Snacks: Coffee & cornflakes chocolate

Last winter, the duck and I reviewed Milka‘s limited-edition coffee and cookie-flavored chocolate. When we spotted another novel coffee-flavored chocolate bar one year later, the duck and I took it as a sign. Our discovery is part of this year’s Ritter Sport winter range. The other flavors are “Gebrannte Mandel,” roasted almond, which we tried two years ago. And there’s “Weiße Zimt Crisp,” white cinnamon crisp, a flavor also featured in the Schogetten winter lineup we wrote about earlier this year. Clearly, “Kaffee Knusper,” coffee crunch, was the most enticing of the three. And it was a sign. So, we procured a bar before it would be too late and got ready to turn it into our newest super subjective chocolate review (each time I think it’s time to go back to also considering non-chocolate snacks, the duck and I discover another intriguing chocolate flavor to try):

Phryne Fisher’s Cherry-flavored Mystery

This is what the duck and I call the cold latte recipe that we came up with to accompany today’s friend recommendation: the glorious Australian TV series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. We had not heard about the series before the lovely R had recommended it; a few minutes into the first episode, the duck and I were in love! When we recently realized that Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries had disappeared from Netflix, we were devastated. Finding out that some dubbed episodes can be streamed through the media center of a German TV channel consoled us only a little bit. We find most dubbing alienating. Therefore, we can’t fully enjoy this alternative. But knowing that we can watch episodes of one of our favorite feel-good series if we really want to, even if it’s in German, is better than having no access (other than buying or renting episodes). This is also why I was able to capture the duck watching Phryne Fisher preparing to be a badass next to “Phryne Fisher’s Cherry-flavored Mystery”!“Why cherry?” you may ask. Well, we wanted to go with something that matches the series’s color scheme. We also thought you couldn’t go wrong with a hint of sakura in spring. Now, the duck and I present a recipe for our take on one of our favorite beverages – coffee – that is almost worthy of going alongside this exciting series that so exquisitely combines three of our favorite things: period dramas, strong female characters, and a mystery uncovering detective:

Amanatsu Peel and Camomile Muffin☆ #refreshing #Kokubunjicoffeetour #fancysnacks #creativeatmosphere #TBT

Our friend N’s birthday is in April. So, every year around this time, the duck and I reminisce about the Kokubunji coffee tour – in our coffee snob period – that we went on a few days before we were to leave Tokyo. After having had one of the best iced coffees of our lives at Life Size Cribe, we sat down for an Amanatsu (a Japanese citrus fruit) peel and Camomile muffin served with tofu cream at Café Slow while N, keeping with the actual theme of our outing, had her second cup of lovely coffee. This muffin was super satisfying, and getting to see a bit of Kokubunji was just as great! 5/5 ducks for an amazing coffee-themed afternoon in an area we should have explored much sooner! ☆★☆★☆

We can’t wait to continue our Kokubunji exploration and coffee snobbery, hopefully in the not too distant future!

∼·✧Kyoto coffee✧·∼ #fancyblackcoffee #prettydrinkprettycup #Kyototourist #autumncoffeebreak #TBT

It’s all about coffee with the duck and me! Recently we’ve begun reminiscing about one of the most expensive, but also fanciest, cups of black coffee we’ve enjoyed when we were in Kyoto foraging for fine foliage almost three years ago; after having seen lots of leaves and a few shrines and temples, accompanied by icy December winds, we decided to stop for some afternoon coffee on Shijo-dori, the road that leads to the infamous gate of Yasaka shrine (that we featured in our Kyoto travel video). Kyosendō is a sweets shop and cafe that is more famous for its traditional Japanese sweets and green tea desserts than for its coffee, but the duck and I were in a cheap mood, so we decided to go with the ‘hot coffee’ that ran somewhere between 600 and 800 yen, a relatively common price for a cup of black coffee- but this one came with a fancy coconut cookie and have you seen the sugar?! The lovely Japanese stoneware cup, the nice atmosphere and the feeling of being (back) in Kyoto – with amazing travel buddies! – made this experience wonderfully memorable and particularly delightful. 4/5 colorful leaves for a cup of black coffee with a price that made us feel truly fancy. •✧•✧•·

The duck and I tend to have rather vivid memories of a lot of the things we’ve eaten outside our home, especially the pricier ones. It seems as if, subconsciously, we force ourselves to remember all the drinks and food we decided to spend money on despite their (for our means) scary price tags. Well, the duck and I love reliving beautiful memories, so we’re not complaining!

Green Rider and maple apple coffee

The duck and my last attempt at writing about some food we made and a thing that our friends recommended to us was pretty messy, so messy, in fact, that we decided to try again. Now that we have Coco, our beloved coffee maker, we decided to try and come up with our own little fall coffee drink that is not pumpkin spice related (because our morning oats tend to be – a lot! – these days). Oh, how we have missed fall themed foods (Germany, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be as big on them as Japan is)!
Fall is a season the duck and I connect with sitting at home, reading a good book and drinking a nice cup of tea or: an apple maple latte macchiato! In our imagination, however, the duck and I like to spend the perfect fall afternoon with a walk, collecting colorful leaves and enjoying the warm golden sunlight on our faces as the day slowly turns into evening. This feeling reminds us of one of our absolute favorite book chapters, the one that describes Karigan’s time at Seven Chimneys, the Berry sister residence, in Kristen Britain’s Green Rider, one of the many amazing books that our amazing friend R has recommended to us:

Coffee

There is a new kid in town! And by ‘town’ I mean our kitchen, and by ‘new kid’ I mean the duck and my newest roomie: ‘fully automatic coffee machine’ or ‘Coco’ for short. This is not the first automatic coffee machine we’ve been living with, but this one is mint colored and new, so we’re particularly happy. Look at the duck pretending to be coffee! How silly! Before you think we’re completely crazy, let me explain the duck and my excitement:

Life as cheapos

It’s no secret (to anyone who has known us for more than five minutes) that the duck and I are the definition of stingy (and, unfortunately, chronically poor). Because of that we have developed a deep appreciation for cheap items and, more importantly, free samples.
It all started a few years back:
I was young and naive and had just started university. At an orientation event we were presented with a free lunch sponsored by our school (who, in turn, we sponsored by paying tuition fees, but let’s not get into that) accompanied by the words ‘enjoy it, because that’s probably going to be the last time this university will give you anything for free’. From that day on I’ve been jumping at most opportunities to get free (and at least somewhat useful) things. Now, even if it’s food that we don’t love, the duck and I still take it because okay free food is still better than good food that we had to pay for. Well, in our world it is, at least.
Kyoto is wonderful for that; the street leading to Kiyomizudera is filled with shops that want you to sample their products, from cups of green tea, over yatsuhashi in dozens of different flavors to senbei that is so spicy that you wish you had another cup of free tea, not to mention all those matcha flavored snack samples in Uji (I could have easily accepted the invitation of a Bosatsu to take me to heaven after trying them). Here in Tokyo our go-to place is Kaldi for a free little coffee sample while we are looking at all that beautiful imported food. And, because we’re no monsters, we do leave some of our money there from time for time. Sometimes, though, I have to admit, we really just go in and pretend to browse for a sweet little mental coffee kick (fooling your brain into believing that it just had a small caffeine shot is sometimes all you need). Thank you, Kaldi, for patiently tolerating cheapos like us!

The duck and me ☺