Sip and Melt Subscription Box: February 2017

How You are Directly Helping Women Farmers Beat Cervical Cancer

12:46 PM

Partnering with Grounds for Health is one of the most exciting and important aspects of our business. At Sip & Melt, we firmly believe in meeting challenges and creating sustainable solutions to problems.

Our pledge to donate $1 of each subscription box we sell to Grounds for Health is not just a monetary expression of support, but a way to include the community in our partnership.

Sip & Melt was founded by a Registered Nurse, who knows firsthand how problems can be solved through education, innovation, and process improvement. The more the public understands about how and why a problem exists, the better equipped it is at solving it.

We are passionate about coffee and chocolate, but we are equally aware of the people involved in making our quality products. We understand, as should you, that not everyone in the world has access to preventative medical care; in fact, statistically speaking, the majority of our world's human inhabitants do not. When you drink your morning coffee, or nibble on a dark chocolate bar, does it cross your mind how this delicious experience came to be?

[Grounds for Health]

Did you know that women make up over 70% of the workforce that picks, sorts, and processes coffee and cacao beans? And over 80% of women in the world diagnosed with cervical cancer live in developing nations? Why?

While there is no connection between cervical cancer and coffee, there is a connection between lack of prevention services and cervical cancer. This cancer is the number one cause of death of women in low income settings worldwide.

Cervical cancer is treatable, if caught early. In fact, the cancer takes twenty years to develop, and can be treated for less than $28, and in a single visit—if caught within the first five years.

If every woman was screened just once in her lifetime, global cancer rates would drop by 30%; if screened twice, 60%!

For over 20 years, Grounds for Health has been committed to women’s health in the developing world. Their organization envisions a planet in which all women are protected from the threat of cervical cancer by timely and high-quality prevention services. To date, Grounds for Health efforts have resulted in more than 72,000 women screened for cervical cancer, more than 5,200 women treated, and 460+ community healthcare providers trained.

[Clinical Director, Ellen Starr, MSN, WHNP and her team]

Grounds for Health aspires to be on the cutting edge of innovations that will transform cervical cancer prevention at a global scale.

Currently, they are partnered with MobileODT, a connected health company who uses an advanced optical technology to turn a smartphone into a mobile, point-of-care tool that can be used in remote locations to take biomedical images. Alongside this technology, Grounds for Health trains clinical staff to perform cervical cancer checks on women in the most remote locations, who otherwise have limited access (if any at all) to care and education.

MobileODT has been partnered with Global Good (a collaboration between Bill Gates and Intel aimed at developing technology solutions to the world's most difficult health problems) and their EVA—Enhanced Visual Assessment—technology system has been approved by the FDA for sale and marketing in the USA, as of December 2016.

[Grounds for Health]

For more than ten years, Grounds for Health implemented the Single Visit Approach to care—same-day visual inspection with screening and treatment—and were among the first organizations to embrace this approach as the standard model for care. The World Health Organization has since endorsed this approach in their cervical cancer prevention guidelines, and it has become a model for many other organizations.

In 2016, Grounds for Health screened 13,278 women and treated 1,249 for cervical cancer.

In 2017, Grounds for Health will be expanding to new areas in Ethiopia and Kenya, with numerous training and screening programs led by a talented group of local and international staff.

Their goal: to screen at least 17,000 women and treat 1,900+ for cervical cancer in developing countries.

We stand by their work and will remain an active, supportive, and enthusiastic voice for their company mission.

We hope you will join us!

-Sip & Melt

Food Pairing: What It Is and Why it's Awesome.

2:44 PM

Have you ever wondered why coffee and chocolate go so well together? Food chemists and scientists have wondered the same thing, and have been tackling the question with mass spectrometers and gas chromatography. Through discovery of specific aromatic compounds (in other words, smells) in various foods by concentration, it was confirmed that foods that share the same aromatic and flavor compounds will taste good when paired together.

Years of industry research have determined that the foods that pair well in a certain recipe share specific key aromas. In fact, you should credit aromas for the majority of your flavor experience—80% of what you taste in terms of flavor is essentially aroma, not taste or texture.

