Coffee

For those who love coffee, you know that you can distinctly tell the quality of the coffee just by the aroma you get from the brew. But for the average coffee drinker, brand names usually reign supreme when it comes to sipping their favorite cup of Joe.

With the growing market of delicious coffee, people continually search their local area for the best coffee that’s convenient. While some may argue that Whole Food has everything you need for the perfect brew, there are gourmet coffee brands that some might dismiss.

It would help those looking for a great brew to experiment and try these higher ticketed beans to get a better sense of what is out there. This article will cover the top five brands of coffee in America today. Some range from the everyday to the premium merchant names that we have all come to admire.

Starbucks

Coming in at number one, Starbucks still remains at the top of the list. With loyal followers nationwide, some argue this is the best coffer brand worldwide. However, this fame to glory can also be attributed to the marketing and public perception of Starbucks Coffee. Its trendiest and cozy couches do help draw in customers day in and day out.

Coffee is embedded in daily culture and it’s no longer a breakfast thing. It’s has become a social engagement as well. It caters to both young and old, across all demographics.

With humble roots back in Seattle, Starbucks has grown internationally with over 16,000 stores worldwide. They also have expanded their product line for coffee lovers to experience the prefect brew at home. One of their more famous creations is the latte and blended coffee being sold in sachet packs.

Pee’s Coffee

Another homegrown coffee brand from Seattle, Peet’s coffee has grown into a 500 million dollar business as of 2009. Its coffee is also sold in groceries stores nationwide. A little history shows a relationship with Starbucks coffee house.

The founders of Starbucks sued to be able to for Peet’s and ended up introducing their own specialty coffee blend.

Dunkin Donuts

On the other side of the coin, Dunkin Donuts ranks in the top five of coffee brands in the United States. The allure of a simple plain good ol’ cup of black coffee has its appeal. Made fresh daily and consistently, Dunkin Donuts still brews a favorite fresh cup of java for its loyal and frugal customers. Some argue it’s just as good as the fancy Starbuck brand.

The simplicity of cream, sugar and coffee is a winner everyday at Dunkin Donuts and their revenue shows that. After buying the Mister Donut brand, they quickly gobbled up more of the market share.

Maxwell House Coffee

The fourth popular coffee brand on consumer favorites is Maxwell House Coffee. Many coffee aficionados claim that their coffee rivals that of Starbucks and can be it in a blind taste test. As a household name, Maxwell house continues to serve its client base every quarter. This Kraft owned brand continues to brew coffee that’s good to the last drop.

Caribou Coffee

Caribou coffee is the second largest retailer of coffee and espresso in the United States to Starbucks.

One of their popular blends is their Rainforest Blend that gives the coffee brew a unique flavor of fruitiness.

So whatever brand fills your cup of coffee, there are a wide range of taste, textures and price ranges to suit your mood. Be sure to also visit your local supermarket for additional selections.

Want the Perfect Brew?

Check out my blog for Breville Espresso and other Breville Espresso Machines. Timothy Schwartz, The Coffee Brewster, reviews and puts his tastebuds and wallet on the line.

Author: Timothy Schwartz
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Making Turkish Coffee is a historical tradition in Turkish Culture. While there are many different Coffee Recipes available online, most are modified from the traditional version.

In this article, I will share a traditional way of making Turkish Coffee.

Tools Needed for Making Turkish Coffee

• Turkish Coffee (ground or whole bean)
• Turkish Grinder (if you are using whole beans)
• Turkish Pot
• Turkish Coffee Cup
• Water & sugar if you like it sweet
• Teaspoon to measure and stir

If you have the required tools in place, you are ready to start making Turkish Coffee.

Steps for Making Turkish Style Coffee

1. Grind coffee beans:

If you want to make the most delicious Turkish Coffee, you need to grind the beans before the making process. This way, you will have fresh ground coffee and the oil in the beans will not dry due to waiting after grinding process.

To be able to make authentic coffee, the Turkish way, you need Arabica Beans. If you can not find an authentic Turkish Coffee Brand near where you live, you should get a regular pack of Arabica Beans. Using an authentic Turkish Grinder is important. Because Turkish style coffee is ground extra fine, not like other types. Closest fineness to Turkish type of coffee is espresso. Even espresso is not ground as fine as Turkish.

