Muddle Fresh Strawberries To Give Iced Coffee A Summer Twist

Fruit-flavored tea, particularly iced tea, is pretty standard stuff. Iced tea often comes with a slice of lemon as a garnish, while store-bought iced teas come in flavors ranging from raspberry to peach to pineapple-mango. Fruity iced coffees, however, may not be on your radar quite yet. If the idea seems a bit odd, it may help to realize that coffee beans are actually not beans but seeds that grow inside something called a cherry. Early coffee consumers didn't drink the stuff, but chewed these cherries, instead. Other types of cherries can also be combined with coffee, but here we're highlighting that summertime favorite, the strawberry.

If you've just been to a pick-your-own farm and now find yourself with a surplus of strawberries, try this: Take a few of the berries, perhaps ones on the verge of going soft, and mash them up on a tall glass with a muddler or a long spoon. Add ice, any milk or creamer if you're using it, and maybe some chocolate sauce since this flavor always goes great with strawberries. Add a few ounces of extra-strong coffee (or espresso, if you've got it), and enjoy your fruity coffee concoction.

If you can wrap your head around the idea of strawberry-flavored coffee, which shouldn't be too hard to do, then you might want to consider the idea of adding other types of fruits to your coffee. Again, this shouldn't be such a stretch since fruit-flavored coffees already exist. Dunkin' has blueberry muffin and chocolate-covered strawberry K-cups, but then, it's no stranger to the fruity coffee game. Back in 2020, it offered a "sugarplum" macchiato for the holiday season that was said to taste of blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and, yes, plums. Fruity coffee creamers are also a thing, with International Delights releasing a "Bridgerton"-inspired berries & crème flavor in 2023. (Apparently they were unaware that the word "crème" now sounds more fake than fancy.)

With those flavors in mind, you might replace strawberries with a different type of berry. Stone fruits such as plums, peaches, and apricots can also be used, as can bananas. You could add some orange zest, too, as this citrus fruit pairs surprisingly well with coffee. If you can get hold of coffee cherries, you could even use these in your coffee as they're supposed to be quite palatable. Since they're not the kind of thing Kroger is likely to carry, though, sweet red cherries will work just as well even if their pits won't yield a tasty brew.