Remember that slightly off-putting, hand-drawn tongue from our primary school science textbooks? Each section of the tongue in the diagram supposedly coordinated with a specific taste. But what if I told you that our long held belief that we use different areas of our tongue to perceive five different tastes is a myth?

In fact, the process of tasting takes place in our brains—not on our tongues.

Thank Dr. Charles S. Zuker, Ph.D. and professor of biochemistry, molecular biophysics, and neuroscience for the debunking:

“Dedicated taste receptors in the tongue detect sweet or bitter and so on, but it’s the brain that affords meaning to these chemicals.” (Credit: Columbia University Medical Center)

It seems that our tongue’s taste receptors can detect tastes such as sweet, bitter, or savoriness (also called umami), but it’s the brain that ultimately assigns meaning to these chemicals. That's why when we have sinus congestion we have difficulty tasting things. If you want to test this yourself, just plug your nose while sipping coffee—although coffee contains over 1,000 aromas, it will immediately turn into a bitter drink without the presence of smell.

Food pairing has been around a long time; in fact, we do it all the time. When you add spices to a dish, you’re thinking about what combinations will make your food taste good. Would you add a layer of cheese on top of your waffles? Or salsa on top of your ice cream? Probably not. In the same vein, we may not drink a glass of milk with sushi, but we would perhaps drink white wine with our salmon.

So, what does this mean for coffee and chocolate?

For one thing, coffee and chocolate share origins and processes that both overlap and deviate in fascinating ways. Both beans are incredibly complex in flavor independently, but when paired together, can provide a deliciously unique flavor combination.

The strategy is to find pairings that have flavor and aroma elements that both complement (such as nutty and spicy tones) and contrast (bitter with fruity tones) one another. Identify the dominant aromas and flavor notes when paired together, and decide which pairings you like and don’t like.

A few starter tips for pairing chocolate and coffee:

It’s suggested one begin with single origin roasts and single origin chocolates to get a feel for the specific aroma and flavors of each specific bean region (as opposed to a blended roast which combines beans from different regions) or a chocolate bar that combines beans or adds another flavor element, such as salt, caramel, or red chili.

The cacao percentage expressed on a chocolate bar is the ingredient content from the cacao plant which includes the cocoa butter and chocolate solids; the remaining percentage is the sugar content. So, for an 80% bar, 20% is sugar. (Take a look at the ingredients on a Hershey bar—what you’re eating is not real chocolate).

"Trust us."
Sincerely, coffee and chocolate

Remember, trust your palate! What tastes delicious to one person, may be off-putting to someone else. The fun is in the exploration and discovery. Through time, you will be able to expand your palate and recognize the myriad of flavor tones and aromas found in coffee and chocolate.

Everyone involved at Sip & Melt looks forward to sharing our coffee and chocolate pairing adventures with you!

-Sip & Melt

What Do You Get When You Mix Chocolate with Reykjavik?

4:59 PM

Literally named after Cookie Monster's amusing, "Om Nom Nom" while gorging himself on cookies, Omnom Chocolate, an award-winning chocolate company in the capital city of Iceland, has been slowly building up a massive following all over the world since its inception in 2013.

It is co-owned by Kjartan Gislason, a former chef-turned-chocolatier and a handful of friends, who now transform cacao beans from all over the world, into small batch, bean-to-bar chocolate. Gislason's small team hand-sorts, roasts, cracks, winnows, and grinds their own beans at their factory location which now resides near the city center in Reykjavik.

Omnom moved to this current location in mid 2016, after moving on from their previous factory location that rested on a former gas/petrol station lot.

The beans are roasted in an on-site convection oven where the team builds up their roasting expertise by experimenting with roasting times, in order to ensure optimum flavor, and bring out certain aromas and flavors based upon specific bean regions and climate.

Omnom sources beans from the Caribbean, South America, Asia, and Africa. Their bars include just cacao beans, raw cane sugar, and cacao butter. A description on their product page for Omnom's 70% cacao Tanzania bar, states they source beans from a women's convent that operates a thirty-acre farm; the funds obtained from the beans then goes to support charitable works they handle in their village. Cool!

