— Josbeth Banaag

So I've worked at a couple places that we've done this for and we've always used an instant coffee, um, to be able to do this. So dry coffee, basically, uh, you know, um, putting water into it and then, uh, bringing it up to a boil. But at the same time, we would take, uh, like the sugar and water to start the caramel, um, and be, bring that up to a temperature. It starts to bubble up quite a bit, um, and then you pour the hot, um, uh, coffee basically into your caramel to be able to make that essence. Now if you're just making the essence, you can do the same thing with just the water, the instant coffee and the sugar in the same pot, bringing it all up to the same thing where you don't have to make it into that caramel, but if you're making a caramel specifically, you definitely wanna bring it up to the caramel temp and then add the hot coffee to it. Now, difference between dark versus medium, um, you know, instant espresso versus instant coffee, uh, that is all a personal preference to be able to get the unique flavor profile that you're looking at because different brands of those will all taste different. Um, a medium blend versus a dark blend will definitely have a, uh, more bitter flavor on the dark end and a lighter flavor on the medium, uh, roast as well too. So those are things to consider when you're, um, experimenting with this as, uh, as well. So, um, you know, and coffee essence can be used and all kinds of things. You don't have to just put it in the caramel, you can just take the, um, take it as well and use it in all kinds of cakes and defrosting. Um, you know, I've even seen people make marinades out of it as well to infuse the coffee flavor into, um, different plant-based dishes. You could do it with, you could even do it with fruits. I've seen it done before where, uh, it was a coffee infused, um, uh, pear I think was the time, um, the, the last time I saw a fruit do that as well. So a lot of different, um, versions to be able to, or a lot of different things you can use it for. But most time I've seen it done with an instant coffee. Um, we've usually used a medium roast. Um, you can definitely do an espresso if you're looking for a kind of a bolder flavor as well. And when you're doing it in caramel, that's great. That sugar kind of mix into it just adds a really, uh, wonderful kind of flavor to it.