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Coffee-infused rice for rice balls and curry? Taste-testing a recipe from Japan’s coffee experts

Katie Pask Mar 10, 2023
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Soaking your rice in some Italian Roast makes a world of difference!

For those of us who struggle to wake up in the morning, there’s nothing more comforting than the soothing aroma of freshly brewed coffee. But sometimes, just drinking coffee is not enough; sometimes, you need a little extra to get you going. And thanks to this recipe from Japanese coffee specialists Kaldi, you can enjoy the aroma of coffee with the taste of some delicious rice.

We’ve tried cooking rice with coffee before, but this recipe seemed to be a little more advanced than our ‘coffee in a rice cooker’ method, so we were keen to give it a go.

All you need are four ingredients to make what Kaldi have named ‘Aromatic Bean Rice‘. We decided to go with the exact ingredients listed in the recipe, but you can substitute alternatives from other brands too.

▼ We used Kaldi’s Italian Roast coffee beans, and a bag of mixed salad beans, as well as salt and water.

Interestingly, Kaldi recommend using different coffee beans depending on what season it is, and incidentally their choice of beans for summer is their Ice Blend coffee. Seeing as it’s nearing the end of winter now, we used Kaldi’s Italian Roast, which has a rich bitterness with moderate acidity.

The cooking process is pretty simple. After you grind and brew your coffee beans, soak your rice in the coffee for around 15 minutes, so the rice absorbs it.

Then cook your coffee-infused rice in a rice cooker as normal. As the rice is being cooked, it lets off a fragrant scent, similar to charcoal-broiled coffee, which fills the whole room.

Once your rice is cooked, all that’s left is to add the mixed salad beans and the salt and mix it in with the rice.

The salad beans add an extra level of texture to the rice, and are also a fun way to represent the coffee beans.

As for the taste, you can definitely feel the crisp after-taste and richness of the coffee beans. If you’re a fan of drinking espresso coffee, this recipe might be right up your street.

There are lots of fun ways to use this coffee-infused rice, too — we used the rice to make some onigiri (rice balls). After shaping the rice, we just sprinkled a bit of extra salt on the top. While it looks like a regular soy sauce flavoured rice ball, the taste is a unique savoury flavour that you’ve likely never tasted before.

We also tried it with some curry. Not only are the tastes of the rice and curry very complimentary, the coffee-infused rice looks a lot more sophisticated, like you’re dining at a fancy restaurant.

If you’re a fan of coffee and want to try out a fun and simple way to elevate your rice, give this recipe a go. We aren’t entirely sure what heating up the coffee rice in our rice cooker does to its caffeine content, so it’s probably best to avoid eating this late at night, or giving it to young children. In those instances, it might be worth trying tapioca infused rice tastes like, instead.

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