The Best Valentine Coffee Recipe

Prep Time: 5-7 minutes

Total Time: 10-12 minutes

Enjoy this decadent French press coffee on Valentine’s Day. You can have it with your sweetheart, or make it with the intention of summoning one. This recipe uses semisweet chocolate, rose extract, and almond extract, with optional milk and sweetener (I recommend brown sugar for that dark sticky molasses flavor). It’s a floral gourmand, but only as sweet as you want it to be. Adding milk or milk alternative will bring out the flavors a bit more, but it isn’t necessary.

The recipe is made with a French press in mind, but you can use the ingredients with whichever apparatus you find most convenient or appropriate.

If you want to know about why I included these particular ingredients in the recipe, continue reading down the page. Also feel free to skip down to the recipe if that’s all you’re here for. However, I try to keep “fluff” off my recipe posts, so it’s pretty interesting in my opinion.

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St. Valentine (And Almonds)

There are three possible people that Valentine’s Day could be named after, as there are three saints with the name Valentine.

For one of these men, all we know about him is that his life ended on the continent of Africa along with twenty four soldiers. We don’t know with certainty where he was born, or why he was canonized, or even more specifically where in Africa his life ended; just some vague information about the circumstances of his death.

A painting of a bishop, St. Valentine. — *St. Valentine of Terni*

Who was he, then?

What we know about another Valentinus is that he is said to have cured a girl of blindness. He was locked up under the rule of Emperor Gothicus, and an aristocrat named Asterius agreed to let him go if he could make his blind daughter see. According to legend, Valentinus put his hand over the girl’s face and chanted a Christian prayer. After the success of the ritual, Asterius and his entire family converted to Christianity.

However, Emperor Gothicus was not pleased with this, and ordered them all to be executed. St. Valentine was then beheaded along an ancient Roman Highway, the Via Flaminia. He has since been buried there, and a chapel has been built over the site of his death.

Another St. Valentine legend is about a bishop of Terni in Umbria, Italy. He was also arrested, and was freed by healing his captor’s son. Then, Emperor Gothicus had him beheaded as well. It is believed that these two men might be the same person, due to the uncanny similarities in their stories.¹

In an alternative legend, Valentinus became a good friend and mentor with a blind girl named Julia. When he was sentenced to death for his Christian faith, he sent one last letter to her that contained a yellow crocus and read “From your Valentine.” When the flower fell out of the letter and passed in front of Julia’s eyes, she began to see. After his death, Julia planted an almond tree by his resting site to honor him. This tree, and almonds in general, represented abiding love and friendship.²

Bright pink blooms on an almond tree — *Pink almond tree blossoms*

An almond fruit opened up to reveal an almond inside — *Almond fruit still on the branch*

Lupercalia

There was an ancient Roman festival regarding fertility celebrated in the middle of February, often regarded as a precursor to Valentine’s Day. Could this be the origin of the modern holiday?

Lupercalia was an ancient Roman ritual wherein young men would run around naked, whipping people with “thongs” made from freshly sacrificed goats.³ This whipping was supposed to increase fertility and ease delivery, so many women would hold out their hands to be whipped.⁴

This festival was for the Roman god Lupercus, a fertility deity. It is suggested that it was originally a rural holiday celebrated by shepherds. The celebration took place on February 15 in the Lupercal, the location where the fabled founders of Rome, brothers Romulus and Remus, were raised by a wolf (hence the name “Lupercal,” from the Latin word for “wolf”).

Animal sacrifices were made of goats and dogs, and there was a ritual among the priests involving the blood and milk of the sacrifices.

However, it doesn’t appear that there is any direct lineage between Lupercalia and modern Valentine’s Day. It seems to have been forgotten during the Dark Ages, last celebrated 900 years prior to the first mention of Valentine’s Day as a day of love in the 1380’s–in England, not Rome.⁵

Medieval Love

That was the time and place that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “Parlement of Foules,” in which he mentioned Valentine’s Day as a time when birds choose their mates. Even though his poem was satire, it spurred real sentiment. In the coming decades, sending love letters at this time of year became popular among nobles, and people began referring to their lovers as their Valentines during February.

Now, this makes it seem like the Valentine’s Day we know today began in the Middle Ages. It’s all based on one poem that had people swooning to send their lover a letter in mid-February.⁶ We’ll talk a bit more about its progression as we discuss chocolate.

