I should have known better, I usually don’t like flavored coffee because (personally) I feel like it’s made to go with some kind of creamer or something. But I bought a bad of hazelnut vanilla beans, ground it up, and meh. I’ve tried mixing it with my wife’s creamer but it just gets so sweet and I like to drink it black. I’ve tried making it weaker than usual and it’s helped, but did anyone have suggestions on ways to not waste this bag I got?
Sorry, but just throw it away. Your grinder will smell like artificial hazelnut for weeks if you grind it through. It might already be too late.
If it was just a roast you didn’t like, there’s a lot you can do. But when there’s artificial oil on it, you’re kind of screwed because that awful smell just lingers.
If it’s already too late:
If you drink protein shakes, you could use the coffee with the protein as a workout supplement with caffeine. The artificial flavor will get lost in the artificial flavor of the protein.
Well…shit. I didn’t think about how it would affect the grinder. Hopefully the other comment works with cleaning it
When I bought a bag of hazelnut, I had to dismantle my grinder and wash every part aggressively with soap and water. Just running more beans through didn’t help.
about the oil, isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol or baking soda can remove grease and might work to some extent.
Use milk, not creamer. Even better, half and half.
Brew it really strong (espresso of you have a machine) and pour over ice cream.
Iced coffee with milk.
Regarding the flavor oils in the grinder, using something like “grindz” might help, as well as some sacrificial unflavored coffee.
Have you tried it as cold brew? It could mute some of the more unsavory artificial flavors.
As an aside, if you have a burr grinder, you should double check the burrs. The artificial flavoring that is sprayed on top of the beans can gunk up the burrs and leave a lasting impact on the flavor of your brews if left uncleaned.
I actually did mix it with a (basically) milkshake the other day and that wasn’t too bad, maybe I’ll try to incorporate that. I’m not sure what a burr grinder is, I have a basic coffee/spice grinder with the two blades
I’m glad you found a way to use it!
Since you have a blade grinder, you should be totally fine if you give it a little wipe down after you’ve gone through all the beans. Best of luck getting through the rest of that bag :)
Do you like cold coffee? I don’t like flavored beans either so I haven’t tried it, but it would be worth a shot.
The only thing worse of throwing away a bag of bad beans is having to drink the coffee from it.
I took the vacuumcleaner and removed the beans from the machine (Jura) trice now. Once because I got ‘extra dark roast’ beans that just tasted like cremated beans (high on ashes, low on coffee), once because I got Dutch DE red beans (tried them against better judgement even though I hate the grounded version) and once because my wife mistook the chocelate beans for coffee beans. (Got them out to save the grinder, which was the only time the rest wasn’t binned, as I love chocelate)
Nothing worse apart from a mistake then th have to endure it a lot longer. Call defeat, remove the beans from the machine with a vacum cleaner or plain gravity (turn it upside down) and throw away the lot. (And note them somewhere so you’ll never buy them again)
When I worked at Panera I would cut their hazelnut coffee with regular coffee. Made the flavor pretty balanced.
Maybe also consider making cold brew with it, freezing it, then using those cubes to chill iced coffee?
I agree that if you don’t like it then just gift it to a neighbor or friend. If you must find a way personally I would mix it with some other roast that counters it like a strong bitter dark roast. Then figure out the meh roast to dark roast ratio preference and bam problem sorta solved
