The Home Café: Creative Recipes for Espresso, Matcha, Tea and Coffee Drinks, written by Asia Lui Chapa, features such a fun and beautiful collection of drink recipes developed for the home cook. A few highlights include Brown Sugar Banana Latte, Campfire Iced Coffee, Double Chocolate Matcha Float, Tea Berry Affogato, and Pretty in Purple. I will also be sharing her recipe for Spiced Maple Matcha following the review.
Disclosure: I received this book from Page Street Publishing in exchange for my honest review. All opinions and statements are my own. This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through the link, I may receive a small commission at no extra charge to you.
Asia Lui Chapa
Asia Lui Chapa is a drink recipe and video developer. She created AC Home Café in Spring 2020 as a way to share her passion for drinks with others. Her work has also been featured with Guinness, Captain Morgan, and Peet’s Coffee.
She is currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is Asia’s first cookbook.
The Home Café
Asia begins The Home Café with a short introduction and how she developed a love for drinks and creative food. Before getting to the recipes, she covers the essentials with a detailed guide for a variety of equipment and tools to help along the way.
Chapters are divided according to the following: Home Café Must-Haves; You Had Me at Espresso; Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee; More Matcha Please; Hey, Hot-Tea; Green Tea Delights; Herbal Infusions; and Home Café Happy Hour. The Table of Contents has a list of the included recipes with page number for easy reference.
The photography is provided by Gaby J Photography. Every single recipe is paired with a beautifully styled photo of the finished drink.
Measurements are listed in US Customary and Metric. Titles are written in English. Each drink includes a headnote with background information, personal stories, serving size (everything is 1 serving), and helpful tips.
Spiced Maple Matcha
The Spiced Maple Matcha was such a fun drink and I loved the natural layering. Matcha is paired with maple-sweetened milk and warming spices for quite the comforting drink.
I still need to work on my layering a bit, but even as a beginner I was extremely happy with the results.
The trick is to very very slowly pour the prepared matcha over the back of a spoon into the milk. This will keep the spiced milk on the bottom with the matcha over it and finally the layer of foam on top.
You can use your choice of milk (dairy or non-dairy) with this Spiced Maple Matcha. I went with whole milk to get the extra froth on top. Asia recommends oat or almond.
Notable Ingredients
Matcha is a powder created by grinding whole green tea leaves. There are various grades. The higher quality grades are made from the fine, new leaves from the very top of the Camellia sinensis tea plant. The lower culinary grades are fine for cooking and baking.
Be careful when storing matcha. It can become stale and brownish when exposed to oxygen. I have been able to find matcha at the local markets with Japanese ingredients and more recently in the tea section of larger supermarkets. It is also available on Amazon: Maeda-En Culinary Matcha.
More Drinks
I also made the Shaken Maple Espresso, Spiced Honey Coffee, Corazón del Sol, and The Salted Caramel-Tini.
The Shaken Maple Espresso has now become a part of my regular rotation! Chilled espresso is shaken in a cocktail shaker or mason jar with maple syrup and salt until foamy. It is then topped off with milk. The resulting texture was fantastic.
For the Spiced Honey Coffee, freshly brewed coffee is flavored with honey, vanilla, and nutmeg. I love how easily it all comes together and the drink definitely is perfect for a chilly day.
I still have quite a bit of dried hibiscus flowers leftover, so I was immediately drawn to the Corazón del Sol. Pineapple and lime juice are topped with a layer of hibiscus tea for a vibrant presentation.
The Salted Caramel-Tini is a delicious twist on the espresso martini. The chilled espresso cocktail base is flavored with caramel sauce and garnished with a homemade caramel candy.
The Home Café is a great pick for those wanting to make their own coffee and tea at home. I especially love the variety with drinks for every season and temperature. Most of the recipes work with non-dairy milk for a vegan option.
Many of the ingredients can be found in larger grocery stores. A few items that may require further searching include white mocha sauce, dried lavender petals, ube ice cream, food coloring, matcha, dried rose petals, matcha ice cream, lemongrass, guava nectar, black sesame seeds, dried hibiscus flowers, and dried butterfly pea flowers.
Spiced Maple Matcha Recipe
Excerpt from The Home Café
Spiced Maple Matcha
Ingredients
- 6 ounces (180 milliliters) milk of choice I recommend oat or almond
- 1 teaspoon matcha powder
- 2 ounces (60 milliliters) hot water
- 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) maple syrup or to taste
- A dash of ground cinnamon plus more for garnish
- A dash of ground nutmeg plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Begin by heating up your milk. You can do this with a steamer, on the stove over medium-high heat until it comes to a light boil or you can warm it up in the microwave for 2 minutes.
- In the meantime, start to make your matcha shot. To do this, combine your matcha powder and water in a glass, and whisk or froth them together until all the matcha clumps dissolve.
- In your mug, combine your maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg and steamed milk, and froth until they are all combined. I like my tea lattes extra foamy, but the beauty of a home café is that you can make your drink how you like!
- Once, combined, add your matcha shot to the spiced maple milk. To create the layered effect, pour your matcha shot very slowly into your milk and garnish it with some more ground cinnamon or ground nutmeg.
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