Watch Brandi combine all this rightness into a delicious smoothie and then treat herself to a smoothie + Espresso Chocolate Cake Truffle breakfast.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup powdered milk
• 1 oz Monin Dark Chocolate sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon Monin Vanilla syrup
• 2 cups coffee ice cubes (we used Velton’s Twlight Blend — claro!)

Directions

1. Coffee ice cubes: Brew a pot of your favorite coffee and pour into an ice cube tray, freeze until frozen solid.
2. Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend about 30 seconds, or until 4 peaks appear in the blender. Be careful not to over blend.

Ingredients

• 1 oz Monin White Chocolate sauce
• 1/2 oz Monin Roasted Chestnut syrup
• 2 oz espresso
• 10 oz steamed milk

Directions

1. Combine sauce and syrup together in a large mug.
2. Add the espresso shots and stir well to mix.
3. Top with steamed milk.
4. Dip an Espresso Graham Cracker cookie in it and enjoy!

What makes this drink nearly obscene is that it’s a breve, so when you’re steaming up six ounces of half-and-half and adding it to a bunch of sugary syrup and espresso, best not to have any reflective surfaces around. You’ll be able to live with yourself better.

Ingredients

• 1 oz Monin Coconut syrup
• 1/2 oz Monin Hazelnut syrup
• 1 1/2 oz espresso
• 6 oz steamed half-and-half

Directions

Combine the syrups together and pull your shot (we technically did a double ristretto). Add your steamed half and half and bust a serious move while sipping your breve.

We asked Gail and Allison to pull a few shots and give us their opinions on how these new coffees taste.

It’s spring time, friends, and that means bunnies around the world are hard at work producing delicious chocolate candy eggs for your enjoyment. Brandi tried her hand at recreating the delicious flavor of these treats in this lovely latte — produced almost effortlessly on the Rancilio Egro.

Ingredients

• 1 oz Monin Candied Orange syrup
• 1 oz Monin White Chocolate sauce
• 2 oz espresso
• 10 oz steamed milk

Directions

Combine syrups in your serving cup and mix well together. Add espresso and stir to combine. Top with steamed milk and a drizzle of chocolate sauce!

Watch to find out how the experiment turned out.

The Harvard School of Public Health has done a series of studies uncovering the health benefits of coffee for preventing diabetes. In the well-known Nurses’ Health Study, they looked at 982 diabetic and 1,058 non-diabetic women without cardiovascular disease.

‘They wanted to see if the beneficial effects of coffee on metabolism were from changes in the hormone adiponectin,’ said Jonathan Galland, health writer for HuffPost Healthy Living. Adiponectin is key in that it promotes insulin sensitivity which protects individuals against Type 2 diabetes.

What they found was women who had four or more cups of coffee per day ‘had significantly higher adiponectin’ than those who did not drink coffee regularly.

Across the world, scientists in Germany, Finland and Denmark have been raving about the benefits of increasing one’s coffee intake to improve cholesterol levels and blood levels of inflammatory compounds.

Referring to the European scientists studies in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, ‘Coffee consumption appears to have favorable effects on some markers of sub-clinical inflammation and oxidative stress and to increase plasma concentrations of potential biomarkers of coffee intake.’

In Layman’s terms, since subclinical inflammation is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes , coffee mediates and reduces  the risk of type 2 diabetes amongst people who drink coffee habitually for years.

But it’s not only caffeinated coffee that helps prevent diabetes, studies have shown that decaf may have the same positive affects also!

It’s not necessarily the caffeine that gives individuals the health benefits, Frank Hu, MD, MPH, PhD, nutrition and epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health explains to WebMD. Coffee is jam packed with other nutrients, such as antioxidants, that he says contribute to, ‘the whole package.’ Antioxidants help prevent tissue damage caused by molecules called oxygen-free radicals.

Coffee also is full of minerals (i.e. magnesium and chromium) that helps the body use the hormone insulin, which controls blood sugar (glucose). In type 2 diabetes, the body loses its ability to use insulin and regulate  blood sugar effectively.

So if you’ve been looking for an excuse on which to pawn off your java addiction, now you’ve got a few health points to reference! Sip that second (or third or fourth) cup of the day and ruminate on how well you’re treating your body — and your taste buds.

Once a food is processed, it begins to deteriorate immediately with exposure to oxygen. Foods that are high in fat or oil content are especially susceptible to this degradation, as their oils will begin to break down and become rancid in relatively short order. Flushing the package with nitrogen forces out the majority of oxygen and, unlike vacuum-sealing, also provides a bit of packaging protection as well. Nitrogen-flushing is often used with more delicate foods (like potato chips!), but is also very popular in preserving coffee beans.

According to a few different roasters over on coffeed.com, coffee preservation experiments revealed that while packaging the coffee directly after roast did result in the out-gassed CO2 expelling oxygen through the one-way valve, their nitrogen-flushed counterparts lasted longer. In fact, one roaster reported that the shots pulled with a bag roasted 24 days previously still held up well! A major drawback, however, is that the nitrogen flushing process is not considered to be an organic-friendly practice, so roasters that are certified organic cannot employ this technique.

Whether or not you’re cool with this preservation process is sort of personal preference, but it’s something that a lot of large scale roasters practice — even some of the renowned third wave roasters, like Europe’s Coffee Collective. And while the coffee will stay fresher using this method, once the bag is opened, it will age just as rapidly as any other variety … so use it or lose it.

Watch to find out their thoughts on these new coffee offerings.