moki
el Presidente
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2003
- Messages
- 9,418
It's been a while since I've documented an amazing feat of stupidity. That doesn't mean none have been committed, mind you, but rather I've simply been too ashamed to actually document them. Rest assured that numerous acts of stupidity have been committed (amazing or otherwise) over the past year.
This one deserved to be documented, so once more we bravely go where no man has gone (or wants to go) before.
I'm a great lover of coffee and tea. I have a manual Italian espresso/cappuccino maker in my kitchen, and I regularly drink all manner of teas (usually green or white whole-leaf tea). I've made some amazingly good cappuccinos, and like any guy who gets his hands on a piece of equipment, I've also been plotting all sorts of uses for the espresso machine that it was not intended for.
First was my attempt at making a green tea "cappuccino" (dubbed a Senchaccino) that was similar to the green tea smoothies I'd had in Malaysia, only this time hot and with frothed milk. While I did eventually have great success making these yummy concoctions, I very nearly destroyed my espresso machine (and kitchen) in the process.
It seems that even very finely ground green tea leaves expand far more than coffee grounds do when hot steam is passed through them. I ended up with 800lbs of pressure pushing against the green tea leaves and going nowhere because they'd expanded too much. I had to use the care of a bomb disposal technician to diffuse that mess, and I still ended up with a thin layer of ground green tea leaves exploding all over my kitchen.
Now that I have the technique perfected, the results are incredibly good. The mixture of green tea powder, frothed milk, and sugar is a wonderful drink. But I was not content with this. Oh no. One day while enjoying a fine cigar, the gears began dangerously turning in their twisted way again: the cigar I was smoking was made from tobacco leaves. Tea is made from tea leaves.
I like tea. I like cigars. They are both just leaves from different plants: why not try making a tobacco espresso? Or a tobacco cappuccino? The Tabaccoccino was born!
Click here to read about this misguided misadventure (with pictures documenting the debacle):
http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/tobaccoccino/
This one deserved to be documented, so once more we bravely go where no man has gone (or wants to go) before.
I'm a great lover of coffee and tea. I have a manual Italian espresso/cappuccino maker in my kitchen, and I regularly drink all manner of teas (usually green or white whole-leaf tea). I've made some amazingly good cappuccinos, and like any guy who gets his hands on a piece of equipment, I've also been plotting all sorts of uses for the espresso machine that it was not intended for.
First was my attempt at making a green tea "cappuccino" (dubbed a Senchaccino) that was similar to the green tea smoothies I'd had in Malaysia, only this time hot and with frothed milk. While I did eventually have great success making these yummy concoctions, I very nearly destroyed my espresso machine (and kitchen) in the process.
It seems that even very finely ground green tea leaves expand far more than coffee grounds do when hot steam is passed through them. I ended up with 800lbs of pressure pushing against the green tea leaves and going nowhere because they'd expanded too much. I had to use the care of a bomb disposal technician to diffuse that mess, and I still ended up with a thin layer of ground green tea leaves exploding all over my kitchen.
Now that I have the technique perfected, the results are incredibly good. The mixture of green tea powder, frothed milk, and sugar is a wonderful drink. But I was not content with this. Oh no. One day while enjoying a fine cigar, the gears began dangerously turning in their twisted way again: the cigar I was smoking was made from tobacco leaves. Tea is made from tea leaves.
I like tea. I like cigars. They are both just leaves from different plants: why not try making a tobacco espresso? Or a tobacco cappuccino? The Tabaccoccino was born!
Click here to read about this misguided misadventure (with pictures documenting the debacle):
http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/tobaccoccino/
