Spice Sugar Spice

You know how they say girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice?

If girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice what are boys made of?

Accordion to wiki_
Frogs and snails
And puppy-dogs' tails,

Sugar and Spice $24.49 Sugar and Spice

Sugar & Spice $4.99 Sugar & Spice

Spice $22.01 Spice

Spice: $26.36 Spice

BLACK PINK SUGAR AND SPICE BUSTIER $60.99 BLACK PINK SUGAR AND SPICE BUSTIER

Sugar And Spice $16.44 A cozy compilation of Christmas tales, SUGAR AND SPICE offers four romance-filled holiday adventures. In Fern Michaels "The Christmas Stocking," a businesswoman and the son of a Christmas tree farmer go head to head in a battle over the farm, only to find themselves more interested in each other than in Douglas Firs. In "The Ghost of Christmas Past," Beverly Barton tells the story of a man who rescues an attractive woman in a snowstorm, and suddenly his outlook on the holidays grows much brighter. Joanna Fluke contributes "The Twelve Desserts of Christmas," which details a love affair between two teachers in a boarding school (and comes replete with dessert recipes), and Shirley Jump?s "Twelve Days" is the quirky but cute story of one woman?s crush on her Secret Santa.

Sugar & Spice Daisy Lime $7.98 Sugar & Spice is designed by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs. Colors include shades of lime green.

Sugar & Spice Flower Pink $7.98 Sugar & Spice is designed by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs. Colors include red, lime, rose and white on a pink background.

Sugar and Spice T-Shirt $17.99 Sugar and Spice T-Shirt. If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of our way! Front reads: Sugar and spice and everything nice (as long as you keep out of my way) Back reads: We may be girls, but we kick hard! 100% cotton. Imported.

Sugar and Spice Kids' Ottoman $69 Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Our Sugar and Spice Kids Chairs offer a large array of prints that will please and young lady The pinks purples and reds are a little girls dream This chair is sure to become her favorite spot The durable wooden frame is covered with soft padding and upholstery to ensure that it meets your standards for both quality and style Select a matching ottoman and toy box to complete the set Made to last for years of relaxation

Sugar and Spice Toy Box $279 Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Our Sugar and Spice Kids Chairs offer a large array of prints that will please and young lady The pinks purples and reds are a little girls dream This chair is sure to become her favorite spot The durable wooden frame is covered with soft padding and upholstery to ensure that it meets your standards for both quality and style Select a matching ottoman and toy box to complete the set Made to last for years of relaxation

Sugar and Spice Kids' Chairs $229 Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Our Sugar and Spice Kids Chairs offer a large array of prints that will please and young lady The pinks purples and reds are a little girls dream This chair is sure to become her favorite spot The durable wooden frame is covered with soft padding and upholstery to ensure that it meets your standards for both quality and style Select a matching ottoman and toy box to complete the set Made to last for years of relaxation

Sugar & Spice Stripe Red/Turquoise $7.98 Sugar & Spice is designed by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake Designs. Colors include turquoise, pink, white and red.

Account limit of 2104 requests per hour exceeded.

Sugar and Spice (part 1)

Sugar, spices and flavorings added to our Coffee

We know the first thing added to coffee beans were cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and anise. Today that has expanded beyond spices to sugars and flavorings. What is responsible for all this expansion is called coffee aroma along with the mouth-feel and sweet, salt, bitter and sour taste attributes that are perceived by the tongue.  All the present day specialty coffee flavor attributes are desired because of the aroma first. Instant coffee and decaf coffee have components that are responsible for stimulation of the taste buds. Instant coffee's difference is that it lacks most of the aromatic volatile compounds that create a decrease in the overall flavor of the coffee.

