Square Mile Coffee Roasters is exhibiting at the London Coffee Festival this weekend in the “SoHo Zone” of the Old Truman Brewery event space. This is Square Mile’s first time exhibiting at the event, and they’ve done it up good, with an all-black gravimetric Victoria Arduino 388 Black Eagle espresso machine to the left, books from the founders Anette Moldvaer and James Hoffmann in the middle, and a Marco SP9 (or “Splurty”) filter coffee flight to the right. But perhaps the most exciting element the SM folks have brought to the event is a cascara gummy bear.
While I tried the filter flight, James Hoffmann pulled something from his Nudie Jeans Co. bespoke denim apron. “Have you had this yet?” he asked. “We made cascara gummies.”
Three thousand gummi candies were made for the London Coffee Festival. Square Mile’s wholesale director Pete Garcia, a part-time gummy artisan working exclusively in the medium of gummy, spent over fifteen hours on the project. Garcia used the recipe from the high-tech cooking company ChefSteps.
To be honest, the gummies are spherical and not a true “gummy bear”. On the shape of the candy, Hoffmann told me they “really wanted to make the cascara gummy Venus de Milo,” the rarest gummy of them all, “but settled on a coffee cherry shape instead.”
Gummi artisan Pete Garcia of Square Mile Coffee Roasters.
The Square Mile folks will be handing out gummies all weekend at the London Coffee Festival in East London.
Not in London? Make your own at home!
Make 560ml of brewed cascara with 30 grams of cherry. Garcia substituted the essential oil and the 560ml of water in the ChefSteps recipe (available here) with brewed cascara from Bolivia Buena Vista and El Salvador Finca Los Alpes. Use tartaric acid and make sure to quadruple the ChefSteps recipe.
Garcia tells me he hopes to try different flavor combos—and we hope you do too! It’s high time the coffee world dives deep into candies. Can someone please attempt a cascara Gusher? How about like a retro-ironic cold brew Fruit By The Foot? Don’t ask questions, just attempt it, and send samples to:
The Coffee Candy Dept.
c/o Sprudge.com
P.O. Box 3943
Portland, OR 97208 USA
Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and managing editor at Sprudge.com.
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