h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was in a coffee shop the other day. I'd ordered a take-away coffee. Just a coffee, nothing fancy. It was mid-afternoon, and I needed a quick stroll out of the office. Going for a coffee is a good excuse.

As I waited, I observed the staff in some confusion. Apparently someone had ordered a hazelnut cappuccino, and due to crossed wires somewhere, two had been made. I volunteered to take it if they wanted to get rid of it. It was, after all, more expensive than the drink I'd ordered, and I'm always willing to try something new. So they decanted it into a takeaway cup and gave it to me.

It was a hazelnut cappuccino. There was absolutely no doubting that it was a hazelnut cappuccino. The taste of hazelnut in the cappuccino was not weak. This was a cappuccino which tasted of hazelnut.

This coffee shop has an impressive array of flavours that they can add to hot drinks, and I've tried and liked most of them - in hot chocolate. Adding them to coffee had, honestly, never occurred to me before. And this experience did not leave me eager to try the experiment again.

Why do people flavour coffee? I don't get it.

TRiG.

Well said. It's getting quite tricky to find a place that sells coffee which tastes like, well, coffee!

Also with you. It's the same with things like houmous..the times I've accidently bought the stuff flavoured with liquorice...okay I exagerate; it's like a disease. Some things just taste so good as they are..why mess?

Liquorice-flavoured houmous? The world is a stranger place than I thought.

TRiG.

Not as strange as humous flavoured liquorice though.

I don't get humus. I tried it while on holiday in Israel, and while Israel was a fantastic place and I felt really at home there, the food was disgusting and tasteless and humus was the worst. And they sold those falafels on every street corner.

Liquorice could only improve it. Preferably then without the humus.

As I don't like generalisations, I must qualify what I said a bit: The pastries as bought around the bus station in Tel Aviv were delicious.

Back to coffee. I don't see the point of flavouring it either - lacing it, however, with whisky, whiskey, brandy, rum (or the like) is quite acceptable.

My sister sometimes adds cardamom to coffee (or tea). It's what Afghans do (Persians, too, btw). It's lovely, I like it very much.

Well, given that I don't like the taste of coffee, and the only times I drink coffee is when I have a migraine, I might go for flavoured coffee: getting the benefit of the caffeine without the taste of coffee, that sounds good to me...

Why flavour coffee... well, it's all a matter of degree, I think, and with a side order of purpose.

Taken to its extreme you might as well ask 'why flavour anything?', but some very familiar foods and drinks are, essentially, a flavoured version. Mocha - chocolate flavoured coffee. Earl Grey - tea flavoured with bergamot. Lapsang Souchong - tea flavoured with smoke. Laphraoig, Bowmore, Ardbeg etc - whisky flavoured with peat smoke. Most winter warmers - beer flavoured with spices. Stilton - cheese flavoured with mould.

Taken to the other extreme I'm definitely with you. I've been in the dried fruit section of the bulk department of my local supermarket where they had blueberry flavoured cherries, raspberry flavoured cherries, strawberry flavoured cherries... but no cherry flavoured cherries And some of the things beer is being flavoured with these days is getting out of control (although a I recently had one of the most delicious beers I've ever tasted - (512) Pecan Porter with added cherries and toasted coconut ).

As far as I'm concerned, anything done for its own sake is usually a waste of time and effort, and when I see some of the flavoured teas and coffees in the same supermarket I wonder 'what's the point?'. It seems that someone just decided to add a flavour just for the hell of it. That doesn't work for me. But in the middle there's plenty of room for enhancing food or drink with another flavour, and although I rarely drink coffee I know that hazelnut and coffee go together well and compliment each other. It sounds like they'd overdone it with the hazelnut syrup in your coffee shop.

The other thing with flavourings is that they are most often introduced to coffee as syrups - this adds a sweetness I don't really like in coffee, along with the almond/hazelnut flavour. Most of the varieties of coffee available in coffee shops, I'd think of as hot milkshakes more than coffee. Still nice enough drinks sometimes, but if I've a hankering for coffee they wouldn't really sate it.

I take my coffee hot, no milk, cream or sugar. Why ruin a good thing?

KB's hit the spot with the description. I hate the flavour of coffee but will quite happily drink a lot of flavoured coffees as they completely mask that taste.

I'm a big fan of adding flavours to hot choc: it lends itself to experimentation. My current favourites are orange/Cointreau, almond/Amaretto and cinnamon (cinnamon makes all things better).

>>Also with you. It's the same with things like houmous..the times I've accidently bought the stuff flavoured with liquorice...okay I exagerate; it's like a disease<<

I spy a Tesco shopper! They're awful for always doing lots of different flavours of hummus and most of them are awful (the caramelised onion flavour being an exception). I once had to ask, with a straight face, where the hummus flavoured hummus was as they didn't have any on the shelves.

Yes, HI, the humous humous is always tricky to spot in Sainsbury's, actually...much like Tescos.

I think I'll give Bel's cardamon coffee a go though...I can see how that would work, and I love cardamon. Chuck a few pods in I suppose, leave for a bit and re-heat.

I quite like Tesco's lemon and coriander flavoured humous...

Just thought you'd like (or be horrified) to know a friend gave me some bacon toffee yesterday. It was quite delicious.

Don't let 2legs know

I think KB has it there: it's the syrupy sweetness I don't like. I don't take sugar in coffee. I wonder could the hazelnut flavour be added any other way?

I do like mocha. A combination of hot chocolate and coffee: how could it possibly go wrong?

And, as I said, I quite like the flavours in hot chocolates.

TRiG.

Hmmm, I wonder. I don't see why you couldn't add some ground, roasted hazelnut in with the ground coffee, and make it that way. I think this calls for an experiment!

Tried strong coffee today with cardamon...wasn't keen. At least I tried...

I've been told that cardamon makes everything better, but I've never tried it myself. But yes, it's always worth experimenting. One never knows what new delights await discovery.

TRiG.