Coffeeshop.ie Top 10 Gift Ideas for Christmas
10; HARIO COFFEE SYPHON "TECHNICA" 2 CUP
Ideal for the mad scientist in your life, the Hario Technica is an event in itself. Ideal for impressing guests or just to satisfy Your own coffee nerd needs! The Techinca 2 not only looks spectacular but also makes great coffee.
9: Bialetti 4410 Glass Milk Frother, Black
Simple but effective. Make silky smooth frothy milk in seconds with the Bialetti Milk Frother. Match with a Moka Pot for excellent lattes!
I love my coffee gadgets, so I especially love the Cafflano All In One coffee Maker. This portable coffee maker is ideal for the coffee person who has everything! Grind, Brew, Drink all in one.
It’s hard to get a good electric coffee grinder at a reasonable price, luckily the Wilfa Grinder does just this. As well as being reasonably quiet if gives excellent grind consistency and quality. Small and easy to use, the Wilfa makes a great step up from a hand grinder or even better form no grinder! (not suitable for espresso)
6: Hario V60 Ceramic Dripper Pot Set Red - All in One V60 set-up
The Hario V60 is one of the most classic designs available for making coffee, this set has everything you need to begin producing perfect pour-over coffee at home. Pour over coffee makers are easy to use and produce a nice clean coffee. Add in a bag of Brady’s coffee for the complete gift.
This was my first introduction to real Coffee, and I still have my original one as they last forever! A mess-free way to make great, strong coffee. Pair it up with a hand frother and you have a latte! I recommend the 4 or 6 cup as they seem to make the best coffee. The 2 cup can be a little tricky.
4 Hario Skerton PRO Ceramic Coffee Grinder
When it comes to making great coffee one of the main aspects is having it freshly ground. Coffee begins to lose its aromatics within 20 minutes of grinding so grinding on demand has a big impact on the flavour. Electric grinders are great but can be a bit expensive and bulky. Hand grinders are always going to be a bit of work, this is unavoidable. I’ve used many different hand grinders and I find the Hario Pro Ceramic one of the best performing for the money. Easy to use, great grind adjustment and small enough to store away when not in use. This combined with an Aeropress or Hario V60, and great coffee is a winning formula.
3: Brady’s Christmas & whiskey Blends
It’s always hard to buy coffee for a coffee lover, we are here to help! Brady’s Coffee Company based in Wicklow have two perfect coffees that are unique and in the case of the Christmas coffee only around for two months of the year. Their Barrel aged Whiskey Coffee is a unique product in Ireland, They age unroasted coffee in Irish whiskey barrels, then roast a medium level to produce a smooth sweet coffee with a strong whiskey finish.
Our Christmas Blend is a special blend designed especially for the festive period. Brady’s coffee has created for you a unique blend of nutty Brazilian, fruity Ethiopian and spicy Indonesian coffees which capture all the festive flavours of Christmas in a cup.
The tins are our favourite as after you have finished this delicious coffee you have a lovely tin to keep and use!
For a long time, I’ve been a massive fan of the Aeropress coffee maker (see article here) for me it is one of the easiest most consistent ways to make a great cup of coffee. For value to coffee quality, there is very little that comes close! An Aeropress paired up with a Keepcup makes a great gift, all you need is a bag of coffee and you are set!
1: Keepcups
The ever-popular Keepcup is hard to beat when it comes to gift ideas. Everybody (nearly!) drinks tea/coffee/hot chocolate or any take out drink weekly. With a keepcup they can sometimes save money (selected cafes offer a discount) and do something fantastic for the environment at the same time.
We have over 30 different keepcups in stock, from your classic 12oz to a glass Darth Vader cup, there is something to suit everyone! Also check out the Stojo cups, less bulky so easier to carry around.
If you are unsure of anything please drop us an email or even better give us a call, we love to talk coffee.
Happy Christmas
Craig.
