Coffee

This happens to be a perennial argument among coffee lovers or even those who just need some caffeine jolt – what is the difference between instant coffee and regular coffee? At one look, you’d say to yourself that it is perfectly the same so for coffee addicts like you, instant would be the one that comes in a bottle or pack that you usually buy in the supermarket and when you get home, just add hot water and it’s ready to drink. While the regular coffee would mean that you even though you could buy it at supermarkets, groceries or specialty coffee shops, you have to brew it before you could drink it.

In a nutshell, that would be the simplest definition should you encounter such a question on what is the difference between these kinds of coffee? You will be amazed by the big difference of these two ways to enjoy a decent cup of coffee.

Starting with the Instant Coffee – did you know some people are saying that it is fake coffee? That you only get to smell the so-called coffee beans but when you taste it, it has this weird metallic aftertaste to it? The process of this kind of coffee is done in a different way. It goes through a lot of process such as roasting, grounding, brewing and then it gets spray dried or with what others call it freeze dried.

The reason for the so-called “fake” taste is that you need more than a teaspoon of this kind of coffee to achieve that full bodied taste. When you do so, you will not be able to sleep at all or worst, you will have this severe palpitation.

Coffee drinkers who have already tasted and enjoyed a freshly brewed cup of hot steaming coffee would love to banish Instant Coffee from their vocabularies. Their reason here is that they think that coffee should be enjoyed another way and that where no other additives are present. If you don’t have the buying power to go to expensive coffee shops for their brew of the day then commercially dried coffee would work just fine due to its convenience.

Moving on to the underlying question regarding what is the difference, the latter type still goes through the process of roasting, grounding as well as brewing. The advantage of the regular coffee is that the aroma is stronger and it has the full-bodied flavor that you are looking for without having to go through a bad series of acid reflux.

The technique to a better taste actually is dependent on the equipment used as well as the barista brewing the coffee for you. The higher the quality of the coffee beans, either Robusta or Arabica, the fuller its taste becomes. Then what is the difference? The answer boils all down to the preparation, process and last, the execution of serving a perfect cup of hot coffee.

To learn more about the different techniques of brewing your morning coffee try visiting also single serve coffee maker reviews, where you will find this and a lot more tips including facts and buying tips to choose the right Senseo single serve coffee maker that suits your personal needs.

Author: Pierre Smith
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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I love coffee. I always have. I like some coffees better than others, but I don’t know why. I’ve decided to conduct my own taste test to determine which qualities in coffee I like and which ones I don’t.

Coffee tasting is a lot like wine tasting. The correct term for coffee tasting is “coffee cupping.” The recommended method for “cupping” requires coffee to be ground into an 8-oz. porcelain or glass cup. Water is then poured in the cup and the coffee steeps for a few minutes. The grinds rise to the top, forming a crust which is broken with a silver spoon. The coffee’s aromas are evaluated first; then, after the coffee has cooled a bit, the taster (cupper) slurps the liquid, evaluates the flavors, and spits the coffee out to avoid caffeine intake.

That’s not quite the way I drink coffee. I make it by the pot and drink it by the gallon. Nevertheless, if I’m going to try to determine which qualities I like most in a coffee, it would be helpful to define the four terms used to evaluate coffee: acidity, aroma, body, and flavor.

ACIDITY: sensation of dryness that the coffee produces under the edges of your tongue and on the back of your palate

Acidity refers to the sharp and pleasing aftertaste, often referred to as the liveliness of the coffee. It is a desirable quality that describes the brightness of flavor. Acidity ranges from low (smooth) to high (lively). A coffee without any acidity is referred to as flat.

AROMA: the feeling that the steam produces similar to the “bouquet” of a wine

Aroma is the smell of the coffee. Without our sense of smell, we would only have our taste buds, which are only capable of detecting the four basic taste sensations of “sweet”, “sour”, “salty” and “bitter”. The more subtle nuances of coffee flavor such as “floral” or “winy ” come more from the aroma or smell of the coffee.

