Peace Coffee recently debuted a chilled espresso drink called the “Harrar Shakerato,” or, in common parlance, the “say what now? Har… what?”
Retailing at $2.50, the Shakerato blends Ethiopian Sidamo coffee with fresh blueberry syrup, and the flavor impact is sensational. You’d expect a traffic jam; what you get is a duet. The coffee itself packs a bright, berry-forward flavor that merges seamlessly with the syrup, making a beverage that is refreshing, bold, nutty, jammy, and — surprisingly — both crisp and balanced.
We emailed Peace Coffee about the name.
“Basically,” writes Peace Coffee Head Barista Jackson O’Brien, “[a ‘shakerato’ is] a chilled, sweetened and shaken espresso, producing a much more pleasant and balanced beverage than just tossing espresso over ice.”
“It’s a little known fact that the ‘Cafe Mocha’ is named after a Yemeni port town called ‘Moka,’ whose coffee was prized for its chocolate-esque flavors,” O’Brien writes. “One day some cafe owner decided to bypass the middleman and call a coffee with chocolate added a ‘Cafe Mocha.'”
“Similarly there’s a region of Ethiopia called Harrar whose coffee is prized for its blueberry flavors. I figured I could do the same kind of thing with adding blueberries to my espresso.”
Peace Coffee Coffee Shop, 3262 Minnehaha Ave, Minneapolis; 612.877.7760