5 More Things To Do With Coffee
Updated: Mar. 20, 2019
Fertilize your flowers, exfoliate your face, and flavour your stew with these fun and interesting new ways to use coffee.
1. Fertilize Your Plants
It isn’t the caffeine in coffee grounds that plants like azaleas, rosebushes, and evergreens love but rather the acidity and aeration the grounds provide-not to mention nitrogen, phosphorous, and trace minerals. Be sure to dig the grounds into the soil to keep them from becoming moldy, but don’t overdo it: Dig about 3/4 cup of grounds into the soil near the roots, repeating once a month. Fertilizing even acid-loving plants with coffee grounds too frequently could increase soil acidity to undesirable levels.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
2. Eliminate Pet Odours
Some pet owners have found they can remove pet odours from a room by heating a cupful of freshly ground coffee beans in a cast-iron skillet over low heat. As soon as the scent is released, remove the pan to the smelly room, and set it on a trivet. By the time the ground beans are cool, much of the pet odour should be gone.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
3. Exfoliate Your Face
Chris Barnes notes in a Stylelist feature that you can exfoliate your skin with coffee grounds. Rub the moist grounds in gently to get rid of dead skin, then rinse.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
4. Bake Bread
Caught without cookware? A quick bread will bake just fine in a coffee can. Be sure to spray the interior with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
5. Flavour Your Food
To give lamb stew a beautiful dark color and great flavor, add one cup of black coffee to the stew pot about halfway through the cooking process. You can also look up great dry rubs with coffee for beef, pork, and other meat dishes.
(Photo: Thinkstock)
