People who love coffee always end up with two things; stale coffee beans and used coffee grounds.
People may think that these beans are useless and just throw them out. But did you know that there are many ways you can make use of your coffee? In this article, we will discuss different uses of old coffee beans rather than just throwing them away.
Almost everyone has some old coffee beans just lying waste around the house and kitchen. Here, you will see 10 productive ways you can make use of old coffee beans.
Below are the 18 amazing uses for old coffee beans:
1. Practice with Your Beans
You can use your old coffee beans to practice your pour-over or experiment with your brewing process and methods without using your fresh coffee beans. You’ll have fun perfecting your brew through practice for that perfect cup of Joe. It’s more efficient than throwing out the stale coffee beans.
2. Use Some Chocolate
Even though, you may not use old and stale coffee beans to make coffee, they are still useful. For example, in many candy stores, chocolate-covered espresso beans are identified as a big hit and a favorite candy. So we have another option for coffee beans to use by making homemade chocolate-covered espresso at home.
This is very easy to make at home. Simply melt the chocolate, mix the beans, and then put it in parchment paper. You can start eating them once they’re cooled. Oh yeah, I like them!
Buying chocolate-covered espresso beans from stores it’s usually pricey, but much cheaper if you make it at home.
Chocolate-covered espresso beans can be made with white milk and even dark chocolate, and you can easily prepare it from the comfort of your home.
If you don’t know how to make it, and you want a step-by-step process, you should watch YouTube videos to see the simple recipe and steps involved to make it.
3. Suitable for Roses and Similar Other Plants
You will need a coffee grinder for the next use. Coffee grounds contain a high amount of Nitrogen. You may use these coffee grounds for your garden for your roses or other plants or flowers. Plants such as camellias, hydrangeas, blueberries, and cranberries, etc., need nitrogen for healthy growth; so they will benefit from the nutrients in the coffee grounds.
All you need to do is dig around the plants’s couple of inches deep and spread the coffee grounds around. The plants will benefit from that in many ways since coffee helps to control some pests, and the Coffee ground can really help to fertilize your garden.
4. Share Coffee Passionately with Others
Other coffee lovers don’t mind or, can’t afford coffee, so older coffee is OK for them!! Whether the coffee has been sitting on the counter for a while, and you don’t want to use it anymore, rather than throw it away, you can give it to someone less fortunate as a gift. I’m certain that many of these coffee lovers will appreciate the gesture.
5. Add Some Coffee to Your Compost
Ground coffee, can serve as compost. Throw the coffee in your compost and allow it to break down. The compost provides nourishment for the rich soil that your plant needs. Not only that, it helps to clear waste in a useful way. Mix the coffee beans, or grounds with compost, and fertilize around you veggie, or plant garden
6. Keep Pests Away
Mosquitoes do a great job in ruining our outdoor experience more than I can remember. Typically, coffee grounds are the safest pesticide and will keep pests away. To do this, just set bowls of the coffee ground around where there is an outdoor picnic, or gathering. This will help to against mosquitoes and other pests and help you relax.
Naturally, fleas are enemies of dogs. Coffee ground is a natural component that will keep fleas away. While washing your dog, simply add some coffee ground to the shampoo, your dog will also smell good.
7. Control Unpleasant Odors in your Home
In many places in your house, closets, washrooms, and basement, you can use coffee grounds to clear away odors. Coffee can get rid of garlic, onions, and unwanted scents. To use it for this purpose, you need to use dry coffee grounds.
Heat the coffee grounds in the oven at 250°C till it is dry. Avoid letting them burn and allow them to draw in unwanted scents. Also, when they are done with their job, you may use it for compost. It works!
8. Use For Heavy Dishes
Coffee grounds help to remove burnt gunk and grease on your pans and pots. Scrub the damp coffee grounds directly on the dishes. The rough feel of the coffee grounds will help you clean the food, grease. and burnt byproduct.
9. Use as a Skin Scrub
With coffee grounds, this is an additional and useful option vs. expensive skin products. Coffee grounds can serve as an exfoliant that will help you remove dead cells from your skin, and clean dirty pores, while promoting new skin cell growth. You can mix more cleansing ingredients to the coffee grounds for a more efficient skin cleansing.
