Your eyes are not fooling you – the cubes in your iced coffee at Maplewood’s green café, Foundation Grounds Coffee House, are brown.
That’s because – drumroll, please – they’re made of coffee. That’s so when the cubes melt, they don’t turn to water and dilute your drink.
This simply marvelous idea came from Foundation Grounds co-owner Laura Macaluso, who, giving credit where it’s due, said she borrowed it from a café called Java Junction in Madrid, N.M.
“I was thinking about living there [in the city], and I had coffee in the café every day for a week,” she noted. “I forgot all about it, but much later, when it was time to open Foundation Grounds, I remembered the coffee ice cubes and called the owner. She said it was OK for me to steal her idea.”
Freezing coffee to make the perfect cool-down for your iced coffee is, by far, not the only thoughtful thing on the menu at the corner café. FG is serious about a commitment to the planet, and pretty much everything on the premises is green, reused, biodegradable, recycled, cruelty-free, sustainable, local or some combination of the above. In fact, they’ve banished high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and artificial colors from the menu, explained the other co-owner, Pedro Abbate. Dig the café’s vegan and vegetarian options (the vegan pumpkin muffin is a slam-dunk), locally roasted free-trade coffee, locally sourced hormone- and cage-free ham for sandwiches, and even biodegradable, corn-based to-go cups.
– Byron Kerman
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2010.