New Ways to Drink Coffee

Hemp Is the New Milk

Forget about soy and almond milk, the newest nondairy creamer to hit the coffee scene is hemp milk. In NYC, nary a boutique coffee shop is without hemp milk on the menu — from Birch to the all new MatchaBar to (Blank) . . . but the West Coast also has its handful of hemp-serving spots like Oregon's Backporch and Saint Simon. Due to its roasted flavor and subtle sweetness, hemp milk complements the coffee's flavor rather than distracts from it. Plus, hemp milk foams up quite nicely for lattes and cappuccinos.

Source: Sarah Cooper and Instagram user fistifluffs

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Fizzy Coffee

Several waves of fizzy coffee are gaining traction. There's a slew of coffee kegs on tap that use gases like nitrogen to carbonate the cold brew. Two notable ones are Cuvée Coffee's Black & Blue (TX) and Stumptown (OR). Across the globe, coffee shops have been serving espresso tonics (espresso shots poured over bubbly tonic water), but they've finally made it to the States thanks to San Francisco's Saint Frank Coffee. And finally, there's naturally effervescent Coffer coffee (TX), a fermented cold-brew coffee, which is essentially a kombucha made with coffee rather than tea. One thing is for certain, America loves combining bubbles with coffee.

Source: Facebook user Cuvee Coffee Roasting Company, Stacy Adimando, and Facebook user Coffer

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Coffee Subscriptions

Artisan coffee roasters like Counter Culture (NC), Stumptown, and Blue Bottle (CA) offer mail-order subscriptions for fresh, convenient coffee deliveries. However, there's no need to stick to just one coffee! Services like Craft Coffee let you try coffees from various roasters around the States, so you don't have to be pigeonholed to a single roast or roaster.

Source: Facebook user CraftCoffee

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Coffee Tea and "Cold Brew"

Devoción Coffee out of the NY borough of Brooklyn is set to release a coffee tea in the coming months made by cold-brewing coffee cherries. It's an entirely different coffee-drinking experience — the cherries themselves are tart rather than bitter and slightly tannic like tea. In a similar vein (although not coffee), Mast Brothers is serving up a cold-brewed chocolate, made from steeping ground cocoa nibs in cold water overnight to extract the bitter, fruity flavors.

Photo: Anna Monette Roberts

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Automatic Chemex

We're entering a new wave of beautiful automatic coffee makers as more and more consumers despise clunky, plastic percolators. One on our wish list is The Ratio Eight. It's priced steeply at $450, but it's handcrafted with natural materials, so it practically doubles as artwork, too. It's essentially an automatic Chemex machine with a sleek, functional design made of aluminum, glass, walnut wood, and (our favorite part) a cork stopper to prevent steam from escaping. No fancy brewing skills are needed as the Ratio automatically timers each stage of the process and designates when the coffee is "blooming," "brewing," and "ready" with white lights.

Source: Ratio Coffee

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