is a
jelly dessert flavored with
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
and
sugar. Although once common in
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and
American cookbooks, it is now most common in
Japan, where it can be found in most restaurants and
convenience stores. Coffee jelly can be made using instant mix or from scratch. It is served in restaurants and cafés.
History
Recipes for coffee jelly appear in cookbooks published in England as early as 1817.
The earliest recipes call for coffee to be mixed with calves' foot jelly and sometimes call for
isinglass or other clarifiers. After the introduction of packaged gelatin, most recipes call for the gelatin to be dissolved in the hot coffee and then molded.
In the early 20th century coffee jelly was promoted as a healthier alternative to hot coffee, as it was thought the gelatin would absorb excess acid in the stomach.
Jell-O
Jell-O is an American brand offering a variety of powdered gelatin dessert (fruit-flavored gels/jellies), pudding, and no-bake cream pie mixes. The original gelatin dessert ( genericized as jello) is the signature of the brand. "Jell-O" is a ...
launched a short lived coffee gelatin mix in 1918, but the dessert never gained widespread popularity outside of New England. Today, coffee jelly may still be found in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other New England states.
Durgin-Park restaurant in Boston, which opened in 1827, still offered coffee gelatin made with leftover coffee from the previous day as of 2016.
Japanese coffee jelly was developed during the
Taishō period (1912–1926) in imitation of European molded jellies. It appealed to modern young men with tastes for Western fashion and rose in popularity along with café culture. Coffee jelly has remained popular in Japan and is still widely available.
Starbucks launched a coffee jelly
frappuccino in Japan in 2016.
Description
Coffee jelly is made from sweetened coffee added to
agar, a gelatinous substance made from
algae and called ' in Japanese. It may also be made from
gelatin rather than agar, which is more common in European and American cuisine.
It is often cut into cubes and served in a variety of
dessert dishes and beverages. Cubes of coffee jelly are sometimes added to
milkshakes, at the bottom of an
ice cream float
An ice cream float or ice cream soda (also known as a spider in Australia and New Zealand), is a chilled beverage that consists of ice cream in either a soft drink or a mixture of flavored syrup and carbonated water.
When root beer and vanilla ic ...
, or to garnish an ice cream
sundae. Coffee jelly is often added to a cup of hot or iced coffee, with
cream
Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...
and
gum syrup added.
Condensed milk is poured over cubes of chilled coffee jelly in a bowl.
Popular culture
Coffee jelly has appeared numerous times in the manga and anime series ''
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.'', in which it is the main character Saiki K's favorite food.
See also
*
List of coffee dishes
Citations
General sources
* {{cite book
, last = White
, first = Merry I.
, year = 2012
, title = Coffee Life in Japan
, url = https://books.google.com/books?id=98gFtthZo0AC
, series = California studies in food and culture, 36
, location = Berkeley, California
, publisher = University of California Press
, pages
122–123{{Subscription
, isbn = 978-0-520-25933-1
, oclc = 747331872
Jelly
Jams and jellies
Japanese desserts and sweets