Big Change 14/10/2015
Over the past few months things have been very quiet on coffeeshop.ie, not a lot of change happening. This was down to few things but mainly because we (myself & Catherine) were unable to give the site the attention it needed, because of this we have been unable to give the variety of product and quality of service that we wanted too, but things are about to change.
Over the past few months we have been talking to a company who have our passion for coffee but also have the experience of running successful online business, they have agreed to come on board and help with the future development of the online shop and many other ideas that we have for the business.
So what does this mean? Well, at the start not a lot, but over the next few weeks you will begin to see big changes, more stock, much larger range and a far better service. All orders will go out the same day they are placed (orders placed before 3pm) we will be working hard to expand our range and be a competitive as possible with our prices.
If you have any suggestions or questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thanks
Craig & Catherine.
We are now on Instagram :-) (shortest blog ever!)
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New to Coffeeshop, corporate gifts ireland!
Everyone loves coffee, or at least knows someone who does!_______________________________________
Are you looking for something other than a food hamper or bottle of wine to give as a corporate gift? Coffeeshop.ie will help you find a suitable gift and then have it delivered direct to your recipients or in bulk to your chosen address.
Choice. We can assist you in the choice of gift and deliver direct to recipient ensuring your task is hassle-free, comes within your budget and is well received. Simply get in touch and we will be more than happy to talk you through the options that are suitable for your budget.
Personalise it! We can add your own business cards or compliment slips to go with the gifts, if required, along with other promotional literature or signed cards; all you have to do is send the required literature to us prior to shipping and we will do the rest.
Payment. We accept payment via the following methods: VISA, MasterCard, Laser Cards and PayPal. Gifts will be despatched once full payment has been received.
Christmas. When ordering for Christmas it is always better to order early to avoid disappointment. Orders can placed in advance (eg, October, November) and they will arrive closer to Christmas.
Postage. There is a €4.95 shipping charge for orders in Ireland and Northern Ireland. If you are sending more than one gift to the same address there will be no extra postage charge. We have flexible shipping options - Next business day delivery to all 32 counties, world-wide express. All gifts can be delivered to one address or delivered individually to each recipient's address.
Use Coffeeshop.ie For Corporate Gifts All Year Round ..____________________________________________
Our unique range of coffee related products are an ideal way for your company to promote other occasions all year round such as:
Just Say Thanks - reward your customers, motivate and encourage your sales team, project completions, retirement gifts, birthdays, great prizes for golf outings, competitions, draws, etc. We take the hassle and guesswork out of buying gifts, we will always give you a number of options for your budget.
Ordering___________________________________________________________________________________
We love to talk coffee so simply contact us by telephone (Call us on 01 2011016) or Online (use the contact form and we will be in touch) or simply drop us an email (catherine@coffeeshop.ie, craig@coffeeshop.ie). We will listen to what you want or if you’re not sure we will offer plenty of suggestions.
Time To Cook
I recently started watching ‘Breaking Bad’ on Netflix; I quickly became addicted and managed to watch the complete series in about 3 weeks, I loved it! It got me thinking about my days of ‘cooking’ (roasting coffee) and I realised how much I missed it. Now, I didn’t roast out of an RV but was not too far from it. I use to roast in a little shed, out the back of my office, on a 1KG roaster. Just like Jessie and Mr. White I had many an adventure learning the process (although mine did not include murder, hookers and millions of dollars) it was still a little adventure every time I fired up the Cafemino.
It has been 6 years since I roasted any coffee and things have moved on a lot in that time. After a bit of research I quickly realised there is only one ‘real’ home roaster on the market, the ‘Gene Café’. I ordered it from www.bellabarista.co.uk (great website) and it arrived two days later…oh the anticipation… it’s a long time since I was excited about new coffee equipment. Coffee roasting is not like baking or cooking it’s more like alchemy and chemistry. You have to take many things into consideration like ambient temperature, how and where your green bean was grown and processed, moisture content of the coffee and so on. You also need to take safety into consideration too as fires are easy enough to start when roasting.
