Acorns coffee, so delicious.

This coffee is so delicious! Acorns coffee is a blend of walnuts` flavor and caramel. And the smell is so good. No doubt- it is titbit, the drink for

special occasions. If you are ever given the homemade acorns` coffee, be conscious that is a great distinction. First of all, it is so delicious.

Secondly, it takes a lot of effort to prepare it on your own.

Here comes the recipe for the acorns coffee:

– Gather acorns

– Peel them

– Soak them

– Grind them

– Dry

– Roast

– Brew the coffee

Sounds extremely simple? Let`s begin.

Gathering acorns

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Acorns should be gathered at the beginning of October, after the first frost. It is not that simple how it sounds, because in my neighborhood there are a lot of boars. They find acorns extremely tasty. Additional obstacle are worms living inside of acorns. In 90% of acorns with a “hat” there is somebody living in there.

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Neither do we look for acorns with a small hole- they are without any nutrition value.

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Peeling from the shell

The fresh acorns are easiest to be peeled. It is enough to use a hammer, and then a knife to take the content out. It is for sure easier than dealing with walnuts.

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Soaking in water.

Next, we need to eliminate the bitterness from the peeled and crumbled acorns by getting rid of tannin, that is the untasty substance, harmful for our kidneys.

Procedure is called leaching or un-bittering. It can be done in several ways. Here is how I have done it: I mixed the spoon of oak`s ash with hot water and I added the crumbled acorns and I left it for 24 hours. I repeated this action twice more.

You can observe how tannins are flushed- it is the orange pigment. At the end the acorns should be washed with pure water.

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Grinding

I grind wet acorns with the cutting edge tipically used for nuts. I add a little bit of water- it is easier for mixer to work. What we have obtained is thick, white pulp.koffee8

Drying

I put the ground pulp on the tin trey which in turn I set on thehearth. After drying the pulp became brown and looked almost like coffee. I repeated the grinding process in my favorite coffee winnower.

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Roasting

Next step is to roast it on the frying pan. It lasts only a couple of minutes, but the smell is so fantastic! Remember: it should stay brown, not black like a coal;).

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Brewing the coffee

The coffee should be poured with hot water, the same as with the Turkish coffee. It is great with dried figs.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Agnieszka from the forum Łuskiewnik for the inspiration to gather acorns. Her last year acorns`coffee and the comment: “yum, yum, it is so delicious” made my imagination work. Agnieszka prepared her coffee with honey and milk.

Acorns` coffee is not the only oak gift that Agnieszka would present. In early spring I prepared an ointment made from the young branches with buds. Here you can find the recipe: one portion of shredded branches, cork or leaves pour with one portion of hot mixture of glycerol and alcohol (1:1) and leave it in hermetic jar for seven days. Then strain it (I did not do it). It can be used to wash mouth, angular cheilitis, thrush, fresh wounds , insect bites. In case of my daughter the ointment helped immediately with her nose bleeding. I just put the ointment to the nose. It has been several months and she hasn`t nose bleeding any more.