At the minute, my cogs are turning at a ferocious speed. And whilst it's normally concentrating on the coffee, at the minute, it's concentrating with what I put in the coffee, both to create new, and inventive drinks at work, but also to start developing a signature drink for when I try and compete.

One drink, we poured at work yesterday was a bizarre one. We tried it with a couple of different soda's, but the completed drink consisted of filling an 8oz tumbler with ice. Half filling the glass with an aeropress of a brazilian/guatemalan blend, and topping it up with lemonade... and as I said, it was bizarre, but quite pleasant. We also tried this with gingerbeer, but it was less exciting.

We have also been trying chili drinks a lot recently. We did it by grinding dried chili's using a hand coffee grinder, and boiled it with brown sugar to create a thick spicy syrup, we then steamed the milk with this in, and poured it into a 6oz or so cup, with chocolate abyss mocha sauce, and espresso. it was very nice, and very warming. And after drinking many of them, me and the guy tasting them woke up with a numb left arm..... a touch concerning.

Another drink that we are selling now is going very well. We call it the Espresso Libre, and it consists of muddling half a lime in a boston shaker, adding a cup of ice, half a bottle of Fentimans Cola, and adding a single espresso, and then straining it into a glass. It's fantastic, a lovely taste, very refreshing... and if you accidentally pour it with dandelion and burdock instead of cola, it smells exactly like Hoi Sin sauce, and tastes the same to.

finally, here is a growing list of flavours I mean to continue playing with.

Tarragon
100% venezualan black cacao
Coconut Milk
Black or pink peppercorns
Chili
Sage
maybe some kind of aniseed flavour, fennel, liquorice root, aniseed, or something of the sort.