For a scrub like a spa, use half a cup of coconut oil, half a cup of brown sugar, half the coffee grounds, for great results. Apply on your skin for three to four minutes. This will make your skin feel like new.
10. Use Coffee Beans as a Dye
You may also make a natural dye with the coffee grounds. Depending on how strong or weak your brewed coffee is, you get your color outcome. Perfect coffee brew brings a dark brown color and the weak one brings a light brown color.
After brewing your coffee, boil it. Then, stir your fabric around till it is completely soaked. Soak it for an hour and soak it till it gets a deeper color (as you want). After getting what you desired, pull the fabric and rinse it in cold water. Then, your fabric is ready for use. Check it on YouTube. You can also use coffee as dye on furniture scratches which blends well wood products.
11. Healthy Hair with Coffee Ground
Coffee may be combined with shampoo for healthful hair! Coffee could stimulate the hair roots for healthy and shiny-looking hair. Let it cool and massage your hair with it, this will help stimulate hair’s structure and great-looking hair.
12. Use it as a Meat Tenderizer
Coffee grounds can tenderize your meat and make it soft and tender. Coffee is full of enzymes that make the meat very soft. Brew a strong pot of coffee. Then, keep the meat in the coffee brew for approximately twenty-four hours. This will give your meat a caramelized, sweet, and savory flavor for your meat.
13. Grow Mushrooms
If you like mushrooms, and you’re growing them Coffee ground can help. You could choose old coffee beans to help if you are growing mushrooms at home. Grow your mushroom with the use of old coffee beans, or ground. Then, order the mushroom type you want to grow. Simple process.
14. Reduce Cellulite
The appearance of cellulite is a real skin issue for many people. Coffee stimulates dilation and rubbing coffee ground in the areas of cellulite skin helps to aid circulation, and smoothing out the area.
Coffee produces antioxidants that increase your body’s collagen and reduce your cellulite rate. You can mix it with coconut oil to aid in massaging the area.
15. Use for Coffee scented Candle Combination
You might have seen and used different candle combinations on Pinterest or other videos. Then you have to try the coffee-scented candle combination; it has a beautiful and wonderful smell.
Using the coffee-scented candle combination can bring your room into a relaxing and comfortable mood. Well, you know how it smells when you enter a coffee shop, that wonderful coffee scent that everybody likes. If you don’t know how to prepare it, then check (DIY) do-it-yourself videos on YouTube.
16. Designing and painting Styles
These coffee beans can be used for different designing styles and in your home. If you have ever come across the coffee mural in Moscow, Russia, you would have the idea of beauty using coffee beans for creating art.
You can use it on a cardboard box or canvas and place it on a wall for display. You can also use it directly for designing walls and doorposts knobs, and handles, or many other parts of the house. Check it on YouTube.
The Takeaway
As you can see, there are many uses of coffee grounds or coffee beans that you can use in case the coffee is stale or too old to brew. We have considered that coffee grounds are used for your skin, your hair, your plant, your meat, and even your environment.
Instead of throwing your stale or old beans, you can find many uses for any of the discussed, and most of these uses are backed by YouTube.
If you have any comments, please leave them below, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a coffee lover and a dog lover check these pet supplements.
Omg! eye opening article! I wasted so many opportunities for making cool stuff with used coffee grounds 🙂 but question – is it safe to add it to the dog shampoo? I have a black lab and my worry is that I then won’t be able to wash it off and remains will stay on his skin and cause irritation.. appreciate any thoughts.. I would love my doggy to smell like coffee.. a dream come true 🙂
Hi Cogito. You bring some excellent questions regarding mixing dog shampoo with coffee grounds. During my research, I found out that is safe, but you would should go to YouTube to do more research. Its safe for people to use it as a skin cleaner, to exfoliate, and to treat cellulite.
Michael
Oooh coffee scented candles sound HEAVENLY. I am not much for the taste of most coffee but the smell is to die for every time. Only thing is, I think it would make my boyfriend crave coffee all the time haha! All the other ideas are interesting too, like the skin rub and meat tenderizer. I’m very curious what coffee-soaked meat would taste like. Since I don’t really care for the flavor of coffee I’m not sure if I would like it though.
I appreciate your comments and your candor. Those ideas can be useful for some and they also let most folks know how many ways coffee can help.
Michael