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coffee
  • History Of Kenya Coffee
    The birth place of coffee is relatively close to Kenya but getting it there was not an easy task and full of bloodshed. The Arabs who controlled coffee enslaved ......... Read More

  • Gourmet Coffee The Best Information
    If you are really fed up with having the hum drum coffee all the time. Then it's time to recompense yourself with something diverse and exciting. Why not spritz ......... Read More

  • The Coffee Bean
    Coffee is a beverage, served hot or with ice, with or without cream and sugar, prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant. These seeds are almost ......... Read More

  • Before You Purchase A Home Espresso Machine
    Instead of running to your local coffee shop or favourite corner café for the perfect cut of espresso, consider making your own at home. If the thought of ......... Read More

  • Coffee Maker Glossary
    Coffee Maker Glossary Coffee has a language all its own. Here are a few of the frequently used coffee maker terms.Auto Frother: device that automatically ......... Read More

  • Coffee - Avoiding Brewing A Bad Cup
    If a good cup of coffee was so easy to make by simply just throwing in your choice of coffee grinds into water and then into your percolator, then you could ......... Read More

  • Coffee Maker Types
    When we hear the term ‘coffee maker' most of us think of only one type of coffee maker. Most often, the drip style coffee maker or the espresso type machine ......... Read More

  • Is That Hot Coffee Really Good For You
    It is common knowledge that the caffeine content in coffee is not good for human health. In spite of that caffeine consumption the world over has increased in ......... Read More

  • Using The Coffee Grinder For A Cup Of The Brew
    To a coffee lover freshly ground beans have the greatest attraction. The fragrance itself can make you long for a cup of the brew so earnestly. However, ......... Read More

  • Cappuccino - Other Worldwide Coffees Ideas
    There was a time in America where Folger's coffee dominated, with instant and drip varieties, taken with sugar and/or milk. Then, our world expanded with ......... Read More

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Coffee, the brew, that more than half the people around the world need to kick
start the day. Ever wondered about the origins of this humble but oh so
important cup of joy and how it landed up on the shelf in your neighborhood
store? Did you also know that everyday there are about four hundred million cups
of coffee consumed around the world? It all began about two thousand years ago
and today it has a market where the output as a commodity is a close second to
petroleum in its dollar value.Coffee by itself is broadly categorized into two
main types - the Arabia which started out on the Arabian Peninsula and the
Robusta which has twice the amount of caffeine. Apart from this there are at
least a dozen bean varieties in existence today. The beans are red or green in
type and here the red is known for its higher aroma and lower acid content and
it is this type that is used to make some of the finer coffees of the world.The
coffee berry or ‘cherry' as it is called, is not of any value by itself but yes,
the bean inside it, that's the one which has all the importance attached to it.
It is this bean that is aged, roasted, ground and then sent on for brewing. The
picking is done by laborers who pick a few baskets a day and they have to be
skilled in separating the red from the green beans. This has a very definite
role to play in the final product. The time of picking of this cherry is of the
utmost importance as it has to be done when the berry goes from green to
red.Once picked, the fruit undergoes a process of being soaked, scoured and
rubbed mechanically and the bean is then washed to ensure no flesh of the fruit
remains. The beans that are the result of this fermentation stage are then sun
dried on large concrete or rock surfaces till their water content drops to about
12 percent. This is followed by the sorting of the beans based on size and
color. After the polishing to remove any remaining skin they are then sent on
for roasting or kept to age from three to eight years. Roasting happens at about
400 degrees Fahrenheit where the beans expand to almost double their size, then
crack and turn brown as the oil inside is secreted out. This oil is where the
difference in the basic flavour comes from. Post the roasting, the beans are
de-gassed which means that the beans produce a lot of carbon dioxide and this is
removed by airing them out or packaging them in semi permeable bags for
shipping.At the roasting stage, a lot of in-house techniques have been developed
which basically account for the difference in flavours. So coffee in Kenya or
Java will taste different from say some other country. At the grinding level
there are again a lot of differences in styles and the results of those styles.
The Turks pound the beans into a powdery consistency using a mortar and pestle
and in some other places the ‘burr' grinder crushes the beans to a regular sized
granule and yet others chop the beans to a less homogeneous size using a
chopper.The final cup that you get is actually either boiled, which means hot
water is poured and the grounds are allowed to settle or it is
pressure-prepared, which refers to the espresso type where not quite boiled hot
water is poured through the grounds at very high pressure or then the third way
of percolating where hot water drips onto the grounds and is filtered or
otherwise it is steeped like tea is, but the bags tend to be larger.So there you
have the journey of coffee from the plantation to your cup and with research
coming up with the benefits of drinking coffee, let's raise a toast to the cup
that cheers!