What Can Coffee Cream Be Used For in Classic Coffee?

Coffee cream is the shared base behind several classic coffee drinks. Whipped by hand until it resembles thick yogurt, it forms the top layer of 400 Times Coffee and appears in Neapolitan coffee and coffee ice cream. Each drink uses the same cream but pairs it with different ingredients, so sweetness, texture, and flavor shift from one to the next.

Any roast level can be whipped into coffee cream, but darker roasts hold up better against milk, sugar, and other additions, and they keep a clearer coffee aroma in the finished drink. Beans such as Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Strawberry Candy Espresso suit this style. Ingredient ratios, not technique, decide how thick or airy the cream turns out.

Coffee cream may look simple, but it can be extended into many classic coffee drinks. This article is built around the making and use of coffee cream, sorting out three methods: 400 times hand-whipped coffee, Neapolitan coffee, and coffee ice cream, and explaining the differences between instant coffee powder and espresso in preparation. The article also combines Front Street Coffee's bean list recommendations and suggests dark-roast beans suitable for making coffee cream, such as Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Strawberry Candy Espresso, helping readers grasp the balance of sweetness, texture, and flavor when recreating it.

This is not the first time Front Street has talked about this topic, and the reason is... To put it plainly, we just wanted to put together an article (just joking

) Actually, many coffees that can be named are inseparable from this coffee cream. So every time Front Street introduces coffee cream or its derivative methods, someone always pops up in the comments saying: hey, isn't this just that cup of such-and-such coffee? So today Front Street will sort out just which classic coffees this not-so-complicated coffee cream has made possible, and what the differences are between them~

If you want to recreate it yourself, you can first go back and read the article "Portal" that Front Street published two months ago, which explained how to make coffee cream. One point worth explaining: although coffee beans of any roast level can be made into coffee cream, considering how it works with other ingredients, it is best to choose beans with a darker roast. For example, Front Street Classic Blend and Front Street Strawberry Candy Espresso from Front Street's bean list are both very suitable. 1. 400 Times Coffee Let's start with the most familiar one, 400 Times Coffee. It first appeared at Han Kee Coffee in Macau, China, and got its name because making it requires nearly 400 times of hand stirring. At first, this drink was only somewhat famous locally thanks to celebrity recommendations. What truly made it spread across the internet and made everyone want to recreate it was that during the pandemic, a Korean variety show filmed the process of making 400 Times Coffee. The ingredients were simple and the process was not difficult, so a wave of hand-whipped coffee swept from Korea to the rest of the world.

That's right, the base of 400 Times Coffee is exactly the coffee cream Front Street mentioned, except that it relies on manual whipping to beat air into it. After whipping, the texture is not too thick, more like thick yogurt. (This one was made with an electric mixer. Front Street is not that diligent!)

The ingredients are very plain. According to what the owner of Han Kee said in the video, you only need 1.5 spoons of instant coffee powder, 2 spoons of hot water, and then 1 spoon of granulated sugar. Hand-whisk nearly 400 times, until it looks like thick yogurt. Finally, add an appropriate amount of milk, and a cup of 400 Times Coffee is done.

If you do not have instant coffee at home, you can also use espresso directly like Front Street does. However, there are a few things to pay attention to when using espresso, and the specific details are already explained very clearly in that blue-text article, so you can go read it yourself~ (When making it, note that coffee cream is very sweet, so do not add too much, or it easily becomes cloying...) If you use espresso, it is actually not hard to see that this drink is just a latte with granulated sugar added. The ingredients look similar, but the taste is quite different.

If you do not stir it, the first sip you take will definitely be the coffee cream. That yogurt-like smooth texture will come first, followed by the coffee aroma and the sweetness brought by the granulated sugar. Generally speaking, because quite a lot of sugar is added, you can hardly feel the bitterness of the coffee; after stirring it evenly, the milk makes the coffee cream more fluid. Take another sip, and you can experience a silky texture similar to D* . After the milk suppresses the sweetness, it no longer tastes greasy, and is quite pleasant.

2. "Neapolitan Coffee" Actually, before 400 Times Coffee became popular, coffee cream had already existed for a long time. The place that invented it was none other than Italy, the country that created the coffee machine. To be more precise, it was Italy's coffee city—Naples. Even in the city of coffee, there are always people who cannot stand the bitterness of coffee, so adding sugar to coffee is not unusual there. Not only do they add sugar, they add it in endlessly varied ways. The local specialty "Neapolitan Coffee" ( Coffee napoletano) is a very good example.

From the picture, its cup size is exactly that of a cup of espresso. In fact, it really is just a cup of espresso... only with an extra layer of coffee cream on top, and then it becomes a local specialty. Why can such a simple method become a specialty? Because it really tastes good. Stir it gently before drinking, and you get an experience different from the usual.

Take Front Street itself as an example. Front Street used Front Street Classic Blend from its bean list to extract a cup of espresso, then spread a layer of coffee cream on the surface. Stir it slightly and begin drinking. (When making it, note that coffee cream is very sweet, so do not add too much, or it easily becomes cloying...) Because stirring speeds up the release of aroma, as soon as the cup was brought to the mouth, Front Street smelled a rich fragrance. Taking a small sip, the first thing felt was likewise the silky texture brought by the coffee cream. But unlike the previous cup, no milk was added here, so the coffee flavor is shown very completely, with notes of chocolate, nuts, butter cookies, and caramel. The sweetness of the coffee cream suppresses the bitterness, so it does not taste harshly unacceptable, but rather very soft.

3. "Coffee Ice Cream" Observant friends should have noticed that whether it is 400 Times Coffee or Neapolitan Coffee, Front Street added a small line of reminder: do not add too much to the coffee when making it. Because to make a creamy texture, sugar is indispensable. The next one Front Street is going to talk about does not require much concern on this point. Low temperature weakens taste perception, and what was originally sweet and greasy becomes just right. It is—coffee ice cream.

After 400 Times Coffee became popular online, some clever little genius came up with this method: put the whipped coffee cream in the refrigerator and freeze it for a while, and it can turn into coffee-flavored ice cream! Later, this method sparked another nationwide wave of recreation last year. Front Street also gave it a simple try last year, and the result was indeed so. Not only the melt-in-the-mouth texture, but even the feel when scooping it was very similar. Just leave this cream in the freezer for two hours, and it has the texture of ice cream. The overall performance can be imagined as a kind of ice cream with a very strong coffee-chocolate flavor~

Besides the three relatively popular coffees above, coffee cream also has many other uses, names, and methods. Interested friends can explore and try them on their own. Front Street will not say more here~

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