Iced Coffee Popsicles

It’s summer… even here in the Netherlands temperatures are on the rise. Regular visitors of our blog will remember the legendary Summer Refill Recipes of 2014 and 2013; some yummy smoothies to boost your energy while working through the hot and steamy season.

This year we turned our logo upside-down to do a Iced Popsicle series. In order to make these brown beauties, you only need a simple ice-cream mould and a couple of wooden sticks.

Brew some strong coffee… keep the coffee in the fridge for half an hour to cool down. In the meantime pour some of the cream (add sugar) into the mould and put it in the freezer. After 2 hours or so, you can add the cold coffee mixed with the cream-leftovers. The next day you can enjoy your favourite coffee in a frozen version:)… Happy weekend!

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My New Favorite Places #2

I finished Gretchen Rubin’s ‘The Happiness Project’ a couple of weeks ago and one of the  suggestions she makes on living a more meaningful life is: leave trails. If you like a place, a book or an experience, write about it and share it with others.

This way you nail down why exactly you enjoyed it so much and that way it makes you contemplate more intense on positive things in your life. You also literally leave a trail of good experiences for others to follow when you share what kind of places or things made you feel happy.

Yesterday I worked at the lovely co-workings space VanBoven. Every Friday you can climb up the stairs of a beautiful Amsterdamse School church building in the Baarsjes neighbourhood and find the perfect quiet place to get some serious work done. It’s only 5 euro’s for the whole day and coffee, tea, fruit, cookies, chocolate are complementary.

During the rest of the week they organise little indie-concerts, exhibitions and courses. Love this concept, definitely plan to go there more often.

Bedside Barista

The perfect wake up call if you ask me! What a great idea: combining an alarm clock with a coffee-machine that looks pretty awesome at the same time. On my wish list, thanks to Josh Renouf (who invented the Barisieur)!

Coffee Impressionism

What to do during energy-sucking hot and humid weekends in Hong Kong? This type of iced-coffee always gets my creative juices flowing:). Make some strong coffee with your French press, add a lot of ice-cubes and start experimenting with the secret ingredient; spoons full of sweet condensed milk:)! You can find a more detailed recipe here.

To me, coffee and creativity are always connected to each other… whether it’s fuel for conversations with inspiring people or the getting-the-right-state-of-mind drink for a productive morning behind a laptop. How’s that with you:)?

DIY Knitted Coffee Sleeve

I love Autumn, and I love my take-away coffee in Autumn even better! Finally I don’t have to order it iced anymore;-). This knitted coffee sleeve adds just that extra cozy touch to a nice cuppa, don’t you think? I found this one on whirly bird’s blog and I think it’s the perfect refilling, chilly evening project for a not-so-talented knitter like myself;-).

Coffee Mug Iron

Ahhh… ironing a shirt, isn’t that one of the worst things you can imagine to do in the morning;-)? I hate it when I have an early meeting and need to fix up a blouse before I can run off. With this coffee mug iron it’s probably a bit more bearable.

In simple terms, the heat from your hot coffee-filled mug can be used to iron out a few creases of your shirt. I just love the idea and design, this is the perfect iron for me;-). Thanks Studio Lebedev!

Photo Exhibition Architecture Hong Kong

Last weekend we visited a lovely little photo-exhibition about Hong Kongs old shop-houses (tong lau’s). The archetype shop-house is the oldest house-form found in a trading city. And in turn they are shaped by the city as well! The shop-houses also influence people’s experience of streets. The photo’s showed various shop-houses and documented the life of the owners who run their businesses in Sham Shui Po, a famous working class area in Hong Kong.

You can visit the exhibition till 31st of August in the Western District Community Center (36A Western Street)… a beautiful historic building that used to be a maternity hospital. I had an awesome afternoon in the Sai Yin Pun area and even found some new amazing coffee places like Metropolitain and La Rotisserie that I will use more often in the future to meet people or get some work done;-).

Coffee Infographic

Coffee: Is there anything it can’t do? I just read this interesting article on the website of Time-magazine about a coffee-powered car that broke a World Record this past week. Isn’t that amazing? In honor to that, I’d like to share with you an info-graphic about how to brew the perfect cup. After all it’s also important to keep your own engine running;-)

The New York based designers of Plaid Creative made this one. I really like the simplicity of the design. Check out their website here.