Easy Simple Spooky Halloween Coffee Art Recipe

This recipe was a tricky one to think up (no pun intended). I was thinking for a good while, what kind of video do I want to do for my Halloween video? I had a few different thoughts in mind. First, I wanted to make a scary video. You know, do like a scary story about coffee. Problem was, I couldn't really find one except one about a kid killing baby sitters or something like that. I read that one and it was a bit too much for me (I'm a bit of a wuss). I then got an idea from a youtuber from yttalk.com (a site I absolutely love) about maybe making a latte art with some halloween theme to it.



 Now initially, I thought, well heck. I've tried to make latte art before. That ended up terribly! I burned the milk and couldn't get any form of rosetta or anything coming up after multiple tries. So I just kind of gave up on that for right now. But then I thought, you know what floats on top of coffee that is super tasty? Whipped cream. So I got an idea to make a pumpkin out of, well, canned pumpkin! Now I wanted to make something else with it, like a bat, but wasn't initially sure how to do that. I then remembered, oh yeah! I have some chocolate just lying around the house I haven't eaten yet... somehow. So I figured that would be a nice addition to the halloween theme.



The set up for this video was a new thing for me. What I did was, I brought in the lamp from the Java Hut (where I film my videos normally) and brought it in for additional lighting. When I realized that wouldn't help much, prior to filming, I just said, bah forget it. We'll do it live! So pair that with having the camera exactly opposite of me, on the table, and pointed straight down, it was an interesting set up. Overall, I really liked how it turned out and I hope you like it as well. If you do try it out, let me know! I'd love some feedback on it.

Now that I am coming up on my one year youtube anniversary, I want to go into detail on really how my youtube channel first started and the struggles of me not knowing what the heck I was doing.

So on Black Friday morning last year, I was at my parents place just having breakfast and really just relaxing. At that point I really wanted to start a youtube channel but didn't know where to start because, I didn't have a camera! I realized, oh it's Black Friday, and found a freaking 'sweet' deal on Best Buys website for a little dash cam that was like 80 bucks initially but was down to 30. I thought, heck that must be a great idea, and decided to go and get it.

So my camera comes in the mail and I'm freaking pumped. I get this super nice HD 1080p dash cam for such a cheap deal and think, 'Youtube Stardom here I come!'. Then I realize after filming my intro video, MAN. This quality sucks! The audio sucks, the video sucks, and I guess it didn't help that I was editing it on a 2008 mac book (not pro. not air. just mac book) with imovie. That and my initial set up was me. Sitting in the living room, a pillow set up behind me to give a nice solid background, and a chair in front of me with books stacked up for my little dash cam to film me. No mic, no audio editing, and the highest of quality 2008 iMovie I could get! It was then that I realized I should probably get a new camera and a mic for my videos!

So fast forward to Christmas. I get a mic from the in laws (because they knew I was getting into this youtube thing and wanted to support me. Which in all honesty, was pretty awesome) and I got thinking, ok. So I have this nice mic but this crappy camera, I need to upgrade my life. This is where I consulted the Reddit. I put up an 'askreddit' where I pretty much asked Reddit what camera I should get (I'm lucky I got out as unscathed as I did, as Reddit can be pretty brutal at times). The only comment I got was from a guy who said, yo, check out this refurbed camera off of Cannons website. It's only 100 bucks! Now at that point I was really checking out cameras and when I saw it was 100 bucks, I was like, dude. This might be a really good deal. After looking up the specs and ratings on the camera, I decided to jump in head first, and man I'm glad I did. That camera has so far proved to be the best camera I could have gotten with the money!

As for the new set, I have this 'man cave' at my place with all my guy stuff in it. It has a nice little futon and figured, hey, we got these dinner trays, why not use that for my set? So far the wife hasn't kicked my butt for using them as my table and it's worked out quite nicely! If you want any pictures of any of these neat little things, just comment down below. I'd love to share them so you get to see more of what I was working with.

Gross Coffee Reaction Video ft. Stoney Joe- Javaman Reacting to a Disgus...

So this dude, Stoney Joe, said, man I love you Will it Creamer videos. So because of that, he said he had to do his own version of it. I, needless to say, was quite flattered. He asked if I could make a reaction video to it so here it is! Hope you like it.

Origin of my series Coffee Around the World

Well I've always been interested in traveling. As a kid, I moved a lot because of job transfers for my parents. So because of that, I've been in almost every state in the US (minus Hawaii because forget that pretty little island) and Canada. I've had some wonderful times with these moving experiences. I've made a nice bunch of friends in a multitude of states and seen things from Denali National Park in Alaska to the Grand Canyon to the White House. I've loved seeing and learning every little bit. I was like a tiny little nerd sponge, I guess you could say.

