The Coffee Detective Newsletter

Issue #39 September 2015

Greetings,

For those of us living in the northern hemisphere, summer is coming to a close. And for those of us living in the cold north, well, it will soon be getting really cold! I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

Thank goodness for coffee – our best friend even on the coldest day!

Anyway, I have a couple of things to share in this issue.

First, I posted an article on the site a couple of weeks ago that proved to be crazy popular.

I kind of understand it being reasonably popular, because of its topic. But I was surprised by how it attracted over ten times the number of readers I expected.

It’s called 5 Crimes Against Coffee That Will Ruin Your Brew.

I guessed it touched a nerve, as we probably all of us commit at least one of those crimes from time to time.

Next up, our latest coffee equipment review.

The Ninja Coffee Bar is a brewer that pretty much does it all.

Use it to make a full carafe of coffee.

Or use it to make one cup at a time.

Or use it to make an espresso-style drink like a latte or cappuccino.

And...surprise...it’s basically a drip brewer.

For the carafe and the single-serving, you just have to add the right amount of coffee to the filter basket and then press a button on the control button. The brewer runs just the right amount of water through the filter.

But what about those espresso-style drinks? How is that possible with a drip brewer?

Good question. And there is no doubt that this isn’t “real” espresso or a real cappuccino you’re making.

What it does is make a small amount of very concentrated coffee – lots of ground coffee and not much water. This concentrate takes the place of the espresso shot.

You won’t want to drink this as an “espresso”, but it works surprisingly well when you add steamed and frothed milk to make a latte or cappuccino.

It’s not the real thing, but it tastes pretty good.

The most fun part of the process is frothing the hot milk. The Ninja comes with a manual frother, which looks like a small French press. Heat the milk up in the microwave and then pull and push the plunger for a few seconds and presto…you have frothed milk. Very cool.

If you’re looking for a “does it all” brewing system at a very reasonable price, this might be the brewer for you. As far as I can tell, it’s available only at Wal Mart and some Target stores so far.

You can watch our video review of the Ninja Coffee Bar here...

That’s it for this issue.

In the next issue I have a big announcement to make. Something new and fun for the Coffee Detective website and experience.

Stay tuned!

Best wishes,

Nick

Nick Usborne

CoffeeDetective.com

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