 There are many decisions to be made before anything is added to the coffee beans to alter its flavor. There many kinds of coffee beans that came from all over the world. These beans, it is believed, all originated in Ethiopia and were taken by merchants back to Yeman and Pakistan where they crushed and boiled the beans in a coffee maker called an ibrik to make the first coffee. From there they ended up in Europe where Dutch traders took them to different parts of Asia, the Carribean and South America. English sailors brought coffee beans to America and later brought coffee plants. These beans were known as Aribica because they came from Arabia. However, these beans when planted in the different soils around the world took on different tastes. Today, we have Ethiopian coffee, Brzilian coffee, Java coffee, Kenyan coffee, Jamaican coffee, Sumatran coffee, Haitian coffee, Vietnamese coffe and Argentine coffee are just a few of the beans from countries around the world that have there own unique taste. 

How you make the coffee from all the different beans makes an added diffence in the taste. We have French press made coffee, perculator coffee, pourover drip coffee methods, and espresso machines and other modes to make our coffee. This is just the beginning before adding anything to the beans. However, we can mention at this point that your taste buds may want to add a sweetener and /or a dairy product such as cream, milk, half and half, or soymilk. The flavored creamers available also add to change the taste of your favorite cup of coffee.  

 We have not even started on the spices that at added to the roasting process or are added when the beans are ground. Sometimes spices are added to hide the bitterness of the taste of the coffee from certain beans. This was certainly the case with the original coffee drinkers. Beans were ground and spices were added because they boiled the beans for hours until there was a thick sludge at the bottom of the coffee maker. The coffee was drunk by straining it through ones teeth. Since the beginning and even today cinnamon is used to sweeten the coffee taste. One must be careful in the amount added here as it may become too sweet or bitter. Cinnamon also absorbs the oils while infusing the flavorful mask of bitterness.  Cloves has a stronger taste that adds a woody flavor and rich earthy overtone that makes one of the pleasant scents; this reminds of the scent coming from a home-baked ham. Cardamom remains the most popular spice in Saudi Arabian even today and cardamom coffee, gahwa, remains a symbol of hospitality. Crushed green coffee beans  and green cardamom pod seeds along with saffron or ground cloves are added along with a sweetener then boiled for two or three minutes. The coffee is then strained through a filter and served. Anise is the last of the oldest spices that were added to coffee and has a licorice-like flavor and odor. Anise, too, has been used to cover up bitter tasting coffee.

Today, nutmeg is a smooth, sweet, yet highly spicey addtion used with eggnog coffee and chocolate (cocoa) flavored coffees. Cloves and nutmeg added to coffee are said to create a pure cup of goodness. Vanilla with its sweet scent and deep flavor has become one of the most used sweeteners in coffee today with French vanilla coming in at a close second. Both do an excellent job of hiding a bitter taste in coffee. Add cocoa to coffee and you have Mocha. Love your real bitter sweet chocolate? Add a little sugar to your shredded chocolate and coffee and you have a rich bodied barista's Mocha.    

Other flavors added to coffee include honey, clover honey is the most popular, but don't dismiss all the flavored honeys that bee keepers are offering. White refined sugar, raw sugar and organic sugar cannot be left out of the picture, and we cannot forget brown sugar either.

Last, but not least, are the different kinds of roasts. City roast is the lightest gourmet roast while a full city roast is slightly darker and produces a heavier and slightly caramel flavor. French roast produces a slightly burnt taste without the acidity that many find most enjoyable. The darkest roast is Italian espresso roast. The beans are black, brittle and shiny with a very distinct burnt flavor without any acidity. Espresso machines help create the favorite coffee for espressos and cappucinnos. For flavored coffees, the highest grade of one hundred percent Aribica beans are used in the infusion process of actual flavor ingredients into the beans.

There are hundreds of flavored coffees you can buy, but I thought I would leave you with a few of my favorites. They include: Coconut and Swiss Chocolate, Orange and French Vanilla with cream,Orange Cickle, and Mint Chocolate.   

About the Author

Joyce also writes daily (M-F) on her blog TodaysCoffeeBlog.com and she would also love to write about her adventures in non-tourist areas she has been. She has written a published article in a magazine and a short book on the Medicine Creek Indian Treaty for the Tacoma Public Library Northwest Room. She also designed commercial kitchens for churches and picked appropriate commercial coffeemakers and other appliances they needed.