BODY: the body is the thickness, heaviness, viscosity, or richness perceived on the tongue.

FLAVOR: the perceived taste of the coffee

Flavor is the overall perception of the coffee and is also a balance of the acidity, body and aroma of the coffee.

This is very much like wine tasting, except I have to make the coffee myself.

Diena Zavetsky has been a coffee gourmet for over 15 years. She is the owner of Hot Gourmet Coffee, a subsidiary of dmskye. She believes that whole bean coffee should be ground just before brewing to get a fresh coffee flavor.

Author: Diena Zavetsky
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Coffee roasting is a centuries-old craft. The art of coffee roasting has made great improvements in recent times, but still requires years of dedication to achieve perfection. Although hundreds of articles and books have been written about this fascinating matter, and almost everything (yet not all) is known about the chemistry and the thermodynamics of roasting coffee, it cannot be considered an exact science. Even less for espresso coffee, which requires a particular care to roast it successfully.

Excellence for an espresso coffee roaster is an endless search, even for the most experienced roastmaster. If you are willing to become a professional – or just an amateur – coffee roaster, be prepared to try, try, and try again until you master the perfect roast. You may talk to an espresso roastmasters with 20 years experience and he will surprisingly tell you that every day he learns something new: roasting espresso coffee is a perpetual learning journey.

The whole espresso coffee roasting process consists of 5 steps: cleaning, roasting, cooling, grinding, and packaging; each of them contributes to bring the best espresso coffee to the consumer’ cup, but in this article we focus on roasting only.

Two ‘T’ factors are decisive for a successful espresso coffee roasting: Temperature and Time. Roasting coffee just means applying a certain heat to green beans for a period of time: this process breaks down the carbohydrates and fats that produce the oils necessary for creating flavour and aroma. Technically speaking, coffee roasting is a chemical process by which aromatics, acids, and other flavour components are created, balanced, or altered in a way that should make the flavor, acidity, aftertaste, and body of the coffee as desired by the roaster.

Roasting temperature typically ranges from 700°F to 1000°F. Roasting time may vary from 3-5 up to approx. 20 minutes, depending on the type of coffee beans used (often multiple blends), on the desired colour and flavor of the output coffee, on the equipment, on the interaction between the coffee beans and the air within the equipment itself, and even on the outside weather conditions.

During the first stage of coffee roasting, the beans turn from green, to pale-yellow, to yellow. If you stop the coffee roasting process at this stage, the beans retain much of their origin characteristics and their origin traits are not masked by the roast characteristics. If the coffee roasting time is too short for a particular coffee bean, not all the chemical reaction will take place. The longer the time, the darker becomes the roasted coffee. But if coffee roasting time is too long it can destroy many aromatic compounds, giving the coffee a bitter taste or burnt aroma.

That’s why the experienced roastmaster frequently checks the roasting status of the beans: no sophisticated machine can substitute his ‘feeling’.

At the end of the process, roasted coffee beans have their typical flavour and aroma, and get their definitive dark brown colour, characteristic of Italian espresso coffee. Weight is now 18-20% lower than the original green beans.

Mastering the mix of Coffee beans + Air in the roaster + Temperature + Time + Weather is therefore an ART (not a science) that reveals the true Italian espresso coffee roasting wizard. Computer-controlled roasting machines and scientific roasting profiles can definitely help – but will never substitute – the experience and the continuous visual control that must be adopted by the good roastmaster. How to manage all the involved factors is often kept secret: it is the magic formula that each roastmaster will never publish.

