We all have them, don't we? Dirty little secrets. Aside from my rather embarrassing stash of knitting yarn, mine has been the continued use of artificial sweetener in my coffee. I know, I know. It's bad. I've had cancer. Twice. I shouldn't use it. Here I am being sanctimonious about not spraying chemicals around Struan Farm but I'm putting them in my coffee. Inconsistency thy name is Karen.
I've tried to go without any sweetener whatsoever in my coffee, but while I drink tea black without sugar I just can't do that with coffee. It's too bitter. I don't like using sugar in it either. I've tried stevia, darling of the natural foodies, and hate the taste of that. Bleh. It seems I'm too picky for my own darned good, or my own darned coffee.
But guess what? I'm a changed woman. It happened quite by accident, with thanks to friend Laura. While staying at her new digs in Corona del Mar, where the kitchen is still in transition, I found myself without sweetener or sugar. Laura and co. take their coffee quite seriously: they freshly grind roasted beans each morning. So I wanted to drink the java. I was offered up two available options to sweeten my coffee: honey or agave. I passed on the honey, which tends to flavour things as well as sweeten them, and went for the agave. I've used it in cooking before and found it has a relatively neutral yet sweet taste.
I returned home to find myself an agave convert. I'm now stocking agave instead of artificial sweetener. It's widely available at food stores as well as specialty markets. For those who aren't familiar with agave (pronounced uh-gav-eh), it's an all natural, low-glycemic sweetener made from the juice of the blue agave plant. The two different brands I've found here are both products of Mexico, where agave grows extensively. The plant is also used to make tequila.
Here's my dilemma now. I've just read that while agave is low-glycemic and marketed as a healthy sweetener, it's not particularly good for you either because it is so sweet. It's also staggeringly caloric. The health police say if you're going to use a sweetener that honey is best. Now agave has become my dirty little secret, I've traded one bad thing for another. So I'll trial honey; I'll start with Struan Farm honey to see how that tastes in coffee and report back in due course. Hope it's not "bleh" or I'll be back to where I started.
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