Milk and Honey Iced Coffee

This deliciously milky sweet iced coffee brought to you by Nespresso.

Milk and Honey Iced Coffee: oh, you sweet, roasty, light, milky perfection.

No, wait, just reread that one more time. The fact that I can use all those describing words together to try to transfer this heavenly drink through the computer and into your mouth is proof that there is a magic trick involved here.

That magic trick has a name called Nespresso VertuoLine System. It takes that small space on my kitchen counter and creates a kind of homemade coffee shop fairy tale where *poof* I’m sitting out on the deck with a cute mug of iced coffee complete with striped paper straw and bonus –> I am still wearing my ratty high school hoodie and yogies and my hair is in a bedhead braid. Coffee shop in the house, yo.

Ice in a steel container and coffee in a mug.

The story of coffee in my life started back in high school. I know, shame on my 18-year-old self for drinking caffeine. I think I was tricking myself into being ready for college, where I would go on to be a “coffee” drinker slash champion guzzler of candy flavored creamers. Gah.

Then came married life – with two coffee drinkers in the fam, we got a single serve coffee maker with the little capsules and buttons and all that sparkly jazz. It was fun, but then it quit working and it took up a lot of space and created unnecessary waste (honestly, why has someone not come up with a recyclable single serve coffee capsule yet?) and so, long story short, we parted ways and haven’t looked back.

Currently we’re in Phase: French Press. Yummy yum yum. We love the French press and it’s used every morning in our house for the two rounds of daily coffee. Bjork is the champion coffee grinder and water steeper, so he and the French press have something special going on. I just reap the roasty-delicious-warmth-in-a-mug-yes-I-CAN-get-out-of-bed benefits and I do. not. complain.

In the last two years, I’ve really had two defining coffee experiences that have led us to this newest coffee phase that includes that wonderful thing called Iced Espresso Drinks.

First, when we were in the Philippines, for the life of me, I could not drink hot coffee. I’d wake up and step out of our intensely air conditioned bedroom only to be hit by a wall of smothering, honestly not to be dramatic but I’m totally serious almost nauseating heat. I think this started a trend for me to move away from coffee. Sadness on multiple levels, I know. I just couldn’t do it anymore. My love for all things coffee revived once we got back to the ice land of Minnesota, but I feel like it never fully recovered. Like, coffee. Okay sure meh.

Secondly, just not that long ago when we went on vacation with Bjork’s family, I decided to order an Americano during one of our must-have coffee stops. HELLO AMAZING this is the kind of coffee I’ve been dreaming about all my life but I just never knew this was it. And so it began: my ❤ journey with espresso. I like it and I want it and I need more of it on all of the days.

Conveniently, this was also about the time that we got the chance to try out a Nespresso VertuoLine System, which, uhh yahh, makes espresso. Annnnd makes you feel like you might be living in the future thanks to the one button phenomenon. It’s the single serving capsule thing all over again, but with extremely delicious coffee that even gets a little frothy on top. F-r-o-t-h-y. It’s creamy + rich + yummy to begin with, and then you go and add that milk and honey, shake it up with some ice, and plunk a cute little straw in that mason jar.

Put on your happy pants, frands. This is the oh my simplest wonderful thing of summer.

(And yes I did pack the Nespresso up and bring it to the cabin with me this week. with the straws, obvi.)