If you are in a hurry, and want to save some time, you need to buy ground coffee and pass this step. But if you are not in a rush, you should start with grinding beans to make the freshest coffee, Turkish way. After you are done with grinding the beans, remove them from the manual grinder and move to step two.

2. Add ingredients into the coffee pot

Use a Turkish style coffee cup, also called as Fincan in Turkish to measure water first. For one cup of coffee, you need to prepare one cup of regular drinking water into the coffee pot.

After you add the water, add two teaspoons of ground coffee. Two teaspoons weigh around 0.175 ounces or 5 grams. So, measure if you are not sure how much coffee to put.

Adding sugar is optional. Turkish way of coffee is made in three different ways. With sugar (means Sekerli in Turkish), medium sugar (means Orta Sekerli), and without sugar (meaning Sade). You should put around 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar maximum. If you want medium, try with one teaspoon of sugar or less. If you make it without any sugar, it might taste little bitter, but for strong coffee lovers, this might be a great taste. So, choose your preference, and add sugar if you like.

3. Heat & brew the coffee

Start stirring with your teaspoon on a very low flame stove. Never use high flame, you should heat and stir slowly.

Some recipes will tell you to add sugar or coffee, or both after heating the water. You should ignore this advice. Authentic Turkish style coffee is made by putting water, coffee and sugar simultaneously and by heating at the same time.

While heating and stirring, you shouldn’t step away from the process. It can boil very quickly and it might overflow fast. Making Turkish Style Coffee usually takes 5 to 10 minutes, so you should be patient and keep stirring.

Right before it starts boiling, use your teaspoon to take some of the foam at the top of the pot and add them into the cups. This is an important step. Quality Turkish Style Coffee should be served with as much foam on it as possible. So, remember to add some of the foam to the cups before it boils.

After coffee starts boiling, take away the pot from the stove, let it wait for a few seconds and put it on the stove again. You should repeat this process two to three times.

Then, pour it into coffee cups.

While making Turkish Coffee, you do not filter the coffee. These small ground particles will sit at the bottom of the cup. After pouring the coffee from the Turkish Pot into the cups, you will also see some of these ground particles will stay in the coffee pot. This is normal, you shouldn’t try to put these into the cup.

Making Turkish Coffee takes 10 to 15 minutes, but it is an enjoyable process and good for improving your patience. I hope you will try this authentic way of making Turkish Style Coffee.

Enjoy your delicious cup of Turkish Coffee – Bon Appetite

Jenn is a coffee lover. Jenn creates content, videos and manages a site about Turkish Coffee.

If you like to learn more about Turkish Coffee, you can visit Jenn’s authentic Turkish Coffee Recipe page. Other than the authentic Turkish Coffee Recipe, you can get further information about the equipment used for making Turkish Coffee and read Jenn’s Coffee Blog.

Jenn has a goal of making everybody in the world try this delicious coffee at least once.

Author: Jenn Knows
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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You can prepare your Turkish coffee in two main ways:

By using a pot (classical way)
By using an automatic-machine (machine way)

Classical Way

It takes just 3 easy steps:

1) Grinding coffee
The first thing you need is coffee Traditionally, you should start preparing your Turkish coffee by grinding beans. Turkish coffee is made from Arabica beans. A dark roast is preferable but even a medium roast coffee will yield a strong aroma and flavour. Turkish coffee is the finest coffee you can have. You can grind coffee with a mortar (the original method) or a mill (today’s method). In the end, your coffee will be very powdery. Remember, Turkish coffee is the finest grind of coffee used in any style of coffee making. To have a faster start, you can skip this step by buying pre-ground (ready to use) coffee, which is ground and roasted. Even in Turkey, most people use pre-ground coffee for time-saving reasons.

It is always better to buy coffee that is specially labelled as “Turkish Coffee”. For instance, Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi is a good coffee brand. But, if you cannot find such coffee, then you may try something like Starbucks Breakfast Blend.

2) Putting ingredients together
You can use your fincan (Turkish coffee cup) as a measuring cup. Just pour one cup of cold drinking water in cezve (pot) for per cup of coffee. Add two teaspoons of coffee (5 g) and two teaspoons of sugar (if desired) per cup.

3) Heating
Blend the coffee and sugar with teaspoon over a low flame. Heat the pot as slowly as you can. If you loose your attention, it can easily overflow, be very careful! If you take your eye off during the brewing process, then it can overflow in a blink of the eye But, don’t be afraid, once you get used to it is really very easy to take thins under your control.

