Did you know coffee is the most popular drink worldwide with around two billion cups consumed every day? I’m one of these coffee-philes who drinks around two cups a day. I love everything about coffee, from the scent and complex flavours, to that caffeine hit as it perks you up for the day.
My morning coffee is strong, setting me up for the day and making me work more efficiently, whilst my second cup is usually a little more mellow. I enjoy coffee made in different ways, including Aeropress, pump espresso DeLonghi and Krups pod machine. Since buying my Krups (i find it is compact for my office and doesn’t take up much room), I have explored coffee pods, or coffee capsules more. A coffee brand on my radar was CafePod Coffee Co., an independent coffee company based in South London whose focus is making strong, exciting coffee for adventurous coffee drinkers. What drew me to CafePod Coffee was firstly their idea of making a strong coffee, and second, their latest capsule has been designed using patented IML technology to produce the best-tasting pod experience ever.
CafePod Coffee’s unabashed passion for this elixir is refreshing. Their website states they combine great quality coffee with serious roasting expertise, and a dose of originality. Would CafePod Coffee deliver stellar taste and that caffeine hit I so very much crave first thing in the morning?
I had three different flavours over the course of two weeks; 9 Intense, 11 Livewire and 12 Supercharger. The packaging is effervescent and punchy, and the considerate sliding panel on the reverse of the pack, makes extracting the capsule convenient. I made each coffee on the recommended setting, and tasted firstly sans milk and sugar to get the true flavour profile, adding both after making my notes. (The milk was soya and heated in my Aeroccino and the sweet element was organic agave syrup.) I have also recommended some food pairings to go with the coffees, included in the synopsis.
9 Intense Lungo has a robust profile. I could detect sweet chocolate notes on the swallow, with a lovely nutty aftertaste. When I added milk, the nuts mellowed out into more of a cereal flavour – delicious.
Pairing recommendation: A Bakewell tart (recipe here) would go really well with this coffee, as the nuts in both the tart and coffee would marry gorgeously together.
11 Livewire is the strongest CafePod Coffee Lungo. I could taste dark chocolate with a malty finish, the latter being more pronounced when I added milk. There was a warming quality on the fourth sip, and I realised I could detect a barely-there whisper of cracked pepper, which was a lovely surprise.
Pairing recommendation: I recommend this coffee to be sipped alongside a lemon drizzle cake. The pepper whisper would work well with the citrus notes, and the crunchy icing topping. (My friend Lucy makes a cracking lemon drizzle cake and she swears by Mary Berry’s recipe.)
12 Supercharger is an espresso coffee pod. This was the most intense coffee from the range I tasted, and I loved it. Chocolate, but darker this time, and nuts too were creamy and potent. Complex caramel notes made themselves more pronounced after adding milk, acquiring a beautiful burnished quality.
Pairing recommendation: Dark chocolate is one of the top notes in this coffee, and I can think of nothing better than a chocolate ganache topped chocolate cake to go with this coffee.
Cooking recommendation: I brewed a shot of this, cooled it and baked into chocolate cake (Ina Garten’s tip but Nigella’s recipe here). This coffee really brought out the dark chocolate notes in the cake, adding more delicious depth to the sponge.
Each coffee made me feel perkier, the 12 Supercharger being my favourite (I love burnt caramel notes). I will definitely be buying more of the 12 Supercharger, and I think it would be nice to try some of the more mellow roasts by Cafepod Coffee Co.
To find out more about Cafepod Coffee, their subscriptions and how you can perk up your day on a gorgeous caffeine high, visit their website now.
*Complimentary coffee in exchange for review*