Drink Development at R2

Last monday saw a few of the R² baristas brainstorming and shopping for the ingredients of possible specialty drinks. I photographed some of the process. 

Ingredients: result of shopping

We ended up developing two drinks, the orange mocha, and the chocolate chili latte. The orange mocha is currently being served at R², and comes with the lovely garnish of a chocolate-coated sliver of candied orange peel from Delight on Queen West.  

Chocolate-coated candied orange peel slivers

Ingredients of the orange mocha

Me on the phone

Chris, an esteemed regular

Evan, making a free-pour swan

Evan, pleased about something, possibly my photo of his latte art

We will be serving the chocolate chili latte later this fall. 

Chocolate chili latte ingredients

Red and Green Thai Curry Pastes

In February this year I decided I was going to make my own red and green thai curry pastes. I looked into some recipes and found some interesting ingredients that I had never heard of: galangal, and kaffir lime leaves.

Galangal is a root that looks vaguely like baby ginger and tastes like "has a citrusy, piney, earthy aroma, with hints of cedar and soap" according to Wikipedia, although I can't describe it myself. Kaffir lime leaves taste vaguely lime-like and look like this:

Kaffir lime leaves