Alternative uses for ground coffee beans

We’ve all been there. Having had the best cup of coffee possible and then we’re presented with the used coffee grounds. Usually we’d all just pitch them straight into the trash can and never think of them again; but wait there is another way. In fact there are eleven ways that we at UKVending can think of for getting further use out of your used coffee grounds.

If you’re of an environmentally friendly persuasion you can use them in your compost. If you mix them with some lye they make a superb composting agent and here’s the added kicker…throw in your coffee filter too, that will also decompose and provide added nutrients to the compost. Another bonus is that it is good for the worm’s digestive systems as it adds grit to their diets allowing them to digest much quicker.

You can make your roses and azaleas bloom even better by adding a small amount of coffee grounds on to the top soil. Plants that like high acidity benefit from the nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, potassium and other elements found in coffee grounds and the release of these into the soil makes your flowers grow. Don’t, however, use it on plants that like a non acidic soil like tomatoes.

The summer months you can occasionally be blighted by insects, well here again your old coffee grounds can be of use serving as insect repellents. The strong odour that they give off is not at all pleasant to many species of insects and animals including mosquitoes, ants, slugs and maggots. You can also use it to keep neighbour’s cats and dogs from your flowerbeds. A light sprinkling of used coffee grounds combined with other odour rich substances such as citrus will keep them all away. Cats and dogs have a much more developed sense of smell than us humans and they generally find coffee to be an unpleasant smell, whereas most humans strangely find it really nice.

On a similar theme, coffee grounds can be used as a coffee air freshener. No really they can. If you like the smell of coffee in the morning, you can rig up an improvised air freshener by using some ladies stockings filled with fresh ground coffee. Tie up the open end of the stockings and they will give off that fresh coffee morning scent all day.

Again, on a similar vein, is your fridge a little bit smelly? Well coffee grounds can be used as a fridge deodoriser. In the same way as with the fragrance but instead of using ladies stockings use a small sachet of ground coffee in the back of the fridge for a few days and the sachet will literally absorb most, if not all, of the bad smells in your fridge replacing it with a pleasant coffee smell.

There are a number of ways in which coffee can be used to add flavour to your cooking. Try it as a meat rub on steak mixed with other complimentary steak spices and it adds a unique flavour. Alternatively use it as a marinade in which your meat can rest for a few hours to soak up all the coffee goodness.

Coffee and tea have been used for centuries to add colour to fabrics and wood and it is easy to do yourselves. If you think that it would make everything come out as a rich dark mahogany colour you’ll be surprised as it is a much more subtle and lovely brown colour that emerges. As a fabric dye brew your normal pot of coffee and then put in the item of clothing that you want to dye. Leave in the pot for at least a whole day and then rinse the fabric and let air dry; to achieve the desired colour increase or decrease the strength of the initial brew.

Woodworkers need not rush out to the local DIY chain and buy an expensive and probably toxic wood staining agent; coffee can be just as effective. As before brew a pot of coffee to your desired strength and then apply to the untreated wood. The stain will be quite light and you might need to repeat the process a number of times before you get the required degree of stain.

Artists have used tea and coffee as an added form of paint for ages as paper brushed with coffee and tea adds a warm, faded and weather texture to the paper.

Around the home there are a multitude of uses of used coffee grounds. Use them as cleaning abrasives, a facial exfoliant or as an alternative to a mouth mint as sucking on a whole roasted coffee bean can give you fresher breath.