Is Americano Bitter Enough to Carry an Oyster Topping?

A drink called Oyster Bitter has circulated online as the latest creative coffee stunt. Oysters are shucked and placed on the espresso machine's drip tray under the group head, then espresso pulled with 94 degrees Celsius water scalds them to medium-rare. The oysters are dropped into a glass of sparkling water, ice, and lemon juice, then combined.

The trend follows earlier experiments like Huoxiang Zhengqi oral liquid mixed into iced americano. Whether americano is bitter enough to offset raw oysters depends on the beans: many american coffee beans are roasted darker, which pushes bitterness forward. The recipe raises questions about food safety and about how far novelty should go before the coffee itself stops mattering.

Iced Americano has been reinvented by netizens in new ways year after year, from mixing it with Huoxiang Zhengqi oral liquid to today's jaw-dropping oyster iced Americano—the boundaries of creative coffee are being pushed further and further. For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex. This article will take you through how this iced Americano called "Oyster Bitter" came to be, as well as the increasingly outrageous creative trends in specialty coffee today, and explore the balance between chasing hype and preserving the essence of coffee in creative coffee.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

Recently, netizens on social platforms have started another round of imitation frenzy… The iced Americano that people love to mess with has once again got a new twist. Compared to last year's viral "diarrhea iced Americano," this time the innovation isn't about the Americano causing diarrhea—if it causes diarrhea, you won't be fine.

First there were Chinese patent medicine granules/traditional Chinese herbal extracts mixed into espresso, and now there's Huoxiang Zhengqi oral liquid mixed with iced Americano. High-end ingredients often only need the simplest cooking methods! And baristas can always turn simple ingredients into cutting-edge innovations. First, wash the oysters and shuck them, then place them on the grill … ah, no, on the drip tray of the espresso machine & under the group head. Then grind the coffee beans into fine particles and put them into the portafilter basket, distribute the grounds, tamp, lock in the group head, and press the switch.

The espresso extracted with 94°C hot water scalds the oysters to medium-rare in seconds. During the blanching process, prepare a glass of sparkling water with ice cubes and lemon juice… Then, very abruptly, dump the oysters in!

An iced Americano called "Oyster Bitter" is ready! Such a visually, olfactory, gustatorily, and gastrointestinally impactful thing quickly sparked netizens' curiosity, so recently you can always come across related tutorials on different platforms, and some hardcore netizens actually drank it… Some life-cherishing netizens, after completing the "Italian-style raw marinade" step, send the coffee-marinated oysters into the oven/air fryer, drizzle lemon juice after taking them out, and then down a shell of "cooked so no problem (Americano)"—even the sleepiest soul can be instantly activated!

Besides oysters + coffee, there's also salmon sashimi Americano…

You have to admit, people's imaginations are really wild! Netizens exclaimed after watching:

It's truly so bizarre! Although these aren't for actual service, the creativity itself—if you don't eat it, it's a waste of food… if you do eat it, you become a jet fighter…

Who knows when it started, but many creative food endeavors have taken on a "genetic mutation" pace. More and more creative coffees no longer pursue flavor pairing—as long as it's outrageous enough, it's guaranteed to get a burst of attention.

At the same time, the rise of "local culture" has also led many regional specialty flavors/ingredients to be combined with coffee. Foods that ordinary people could never see being paired together—baristas can always carve out a new path.

The emergence of specialty coffee was originally meant to help people who don't like coffee accept it, and to get more people to pay attention to coffee. But as people's imaginations run wilder and wilder, specialty coffee has also started to make people cautious.

Although many specialty coffees aren't actually outrageous enough to pair with raw fresh foods, some specialty coffees use ingredients that don't match the coffee flavor at all—one sip leaves your heart full of mixed emotions, and the price isn't cheap either, making specialty coffee increasingly something people approach with caution.

Outrageousness may buy a burst of attention, but not everything is acceptable to everyone. If you really want more netizens' attention for your brand, there are plenty of ways—just please, everyone, stop playing with food…

Image source: Internet

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.