How to use coffee beans to flavour food and drinks, from ice cream and lamb loin to vodka

Coffee is consumed most often as a drink, but it also makes for a distinctive seasoning. The seeds of the coffee fruit (called “cherries”, because that is what they resemble) are picked when the fruit ripens to a deep red colour. The pulp and skin are removed to reveal the green seed, which goes through several stages – including fermenting, washing, drying, hulling and grading – before the beans are stored or shipped. The processed beans can be stored in their dried green state for several...