From there, I've realized I loved learning and learning new things that I may never get to see. That and my well developed sense of adventure lead to Coffee Around the World. In this series, I look at the history, the types of coffee, and how the coffee in that culture is enjoyed. I've learned things like how politics in Mexico influenced the coffee culture there in Mexico, how the word Java is actually derived from an Indonesian island that actually grows and exports coffee, and how Italy has the oldest currently running Cafe in the entire world (the Cafe Florian in Venice)! In fact, I may just have to post my next blog on my experience in Venice and the Cafe Florian really was because, whoo man, it was something serious!

If you want to check out my series on Coffee Around the World, here's a link to it Coffee Around the World Series and if you want me to explore the caffeinated history of a country I haven't done yet, just comment below and let me know!

Worlds Oldest Coffee Shop- A History of Cafes Around The World

Today, we go back in history to find the worlds oldest coffee shop, or cafe, or coffee house, or however you want to call it. It, unofficially, is more of a video for a history of cafes around the world (or again coffee shop, coffee house, whatever). First we explore the oldest coffee shop in America. This would be the Caffe Reggio. Now, the Caffe Reggio was founded in 1920 and was the first place to make a cappuccino in America. This old coffee shop, the Caffe Reggio, is known for it's old espresso maker, made in 1902, as well as beautiful art. This includes a bench from a very rich family in Italy as well as art from the Baroque period!

 Next is the Cafe Florian. The Cafe Florian was founded in 1720. The Cafe Florian is the oldest coffee shop in Italy and is the oldest active coffee shop in the world. I have a wonderful history with this cafe as I have previously visited it when on my honeymoon with my wife. The music they play outside the cafe sets a perfect atmosphere in the plaza of Saint Mark. With the Cafe Florian being the oldest active coffee shop in the world, it has some neat history. It has multiple halls with different types of paintings and things in these halls. However, this is still not the oldest cafe in the world. For that we have to go even further back in time. The oldest coffee shop in the world is the Kiva Han. With the Kiva Han being the oldest cafe in the world, it was founded in Constantinople, or Istanbul now a days. It was founded in the 15th century and not much is known about it. My guess would be is, because of the multiple wars that have been raged in that area, any information about the cafe, if there was much to begin with, has been destroyed within that time period, as the Ottoman Empire first founded the cafe.


Check out my other videos including coffee around the world, review it, will it creamer, my recipes for more Java Central goodness!

A New Welcome to Java Central

   Welcome to my blog! Now you may be wondering, why is this youtube guy making a blog? Shouldn't he just stick to his videos and leave us alone? Well that's actually a great set of questions.

   See this interest in blogs actually started when I was thinking of beginning a youtube channel almost a year ago. I had a lot of free time and wanted to do something that I've never personally done before (as I'm really stinkin adventurous). So I remembered I did a few home movies (no not THOSE kind of movies) with my friends and a few other youtube videos and thought, heck, I could totally do that. What was really a bit of a block for me was the lack of camera or mic. That's where my thoughts went to a blog. A place where I can just share my thoughts freely by print to people who find it mildly interesting. At the time, that wasn't quite as interesting as the thought of becoming the next big youtube star. So I got this crappy little camera from best buy for 30 bucks and decided to start filming my youtube channel!

   Now you might think, why coffee? What got you into coffee? Well as a kid, I was that weirdo that would take a nice big whiff when we passed the coffee section and, once I got to college, realized that not only is coffee necessary for late night studying but is dang tasty! Include that with my big boy job that involves me waking up around 5am, and coffee has become a daily thing for me. With this daily drinking, I wanted to have an even better cup of coffee. So I began googling different ways to make coffee better than just the black saw dust (I kid you not, the coffee at work tasted like saw dust) I was drinking before. So I looked at different ways to brew coffee and grind coffee. Slowly I've learned more and more about coffee to the point where, I wouldn't say I'm a pro, but I'm more knowledgable than I was before for sure! Pair that with my love for teaching, and you get a nice couple that runs my youtube channel.

So now you may think, ok that's all well and good, but you didn't really clearly say why you are doing a blog now. After a year of youtubing, I've learned that I can't really convey fully what I want in a 5 minute video on the internet. So I decided I would use it as an overflow of coffee knowledge that I gather on my researching I do for my videos.

So I hope this interests you and makes you want to come back to read more! Either way, I am glad you are here to give me a shot and I hope you enjoy this mental overflow of coffee love that I bring. And if you are interested in checking out my youtube page, you can check it out here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Vao5VMA2gI67OdwXkDoPg