolates, couverture and compound.

Compound Chocolate Chips(Image credit)

Compound Chocolates

 

Let’s start with compound chocolates. These chocolates are the supermarket variety – cheap and mass-produced. These products may or may not contain cocoa butter. Those that do not have cocoa butter are made with shortening and/or substitute fats.

The percentage that you see on the bar of chocolate indicates the percentage of cocoa solids, meaning the amount of cocoa mass and cocoa butter.

 

Couverture Chococlates

Now this is the real deal. Couverture chocolates must have a minimum of 32% cocoa butter in order to be considered as such. Some brands use only cocoa butter while others mix in a bit of shortening for stability. Some of the well-known brand of chocolates we normally find in the grocery have a bit of shortening mixed into it to increase their tolerance for warmer temperatures. Ideal storage for pure chocolates is 20ºC.

Couverture chocolate bars

Chocolates, much like wine, have different subtle flavor notes. These flavors notes are best savored when the chocolates are at room temperature.

Different chocolate makers use different blends of beans to create their own flavor profile.

The 3 main kinds of cacao trees are

  1. Criollo
  2. Forastero
  3. Trinitario

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