aureate & aromatic

The ninth drink of my thirty day book as a beverage series is a drink that’s neither hot nor iced – an odd in between concoction: a soy saffron peanut coffee, with a base of fresh raspberry jam, and topped with dark chocolate whipped cream. The colors were pulled from my hardcover edition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

If you were thinking: “That’s a lot of flavors.” You’d be correct. There were a lot of vibrant colors on the cover and instead of selecting two or three, I was ambitious and attempted to have them all visible in the final drink.

This beverage’s name is:

‘nectarous nkatee’

Name Explained: Because the book’s setting is partially in Ghana, I was attempting to be intentional with the flavor profile and name. Some popular Ghanaian snacks include plantains or different groundnuts, so I went with the latter as I’ve already decided to use plantains in another drink this week. Looking up the languages spoken in Ghana, aside from English, I found one of the primary languages used is Akan, so nkateɛ or nkatee is the word for peanut in Twi which is one of the dialects of Akan. Since the drink also contains a lot of sweet and aromatic flavors like raspberry jam and saffron, I figured why not maintain my name alliteration and call it nectarous and voila, that’s how ‘nectarous nkatee’ came to be. 

Raspberry Jam/Sauce: I wanted to have a pb&j flavor profile going for the drink, so instead of a syrup I decided to make a jam-like sauce for the drink’s base. I used raspberry instead of strawberry as I felt It would have a much more vibrant hue needed to match the cover. It was relatively simple to cook on the stove, and I set it aside and let it cool.

Saffron Soy Milk: I really want to try and keep this series as dye-free and healthy as possible, so I figured to get the yellow milk I’d like for the bulk of the drink I would infuse some milk with saffron. I decided to go with soy milk as I felt it would suit the drink’s overall flavor profile. Some heat was needed to have the color seep out. To help with the flavor since saffron does have a unique taste I used some cinnamon and honey to sweeten it.

Peanut Coffee: Peanut is one of the more meaningful ingredients in the drink even though it doesn’t show up visually. I decided to go with a crunchy peanut butter to add some texture to the drink and I was happy with how it came out. Since all of the other components of the drink were already demanding, instead of pulling a shot of coffee I opted for using an instant one I enjoy to save some time and set it aside after combining it with the peanut butter. The combination of the two together is something I would try again in its own drink because they paired together quite nicely.

Cocoa Cream: Rather than a cold foam, I opted for a whipped cream using dark cocoa to try and match the brown font on the book’s cover. I used some more honey to sweeten it.

RATING: Overall I’d give the final drink a 4.10.

Flavor Combination: Drinking this beverage was an experience for sure. Oddly enough, you couldn’t taste the entire thing together. One sip would give a flavor of pb&j, another would give the soy and dark chocolate, another would give some other pairing of the four flavors. And while each pairing harmonized with the other, I do feel like it was perhaps one flavor too many.

Ease: This drink was the most complex to date simply because of all of the parts needed to result in the desired visual. It wasn’t hard to do per se, just a tad time consuming even though I was working concurrently.

Appearance: I was really happy with how it turned out. The shade of the cocoa whipped cream was a tad more cool than warm toned like on the cover. I think instead of using a dark cocoa, a regular cocoa powder would have sufficed to get a closer shade match. For that reason I docked off 0.2 points. Otherwise, it would have gotten. perfect 5.

Ways to Improve: As I mentioned before, to improve this drink would entail simplifying its flavors a bit. I would still make it again because I enjoyed it, but I would remove either the foam or the jam and drink it as is so that the overall drink is more coherent and less overpowering.

Here’s the spreadsheet for all of the tools and ingredients used:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r98ituvMhsrjiXfidDUlMtrU0u_YwIdNyY_rlxD-8YA/edit?gid=891834841#gid=891834841

I’ve also provided the information below for added ease~

Glass Cups (exact): https://amzn.to/45ZgrUZ

Glass Cups (exact): https://amzn.to/3NooxjM

Glass Cups (alternative): https://amzn.to/4qSoPh8

Honey (exact): https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/multi-floral-clover-honey-030296

Crunchy Peanut Butter (exact): https://amzn.to/4qQrWWM

Crunchy Peanut Butter (alternative): https://amzn.to/4sIJ56y

Instant Coffee (exact): https://amzn.to/3ZfOULh

Cinnamon Powder (exact): https://www.spiceandtea.com/products/cinnamon-ground-true-ceylon?variant=44232232435900

Cinnamon Powder (alternative): https://amzn.to/4qrXjaF

Soy Milk (exact): https://amzn.to/4sM6yE2

Saffron (alternative): https://amzn.to/3Nzt0A1

Black Cocoa (exact): https://amzn.to/46JQpGg

Heavy Whipping Cream (exact): https://www.publix.com/pd/publix-whipping-cream-heavy/RIO-PCI-112684

Whole Milk (exact): https://tgleedairy.com/products/whole-milk-plastic-quart/

Blue Spirulina (exact): https://amzn.to/4q3cZ4o

Frother (exact): https://amzn.to/3KS1c8J

Here’s a quick video showing how I made the drinks:

@aureateandaromatic

The making vid for my Homegoing bev. Went a bit too wild with the flavor profile but loved how vibrant it came out, so I gave it a 4.1 overall ⭐ I think instead of using a dark cocoa a regular cocoa powder would have sufficed to get a closer shade match. Recipe and ratios already posted should anyone want it~ I made a spreadsheet with all the ingredients and tools as well – it’s in my linktree 😊 #Recipe #homegoing #pbjlatte #BookTok #bookasabev

♬ CHANEL – Tyla

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!
~ C.C.