By the way, that should not sound strange at all: have you ever been able to discover the secret of the recipe of the delicious pie prepared by your grandmother? Nobody was. And she was not either, most likely. You never heard her say ‘X grams of butter, Y grams of sugar, Z centiliters of milk, at this precise temperature for exactly 22 minutes’, isn’t it? Viceversa, you can recall her saying: ‘just a little bit… some more… but not too much… for a few minutes’ etc… She was not very scientific, right? But what about the final taste!? (I can still remember the ‘budino di semolino’ made by Nonna Ada…)

Same with roasting espresso coffee: the ‘art effect’ wins against science. Of course new machines and knowledge help a lot to avoid major mistakes, and allow everybody roast an average espresso coffee. But the human factor, the experience of the roastmaster, is what will distinguish a generic commercial product from the real gourmet espresso coffee.

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Since 1940s, Coffee’IT is an Italian roaster of rare espresso coffee, marketed through importers, wholesalers, distributors, agents, and coffee professionals.

At the web site http://www.CoffeeIT.com is it possible to get a full view of all the espresso coffee blends currently marketed, and of the services available to coffee business operators.

Author: Andrea Tonacchera
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The seeds that are produced by the coffee plant are known to us as beans. These beans that are produced by the coffee plant will create a beverage by first grinding the beans up and pouring hot water into them using different devices. There is an abundant amount of flavors and varieties of coffee on the market today. The most popular of all the species of coffee berries are the Coffea robusta and the Coffea arabica. The specific region from where the coffee plants are grown will have a bearing on the character of the coffee. Look at the difference in the coffee that is produced by these two countries.

Kenyan grown coffee is well known for its sweetness, hardy flavor, full body and fabulous aroma. Its aftertaste has a dry winey flavor. Kenya’s coffee beans are graded according to their size. There is hardly any bitterness in the better grades of coffee beans. They grow the coffee plants in acidic, volcanic soil up on the high plateaus of Mount Kenya. It wasn’t until the late 1800′s that Kenya started to process coffee beans. Kenya strives hard to make sure that the quality of their coffee is of the finest in the world.

The coffee beans that are grown in Costa Rica have a distinguishing quality about them that produce a full bodied and bright coffee. The coffee beans that produce the richest flavor are grown at an altitude of 3,300 feet and higher. The most sought after coffees of Costa Rica are grown in areas such as Tarrazu, Tres Rios, Heredia and Alajuela. The region that the coffee was grown in will determine what kind of coffee it will produce. They can produce one coffee that is mild, sweet and a sparkling tasting coffee, or one that will be of a heavy kind of coffee.

By roasting the coffee bean at different temperatures, they can control the flavor that the bean will produce when brewed. When they roast the beans they will go through a physical and chemical change. After the beans have been roasted and they have reached that desired flavor they can grind up the coffee beans and brew some coffee. Coffee can be brewed by using several different processes.

Once you have brewed the coffee, there are a few ways that it can be prepared. Most of the time after the coffee has been brewed either by a French press, a percolator or by slow drip, people will add milk, cream, sugar or ice cubes if they prefer it cold and some prefer not to add anything. There is another process to make coffee and it is called Espresso. Most prefer to drink it with steamed milk or as a shot.

Most coffee is brewed by using an automatic drip coffeemaker or a percolator. These appliances brew coffee by letting the hot water run through the coffee grounds and fill a pot below or the process takes place in a single vessel. When hot water is introduced to the coffee grounds, the grounds then release their flavors and mix with the water producing what we know as coffee.

There is another way to brew coffee using a similar process and that is with a French press. You mix the water and the grounds together and wait a few minutes. After a few minutes you take the plunger and push on it to seperate the liquid from the grounds. This process will create a stronger cup of coffee.

An Espresso maker will use hot pressurized water and it will force the water thru the coffee grounds. The coffee will be concentrated up to about 15 times stronger than a normal cup of coffee that has been brewed using the other processes.

I drink coffee day and night. My favorite coffee is Peruvian Organic. To get more information on all the different kinds of coffee then this is the place to go, it’s a great place and I enjoy going there myself and have been for years: Coffee Makers-Gourmet Coffee-Teas [http://e-bookssite.com/Coffeemakers.html] – http://www.e-bookssite.com

Author: John C Park
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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