How do you take your coffee?
If there are wrong answers to this question, then certainly the word “cheese” would be on that list.
Cheese? Why, a serious coffee drinker might ask, would these two concepts even come into contact? Isn’t it bad enough that menus at modern coffee shops resemble some kind of horse race betting board and that an alarming number of people march around slurping their brew through huge, domed lids, the better to accommodate their froths and whipped toppings and sprinkles and layers of manufactured gloop?
And now, cheese?
Then again, it feels almost inevitable in this era of extravagant brews and outlandish culinary dares that someone would say, “Hey, I know what would go well in this caramel-marshmallow-leprechaun-mocha-candyland-pinkie-pie swirl: cheese!”
Maybe the internet had something to do with it. After cheese tea took Instagram by storm in late 2017 and made its way from Asia to trendy shops around the United States, cheese coffee made its debut in a California shop called Percolate last year. Forbes magazine wasted no time in naming cheese coffee the food trend of 2019. So far, the craze hasn’t exactly taken off, well, anywhere, and certainly not here in the Upper Valley.
I decided to try making it myself, for no reason other than to satisfy my curiosity. Whether that makes me cutting edge or irrelevant, time will tell.
My taste in coffee is pretty standard: a good strong brew with real cream and just a smidge of sugar. If someone offers me a free snickerdoodle latte or what have you, I won’t knock it out of his hand, but I don’t really see the point. I’d rather have my scrappy little mug of espresso roast with a warm snickerdoodle on the side. Same goes for pretty much any coffee beverage you can dream up that incorporates the flavors of a much-loved dessert.
Cheese, though; cheese is just daring and weird enough a coffee companion to warrant a closer look.
Type “cheese coffee” into Google, and the first thing you’ll find is something called kaffeost, a Swedish tradition in which cubes of spongy cheese are dropped into coffee that’s been boiled over an open fire. Like butter coffee, made popular in recent years in the United States by adherents of the keto diet, the marriage of fat and caffeine is said to provide the steady flow of energy necessary for reindeer farmers and yoga practitioners alike.
At first I considered trying this version of cheese coffee, but after I was unable to find the requisite “squeaky cheese” in my local grocery store, I opted to re-create the Percolate version, which has its roots in the cheese tea popularized in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and other parts of Asia.
Not surprisingly, the version that’s predicted to be the next unicorn frappuccino in the United States is plenty sweeter than the Swedish version. And the cheese that gives it its name is ordinary cream cheese, an ingredient that’s been fraternizing with sugary foods for centuries. Upon locating a recipe that seems to approximate Percolate’s new “Bittersweet Tiramisu,” I was a little disappointed. The combination of heavy cream, condensed milk, cream cheese, sugar and salt is not what I’d call exotic.
No matter. I went ahead and whipped up a batch with my immersion blender and spooned a big dollop atop a chilled glass of the ultra-strong coffee I make in my stovetop coffee maker. Like cheese tea, this variety of cheese coffee is served atop a cold brew.
The hardest part, aside from restraining myself from eating all of the leftover condensed milk out of the can with my finger, was getting the consistency right. The idea is for the cheese mixture to float on top of the coffee and be incorporated into each sip. Make it too thin and it could lose its integrity; too thick, and it won’t erode into the coffee the way it’s supposed to as you tip it back.
My first attempt was a little on the thick side, forcing me to fuss around with a spoon to get the right ratio of coffee and topping. After it was left in the fridge for a few hours, the cheese mixture thinned out a bit. I served another batch to my daughter and her boyfriend, who knocked it back without the help of a utensil.
My daughter deemed the texture too lumpy, but I was not bothered by the way the recipe danced the line between food and drink. In that way, it reminded me of a root-beer float. I also liked the way the full-bodied coffee retained its character beneath the indulgent topping.
Not that the topping was unpleasant. I’ll admit, in the end, I liked it. Maybe too much. I could imagine swooping down through the cloud-like mixture and into the dark liquid below with a square of shortbread or a gingersnap. The condensed milk was a fine addition, calling to mind the little cups of tea my Middle Eastern students used to share during English classes. And the cream cheese brought some salty-tartness to a party that’s normally dominated by bittersweet tones.
Curious about cheese coffee? Skeptical? Enraged at the very suggestion? Try it for yourself. The recipe I used is adapted from the Hellthy Junk Food website’s recipe for DIY cheese tea. I reduced the amount of sugar in their recipe and didn’t bother with the Himalayan salt, and of course substituted the tea for chilled coffee.
16 ounces dark-roast coffee, chilled (not iced)
¼ cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup cream cheese
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Mix condensed milk, cream, cream cheese, salt and sugar with a hand mixer or immersion blender until soft peaks form. Pour chilled coffee into four glasses. Top each glass with a large dollop of cream cheese mixture. Sip at an angle so that you get equal parts coffee and topping.
Sarah Earle can be reached at searle@vnews.com and 603-727-3268.