See, I’ve been doing a full time job lately, and that takes up time. Specifically, it takes up mornings, which is when I tend to drink coffee. I can’t exactly be pouring gravy into the office coffee machine, so work really puts a limit on my experimentation. I can’t pick up slack during my evenings either, because the caffeine would keep me up all night and make those gravy-free mornings even more miserable.

But wait, what about caffeine-free coffee?

I’ve never drank coffee for the caffeine. Other than keeping me from sleeping, I don’t feel any effects of the stuff; my body seems immune to perkiness enhancement. I might as well remove the caffeine and add the possibility of late-night experimentation.

It limits which kinds of coffee I can have, but have you seen this blog? It’s more about what goes into the coffee than the coffee itself. I think I’ll find enough variety.

Hey, what about you? Do you drink coffee for the caffeine, the flavour, or both?

But first let’s look back to the Coffee Hack we hosted in February. It was a resounding success, with all sorts of adventurous people showing up, many with their own ingredients to try in combination with coffee.

We had all the coffee hardware you could dream of.

Including a beer infuser, which sorta maybe almost worked. It’s at least good in theory; Mill Street’s Coffee Porter is one of my favourite beers.

Labels were important. Participants created coffees that were everything from sweet to spicy to savoury.

Unusual brewing methods were as abundant as unusual ingredients. Co-organizer Laura tried out some delicious flavoured cold brew coffee. Other co-organizer Andrew “Twitch” Berdan handled the Turkish coffee. He also brought some home-made ingredients, like this from-scratch cottage cheese:

It didn’t look appetizing, but the cheese didn’t affect the taste of the coffee much, so I’d say it’s neither recommended nor a disgusting failure.

My main contribution stemmed from the idea that traditional Thanksgiving foods—turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pie—all go well together, and leave you feeling warm and satisfied, but also sleepy. How can we possibly have all the goodness of Thanksgiving without the sleepiness?

Coffee. The answer is coffee.

(The following pictures are courtesy of Jody “3oh6″ Bailey; more pics here)

Step 1: Brew coffee with low salt chicken broth in the water.

Step 2: Add gravy powder and instant mashed potato mix.

Step 3: Add cream and sugar. Top with whipped cream. Garnish with more gravy powder.

Step 4: Top with cranberry stuffing biscotti. This was another of Twitch’s creations, and was delicious on its own and dipped in coffee.

The Thanksgiving coffee itself, oh man, I was not expecting it to actually taste good, but it was like a family holiday in my mouth. Just a bit of each ingredient made sure nothing was overpowering (like the downfall of many of my creations, saltiness). I quickly gave thanks to every known deity for leading this liquid comfort into my belly. Thanksgiving coffee is worth trying.

Bottoms up to a successful Coffee Hack. Let’s do this again sometime.

You are in luck, fictional PWTIC reader. PuttingWeirdThingsInCoffee dot Com is proud to be a part of the world’s first Coffee Hack! It ain’t internet smells, but if you can get to the fine city of London, Ontario, Canada on February 12th, you can see me and others doings very weird, almost unforgivable, things to coffee.

We’ll be brewing coffee in uncommon ways then putting unusual things in it. This will be at the UnLab—a shared hacker space where unconventional is unoffensive.

This is a collaborative event, and all are welcome. Get more details and post your ideas at the Coffee Hack Wiki, and confirm your attendance on the Coffee Hack Facebook page (or just show up).

tl;dr info:

What: Coffee Hack, in which weird things are done with coffee.
When: February 12th, 2011, 2:00pm.
Where: The UnLab. At the Convergence Center (lower level), 999 Collip Circle, UWO, London Ontario.
Why?: Why not?

Regular pictures and words from the event will roll out on PWTIC.com over the next few weeks.

See you there or see you square.

It was in that spirit in which I found myself with lobster and sweet potatoes, and decided to make a unique poutine out of them.

You can read more about this sweet potato lobster poutine over on this other blog. No, I don’t have any lobster left to dump in coffee; maybe next time.

In other news, Cate sent me a link to these recipes using blood (probably not a good idea to click that if you’re sensitive to the red stuff). I’ve eaten some gross things, but these managed to make me a bit queasy. I’m sure blood could taste pretty good in coffee, but the instruction to “pour the fresh cow’s blood through a sieve, separating it from the clots” made me consider having a quick barf.

PWTIC will be back with your regularly scheduled coffee concoctions soon. Some monumental projects are in the works. Stay tuned.

P.S. Remember to send suggestions and the results of your own coffee experiments to suggestions (at) puttingweirdthingsincoffee (dot) com.

So it tickled my test tubes to see Kate (?) over at The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything From Happening at Once perform a double-blind-ish taste test replication of PWTIC’s Eggspresso experiment.

You’ll have to click to see the results.

She also gets bonus credit for using the word “proteinaceous.”

And guess how many more unusual coffee creations this can lead to.

Stay tuned.