A poem of Geoffrey Chaucer, with a portrait of him painted next to it — *Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer* {{PD-US}}

Chocolate

The ancient American delicacy invented by the Maya is rumored to have aphrodisiac qualities, but this notion does not seem to have any truth to it, at least for women.⁷ However, we can’t stop people from trying. It can be truly sumptuous, velvety, and contain endless depths, so gifting it to lovers is an act of generosity that has good reasoning behind it, whether it has aphrodisiac qualities or not.

There may be another reason it’s associated with the Day of Love, though. In the 1860’s, Richard Cadbury had formulated a new drinking cocoa that separated the cocoa butter out, making it easier to drink. Now he had a bunch of leftover cocoa butter, and didn’t want it to go to waste. So, he concocted a new type of chocolate confection that included cocoa butter in the recipe. He put the candies in beautiful boxes, and marketed the hell out of them.⁸

Richard Cadbury was the first to market chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Something very cool about this is that he put his own artwork on the boxes.⁹ He was able to summon a lot of attention and a lot of money to his business using chocolate.

So, through learning about Valentine’s Day chocolates, we can see that during the swelteringly sentimental Victorian era, the holiday received a marketing push. Those people loved their trinkets, themes, and candies. (So do I.)

A square box of assorted chocolates — *Box of eating chocolates*

*Heart shaped box of assorted chocolates*

A stack of chocolate, some of it shaved, with a dark background — *Stack of chocolate*

Roses

The most popular rose for Valentine’s Day is the American Beauty, which was apparently sent all the way to Queen Victoria from the U.S. East Coast during her reign. The people of her era assigned meanings to flowers, and the meaning assigned to the rose was love.¹⁰

The Victorians were not the first to associate the rose with love, though. It was connected with Venus, the Roman goddess of love, as well as her Egyptian counterpart, Isis, and her Greek counterpart, Aphrodite.¹¹

There’s a lot to be said about roses, so I’ll save that for another post that’s more specific to that flower.

Now that’s a lot of history! If you actually read all that, good for you, and also thank you, because I spent a lot of time on it. Now let’s get to the delicious part of this post, where we put it all together in a cup of coffee.

A clear vase holding red roses sits next to a bunch of fully bloomed red roses — *Decorative glass vase with red roses*

A close up of swirling rose petals, sprinkled with dew — *Close up of a red rose*

A close up of a partially bloomed red rose in dim lighting — *Red rose in dim lighting*

Recipe for Valentine Coffee:

Ingredients:

Coffee, 15.5 g (3 tbsp whole bean or 3.5 tbsp ground)
Water, 296 mL (10 oz)
Rose extract, 2.1 g (1/2 tsp)
Almond extract, 2.1 g (1/2 tsp)
Chocolate chips, semisweet mini – 11-22 g (1-2 tbsp)
Brown sugar or sweetener of your choice (optional) – 12 g (1 tbsp) or to taste
Milk of your choice (optional) – 30 mL (2 tbsp) or to taste

Tools:

Kettle
Coffee grinder (if not pre-ground)
French press (You can alter it to suit any coffee making apparatus)
Timer
Measuring device(s)
Mug
Wooden utensil

Instructions

Measure the water into the kettle.
Set the water to heat up to 197 F (91-92 C).
Grind the coffee coarse.
Put the ground coffee in the carafe.
Set the timer for 4:30, but don’t start it yet.
When the water is at the correct temperature, pour it into the carafe, just covering the coffee grounds.
Add the rose and almond extracts, then add the rest of the water. Do not stir.
Begin the timer for four and a half minutes, and put the lid on, leaving the plunger up.
At this time, put the chocolate and brown sugar in the bottom of the mug.
When your timer alerts you, remove the lid and stir the brew with a wooden utensil.
Put the lid back on and plunge all the way down, slowly.
Pour the hot coffee over the chocolate and brown sugar, and stir, melting them together. You can garnish with food grade rose petals or rose buds, and add more sugar or chocolate to your heart’s desire. If you’re using milk or a milk alternative, now is the time to add that in (perfect opportunity for almond milk!)

Now that you have a cup of the best Valentine coffee in the world, you can give it to your sweetheart or drink it for yourself. Whether you are partnered or single, I hope you enjoy this Valentine’s Day! If you enjoyed any part of this post, subscribe to Herbs and Brew to be notified of new posts 🙂

Milkly, rosy, sumptuous coffee

The Best Valentine Coffee Recipe