I was first introduced to ‘coffee bags’ at a friend’s dinner party a few months ago. They’d picked them up on a recent trip to Japan. I’m never one to turn down a new or novelty idea so I promptly made a cup of coffee. I even shared the whole experience over on Snapchat – that’s the kind of exciting content you can find me sharing 😉. The coffee turned out to be really good, much better than I’d expected.
Once I got home I wanted to find out more about coffee bags. At that time there weren’t any available in the UK. So, I briefly thought that maybe we should create our own. I can’t help it. If I see a gap in the market then I’m all about trying to fill it.
A month or so later Raw Bean launched the first-to-market pyramid coffee bags or as they prefer to call them, Bean Bags.
At first you might think that the concept is a little unnecessary but when you look a little closer you’ll see that they’re really quite useful. For a start, they make a fantastic cup of fresh coffee, much better than ‘jar coffee’ aka instant coffee but without the hassle of setting up your cafetiere. This makes them ideal for when you’re in a rush in the morning. However, the way I think they’re best used are for camping and hiking trips, festivals or at the office. I’ve mostly been testing them out at home and at my office but I did take the last few on our train trip to Cambridge. We had our KeepCups ready with hot water and it was so nice to have a quality cup of coffee on our train journey.
Raw Bean offer 3 blends; Breakfast Blend, Definitely Decaf and the one I tried, Striking El Salvador. When you open up the box the bags all sit neatly inside. They aren’t individually packed which means you can’t chuck them straight into your backpack but to be honest, I prefer that. I’d rather put them into a tiny Tupperware box and then into my bag instead of having even more packaging to dispose of. They’re fully biodegradable, which is always good. We live in such a wasteful world that it’s good to make an effort where possible.
The Striking El Salvador bags give off a beautiful strong scent when you open up the box. It’s a single origin coffee with a rich flavour and not at all bitter. I drank mine with almond milk which worked really well.
They’re very simple to use:
Pop the bag into your favourite mug
Add water
Squeeze after adding water
Brew for three minutes
Squeeze once more
Relax and enjoy your coffee
Keen to track down Raw Bean Coffee Bean Bags? Check out your local Waitrose or pop over to the Raw Bean site. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on coffee bean bags.