“Pearled coffee” is the name of an experimental product from the folks at Counter Roastery in London. It is four-times concentrated coffee dropped into a calcium lactate solution creating little jelly balls of coffee. Counter Roastery floats these balls in a shot of milk for a playful “boba tea” like drink.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen molecular gastronomy spherification applied to coffee–rumor has it that Illy were first to play with this in the early aughts, and Billy Wilson, proprietor of the Barista coffee bars in Portland, memorably made “Espresso Caviar” for his 2006 Northwest Regional Barista signature beverage, with the technique making sporadic competition appearances since.
Similar style, but the folks at Counter want to see this take off in real life and far beyond the competition stage. They envision playful applications for the pearls: from ice cream to cocktails. From their blog:
Head of roastery (Howey) has a molecular biology background and last week he made this video showing the process of making something we like to call “Pearled Coffee”. It’s was an experiment that turned out to work _and_ taste great. Basically it is coffee pearls, made of 4 times concentrated filter coffee. As the pearls can be served with everything from milk to baileys to tequila we find the potential very interesting.
The goal is to sell Pearled Coffee (with different liquids!) in cafe’s, bars and restaurants!
Watch the process below and feel free to get in touch. Maybe we can figure how this is possible.
Watch the film from videographer Nika Zbasnik below:
Pearled Coffee from Nika Pika Slika on Vimeo.
