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You probably don’t pour your morning cappuccino or Earl Gray into a meat loaf or baked bean recipe. But some top chefs, like Food Network’s superstars Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay, do.

Whipping up everything from tea-smoked salmon to espresso custard, they, and other chefs across the country, are featuring tea and coffee on the savory and sweets menu.

So where did this idea of cooking with coffee come from?

Coffee actually started out first as a food, not a drink. Back a thousand years ago in Africa, the birthplace of coffee, locals would mash the ripe “cherries” from wild coffee trees to create a dried traveling food packed with protein and nutrients — sort of an early version of the breakfast bar. While it is the outer “cherry” fruit of the coffee bean that has protein, it’s the inner roasted coffee bean that has the flavor.

“Coffee’s hint of bittersweet chocolate, touch of berry, whiff of roasted nuts and red wine, make it a fantastic cooking ingredient. Perfect for imparting flavor into a variety of delectable desserts, coffee is often overlooked as an ingredient in savory dishes,” says Lynda Calimano, editor-in-chief of the popular monthly Coffee and Tea Newsletter (www.coffeeandteanewsletter.com).

Melanie Mitzner, co-owner of the hip, eco-friendly online store, The Groovy Mind (www.thegroovymind.com), agrees. “Brewed coffee in a marinade is a wonderful way to tenderize meat, adding a delicious dimension to lamb, steak and ribs,” she says. “Not to worry about an overbearing coffee taste. ... Instead, as an ingredient mixed with herbs and spices, coffee blends beautifully and is a seductive way to enhance the flavor of the meat.”

Brewed coffee can substitute for stock or water in stews, sauces and even baked beans. Once you begin experimenting with coffee, you’ll find hundreds of uses for it. You can even freeze leftover brewed coffee in ice cube trays or zip lock bags to use later as a seasoning.

The grounds make a terrific dry rub, as coffee seals in the meat’s juices and helps to caramelize it, which leads to a juicer, tastier piece of meat. Be sure to use finely ground beans, like those for espresso or Turkish coffee for rub recipes.

The ideal way to experience the depth of flavors coffee can add to beef is with Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Coffee Rubbed Steak, from his latest cookbook, “Mesa Grill Cookbook: Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen.”

Flay’s rub calls for coffee grounds to be mixed with coriander, oregano and chili powder. The first bite is sweet and smoky, followed by heat, which is tamed by the recipe’s brown sugar. The coffee grounds tenderize and add a hint of bittersweet chocolate to the beef.

Says Flay: “My inspiration for using coffee in a rub came to me when I was traveling in Texas for my Food Network show, ‘Food Nation.’ I found a lot of coffee-rubbed beef dishes during my visit, and when I came back to home to New York City, I experimented and decided to add espresso into a beef and rib rub recipe of mine. I find that the aromatic, bold flavor of coffee pairs nicely with the red chilies in the rub and adds a savory richness to grilled meats.”

Tea, too, is a useful ingredient in a wide variety of recipes, both as dried leaves and as brewed tea. As the experts at Stash Tea, an Oregon based tea company, point out, “tea has no calories or fat and is less expensive than most spices and seasonings. Cooking with tea gives all the health benefits of drinking tea while adding another layer of flavor to food.”

Tea has been used for centuries by the Chinese to steam or smoke fish, meat and vegetables, as well as in marinades. Tea Eggs (recipe below) is one example of a classic marinade recipe. Hard-boiled eggs are left overnight in tea and spices, imparting a superb flavor and lovely marbled effect.

Different types of tea yield different marble colors. Green tea yields exquisite yellow shades. Rooibos creates reddish purple hues. Lemon Zinger leaves green striations and black tea an assortment of golden brown tones. Tea eggs make a luscious appetizer that you can serve with tiny bowls of tasty salt, like orange tinged Hawaiian or briny French gray salt.

This tea marinade recipe is also scrumptious with tofu, fish, beef or chicken, and it has the added benefit of tenderizing meats. But don’t limit yourself to just one recipe! Experiment with different brewed teas — roasted green teas, rooibos and fragrant jasmine tea are all great choices. Pair the tea with a variety of spices to create your own unique marinades.