They also offer seasonal bars such as dark cherries and almonds in a Madagascar 66% bar, as well as chocolate covered malt balls, and their website indicates more options are always on the way.

[Omnom Product Page]

The packaging is a visual wonder, created by a South African digital designer, and friend of Gislason's, who had been enchanted by the Icelandic scenery. The wolf icon logo is prominently displayed on each bar, while a different sketched animal "guards" specific bean origins, layered over pretty, pastel-colored paper. ( Each are wrapped by hand!) They are incredibly visually appealing, and what my friend in Norway describes as "one handsome Icelandic chocolate."

Omnom's current in-house designer, Veronica Filippin, has been with the team since fall of 2016, and has continued the same iconic design style, but with her own artistic skills. Check out her design for Omnom's Spiced White + Caramel.

[Omnom's Spiced White + Caramel]

In mid-2015, Omnom partnered with one of Iceland's premier coffee roasters, Reykjavik Roasters, and created a white chocolate bar, the Coffee & Milk bar, which is over 20% coffee beans! Omnom replaced the cacao beans with coffee beans, and includes milk powder from grass-fed Icelandic cows. These cows are smaller in size than American cows, have very colorful coats, and provide a rich and creamy milk.

If you happen to be in Iceland anytime soon, head over to their factory in Reykjavik, where they offer daily tours of their chocolate hideout which includes tastings of all of their bars, tour of the factory, and demo of their chocolate crafting process. Omnom products are also sold in select stores in the United States and around the world. Keep an eye out, as that lovely packaging is hard to miss. www.omnomchocolate.com

-Sip & Melt

Recipes for the Coffee and Chocolate Explorer

2:50 PM

We just love poking around for amazing coffee and chocolate recipes that can inspire our subscribers to go out and explore. That being said, get inspired in the kitchen with this recipe that kept us distracted for over an hour...

Cold Brew Coffee Brownies

[photo: Plated Cravings-Cold Brew Brownies]

I am a huge fan of putting coffee in, well, anything. When I was in college, I would toss in whole coffee beans into the blender (destroying the blender blades—pro-tip, grind them first) with some fruit and protein powder, and make a smoothie before going to class. Yum.

So, when I stumbled upon Julia's Plated Craving's blog and saw her Cold Brew Coffee Brownies, I knew she and I were going to have a thing.

Cold brew coffee is a great way to do coffee in the warmer months. The big difference with cold brew, versus hot or iced coffee, is the tepid water required during the brewing process which can create interesting flavor profiles not obtained through the former methods.

The use of room temperature water, as opposed to hotter temperatures up to around 205 degrees Fahrenheit as used with hot or iced coffee, allows the extraction of specific solubles from the coffee that would not have occurred otherwise. This can give cold brew a much less acidic taste, and trend more towards a smooth sweetness, which is part of its appeal.

The lower temperature will also dictate a longer brewing time which increases the caffeine content. After brewing for roughly 2 to 24 hours, one is left with a cold brew concentrate-- which is typically not going to be chugged down in one cup. It's a concentrate and thus needs to be combined with water or milk. We drink our concentrate with 3-4 parts water to 1 part concentrate (depending on how much caffeine we desire), or 3-4 parts milk to 1 part concentrate. Go ahead and play around with it and see what works for you.

Blue Bottle Coffee out of Oakland, California brews a tasty cold one and has instructions on how to brew:

https://bluebottlecoffee.com/preparation-guides/cold-brew

If you don't want to make your own, Trader Joe's has an off-the-shelf cold brew French Roast you can grab next time you're there:

http://traderjoes.com/digin/post/organic-french-roast-cold-brew-coffee-concentrate

Pages

How You are Directly Helping Women Farmers Beat Cervical Cancer

Food Pairing: What It Is and Why it's Awesome.

What Do You Get When You Mix Chocolate with Reykjavik?

Literally named after Cookie Monster's amusing, "Om Nom Nom" while gorging himself on cookies, Omnom Chocolate, an award-winning chocolate company in the capital city of Iceland, has been slowly building up a massive following all over the world since its inception in 2013.

Recipes for the Coffee and Chocolate Explorer

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