Bella Barista supplied a great little guide to roasting which they wrote themselves, I studied this and decided on a profile that I was going to use. I cleared the kitchen, covered the fire alarm, found my old roasting log, weighed the coffee and most importantly sent my wife and child out; nothing more certain than burning down your house if you don’t pay attention during roasting. I was prepared!
The most nostalgic trigger for me is smell, the right aroma can bring me back to any point in my life. As I fired up my new roaster, the grassy aroma of coffee beginning to roast, started to fill the air and it brought me right back to my little shed (man cave if I’m honest) and I quickly began to remember the little roasting skills I had, great!
My first roast was terrible, which was fine and expected, my second roast was better but still a long way off what I want. This is the beginning of a long journey, I’ll keep you posted!
AEROPRESS, FEELING THE LOVE AND THE GUILT.
Guilt is an amazing emotion, it can hit you from nowhere over something that seems irrelevant. I recently felt a new kind of guilt, a guilt that I did not know was possible, I felt guilty because of a machine.
Let me explain.
I bought my beloved Rancillio Silvia espresso machine about 8 year ago. I can’t even imagine how many shots I’ve pulled on it, from my morning coffee, my excessive weekend coffee drinking, to my year with a 1kg coffee roaster when, in one day, I could put 20 shots through the machine. I have never really thought about upgrading, well not seriously anyway, I love it. I look after it well, descaling and cleaning on a regular basis, and it looks after me well. Only once, in 8 years, has it let me down; but it was only out of action for a few days and I reckon if I was in anyway mechanically minded I could have fixed it in 2 minutes.
A few months back I was in 3FE, one of Ireland’s best coffee shops for people that don’t know. I’m embarrassed to say it was my first trip there, anyhow that’s a different story. I was really looking forward to tasting their coffee so went for the tasting menu which consisted of 2 different coffees. To my surprise and delight I noticed that it was being made with the AeroPress coffee maker. I had read plenty about the AeroPress but if I’m honest I had disregarded it as a poor cousin to a decent espresso machine, and never had any real desire to buy one. I was presented with my two coffees, one Ethiopian and the other was……something? I was blown away by the taste experience that I was having, two cups of the lightest, smoothest coffee I have tasted, mixed with these delicate but complex flavours. One minute after finishing my coffees I was at the till buying an AeroPress and some coffees to match.
Over the following few days I made some of the best cups of coffee I had ever made. Four things really impressed me about the AeroPress, 1: the simplicity of the product, a simple design and really good value. 2: the smoothness of the coffee, for some reason I can drink a lot more AeroPress than any other kind of brew method. 3: the quality of what was in the cup, some coffees that I would consider undrinkable out of the espresso machine came alive with the AeroPress, and finally point 4, this is the most important one for me, consistency. Every cup I made was great; no over extraction, no under extraction, no dud shots, no real adjusting of the grinder. All the variables are eliminated.
This is where the guilt steps in… About 6 weeks after getting my AeroPress I had a hankering for a latte (I go through phases of drinking these). That’s when I realised I hadn’t even looked at my espresso machine for nearly 2 months. Unloved, unused, it almost looked sad. As with all guilty situations I over compensated and went back to only using the Silvia but over time it’s balanced out. I now use them 50/50, and almost to prove a point as I wrote this I’ve had two coffees; one from the AeroPress and one from my very much loved espresso machine.
S0 go on, get yourself an AeroPress and be prepared to taste some of the best coffee that you’ve ever made.
To finish, and Just to give a little balance on a slight negative note; no matter what people say it does not produce espresso like a proper machine, and I would never use it for a latte….to, of course, the delight of my trusted Silvia.
Craig.
HI THERE... MY NAME IS CRAIG AND i'M A (COFFEE) CUPAHOLIC!!!