The leaves, too, can be used in cooking, making an ideal dry rub ingredient. Just grind tea leaves in a spice grinder or mini food processor along with your favorite herbs and spices, such as Sichuan peppercorns, lemongrass or ground ginger. According to Lynda Calimano, producer of the Coffee and Tea Festival held in New York City each March: “Tea is a wonderful, all-natural way to enhance the flavor of any dish without added fat or sodium. The option for incorporating tea into recipes is only limited by the cook’s imagination. I especially like using roasted green tea in rubs, as it adds a hearty, rich, smoky tang to all sorts of foods.”

For a twist on iced tea, try the refreshing Stash Tea Iced Fruit Pops recipe (recipe below). Great tea-fruit combinations are raspberry herbal tea with raspberries; blackcurrant or blueberry tea with blackberries or blueberries; and peach black tea with peaches.

Save every drop of your leftover tea. Freeze it in ice cube trays or plastic bags. “Ice cubes made from herbal teas, such as jasmine, rooibos, peppermint and hibiscus, add a floral or spicy taste to cocktails or non-alcoholic drinks,” says Mitzner of The Groovy Mind. “Herbal teas add a subtle flavor to fruit dishes, jellies and grains.” She recommends that herbal teas be steeped for 10 minutes or longer “to increase their potency and flavor in cooking.” Conventional black, green and white tea, however, gets bitter if steeped that long.

(For more delicious tea recipes visit these Web pages: www.stashtea.com/recipes.htm and www.thegroovymind.com/tearecipies.htm.)

The Groovy Mind uses only organic, shade-grown Fair Trade coffee and seasonally harvested, organic, Fair Trade tea. Why? “Because organic coffee and tea grown without pesticides and harvested in season maintains quality, nutrients and protects your health and the environment,” says Mitzner. “Fair Trade, which guarantees a fair wage and other benefits, makes farmers happy — and happy farmers produce great harvests!”

I’ll drink — and eat — to that!

BOBBY FLAY’S MESA GRILL COFFEE RUBBED STEAK

From “Mesa Grill Cookbook: Explosive Flavors from the Southwestern Kitchen,” by Bobby Flay (Clarkson Potter, 2007)

Coffee Rub for Filet:

1/4 cup ancho chili powder

1/4 cup finely ground espresso

2 tablespoons Spanish paprika

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon dry mustard

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon ground

black pepper

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons chile de arbol powder

4 filet mignon, 12 ounces each

2 tablespoons canola oil

Combine all spices in a bowl.

Season one side of each filet with a heaping tablespoon of the rub. Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat until smoking. Place the filet in the pan, rub-side down and cook until a crust has formed, 2 minutes. Turn the steak over, reduce heat to medium and continue cooking to medium-rare doneness, about 6 to 7 minutes. Remove from the pan and let rest 5 minutes before serving.

TEA EGGS

From “Opera Lover’s Cookbook” by Francine Segan (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2006)

5 tea bags

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons sugar

3 whole star anise or 1 teaspoon anise seed

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole cloves

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 2-inch cinnamon stick

6 eggs, hard-boiled

Salt

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Put the tea in a bowl large enough to hold all the eggs. Pour the hot water over the tea, steep for 5 minutes, and then remove the tea bags.

Stir the soy sauce, sugar, star anise, peppercorns, cloves, fennel and cinnamon into the bowl of tea. Reserve.

Gently tap the hard-boiled eggs on a hard surface until they are completely covered with fine crack lines. Place the eggs, still in their shells, in the tea mixture and marinate overnight.

Peel and serve accompanied by salt.

STASH TEA ICED POPS

WITH FRUIT

3/4 cup fruit, either fresh fruit or canned with liquid drained

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups brewed tea (brewed double strength)

Puree the fruit and sugar for 30 seconds in a blender or food processor. If it foams, allow foam to settle. Blend in the tea.

Pour the fruit-tea mixture into pop mold leaving a little room at the top. Place filled molds in the freezer for at least 2 hours or until solid.

Francine Segan is a freelance writer based in New York and the author of three books, “Shakespeare’s Kitchen,” “The Philosopher’s Kitchen” and “Movie Menus.”