The perfect pumpkin spice coffee at home

It’s that time of year when pumpkin spice is all the rage. Coffee lovers stand in long lines to get their pumpkin spice fix at the corporate coffee lounge. Or idle in long drive-through lines while a barista dressed in nothing more than a bikini slings together a pumpkin spice creation.

If you’ve tried doing you own coffee concoctions at home, you may well have failed and that’s understandable. Adding spice to a coffee drink after its been brewed all too often results in a not so pleasant failure when the spice blend won’t dissolve into the drink and you’re left with a grit trying to make it’s way between your teeth as you patiently sip.

The trick is to mix the spice blend into the ground coffee itself. As the hot water percolates its way around the ground beans it also takes the spice blend flavors with it.

This works nicely whether you’re brewing up a pot of eight cups, or going solo in a Keurig setup, provided you have the right gear to do that. K-Cups get expensive and are environmentally wasteful. While Keurig would like to sell you flavored cups all day long, you can likely do a better job yourself. There are third party reusable cups online you can buy in packs of 6 or 12. You simply grind your coffee and add it into the reusable cup, then place it in the K-cup maker and brew. And for spice, you’ll simply add the spice blend to the coffee before you load the cup.

But how much? This is up to you, but we like to use 1/8 of a teaspoon per serving. This is a good starting point and you can increase or decrease from hear based on your preference. In a typical measuring spoon set, ¼ teaspoon is the end of the line. To measure an individual 1/8 teaspoon, you need a smaller set that measure out a dash (1/8 tsp), pinch (1/16 tsp) and a smidgeon (1/32 tsp).

First lets make up some pumpkin spice. This is more than you’ll need to do two dozen coffees. You can also add a dash to a smoothie, a favorite desert, or have it ready for when you bake up a pumpkin pie.

Ingredients

• 1 TBS ground cinnamon
• ¾ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¾ tsp ground ginger
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• 1 cup of whole coffee beans

Directions

1. Blend the spices together and store in an airtight container. You can also use whole spices. Break them down a bit in a mortar and pestle, then give them a fine grind in a coffee bean grinder.

2. Now – grind your coffee beans. The nice thing about this is you’ll grind the beans you like, not whatever the K-cup maker is giving you (and in the case of flavored cup, you almost never know what the beans are or where they came are from). I personally like to buy organic beans at PCC which come in 24 oz bags. For this coffee we’re using 2 tablespoons of coffee per brewed cup. Adjust as you desire.

3. Take one cup of ground beans, mix together 1 teaspoon of the pumpkin spice blend and you’re on the launchpad for a delicious cup of coffee.

4. Fire up your coffee maker, add cream and sugar as desired and enjoy.

Sussie Hoemacher/November 2020