When the coffee almost boils (about over a second time), pour some of the coffee into the coffee cup to get the foam. If you prepare for more than one cup, then pour it equally among the cups. Allow the remaining coffee to brew a while longer before adding it to the cups. This boil-pour some-and almost boil again method is critical to have good quality foam. You can repeat this process 2 or 3 times. It depends on your patience Rule of thumb is 3 times.

As you noticed, Turkish style does not have a filtering process at any time. So, it is better to wait for a while (between 30 seconds to a minute) before drinking your coffee to let the coffee grounds settle at the bottom of the cup. The coffee grounds sink to the bottom should not be consumed. Also, as you will see majority of the grounds are left in the cezve.

Machine Way

It is really so fast and practical, also the coffee prepared by the machine really tastes good. A Turkish white goods producer, Arcelik, designed the Turkish coffee machine. The only thing you should do is to put coffee, water and sugar (if desired) into machine’s special pot and then to press the only button the machine has. Your delicious coffee will be ready within one minute.

Now you can enjoy your coffee…
Afiyet Olsun! (Bon Appetite!)

Mahir Cemal is a coffee lover, whose specialty is Turkish coffee. He writes a coffee blog, Mahir’s Turkish Coffeehouse, which is solely about Turkish style brewing.

For more information about preparing this special coffee, you can take a look at his coffee photo guide showing how you can brew Turkish coffee step-by-step easily.

Additionally, you can also find many other Turkish coffee recipes on his blog.

Author: Mahir Cemal
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Everyday, people all over the world wake up to the invigorating experience of the exceptional beverage called coffee. The popularity of coffee can be judged by the fact that its consumption amounts to about a third of that of tap water in North America and Europe. Most gourmet coffee brands are beyond the reach of the common masses and are marketed exclusively to the affluent.

It includes the likes of Hacienda la Esmeralda Geisha grown in Panama which recently sold at an auction for $50.25 per pound creating a record in the process. What is it that makes a truly great cup of gourmet coffee? Is it the bean, the blend, or the roast? Actually, it’s all of these factors and many more. The price of a coffee brand is not decided just by its quality, but also by the romance or exclusivity of their origins.

Some varieties of gourmet coffees like the Guatemala coffee excel in their blend and are often referred to as gourmet blend coffee. Some coffee products stand out on account of their origins like the Hawaii coffee, Brazilian coffee, Sumatra coffee and the very famous java coffee. There are also coffee brands that supply the particularly exacting customer who has specific demands for decaffeinated, low acid coffee or kosher coffee blends. The exclusivity and quality of coffee is also influenced by the coffee roast adopted by the gourmet coffee blender. Darker roast styles are preferred by some veteran gourmet coffee connoisseurs.

The coffee market is very different today than it was half a century ago. During the early part of the past century, a few small coffee roasters managed to obtain high-quality beans for select high profile markets. But most coffee was sold in cans, and consumers were more concerned with price and consistency than taste, so premier coffee was simply blended away.

But, today after the coffee sector surged in the ’90s, great coffee beans are now making a journey directly from crop to cup. Coffee roasters buy beans directly from the farmers for a premium that encourages them to improve their growing methods and produce superior beans. The beans are carefully transported and roasted before being sold to the connoisseurs.

The most exclusive gourmet coffee brand is the Kopi Luwak from Indonesia which retails at about $160 per pound. It is mainly composed of coffee beans eaten and digested by palm civets. The palm civets use their acute sense of smell to select the best and ripest coffee beans to eat. During digestion the flesh of the coffee berries disintegrate exposing the rich beans which are then collected manually from the forest floor.

Another elite coffee brand is El Injerto from Huehuetenango, Guatemala which generated $25 per pound green at auction. This boutique lot of coffee by El Injerto, which was specially prepared for the Cup of Excellence auction won the first prize in that auction. This coffee expected to retail for more than $50 per pound, after it has gone through the roasting process.

Yauco Selecto AA from Puerto Rico is another great brand. Grown in the Yauco region represented a standard of excellence in coffee production. This coffee brand is known for its mild flavor.

It is obvious that gourmet coffee makes for a great gourmet food gift. As the so called coffee baskets and gourmet gift baskets flood the market, it is essential for a true connoisseur to know the difference between the real coffee and a meaningless ‘gourmet’ label on the packaging as a marketing gimmick. But, as with every other calling, being a true connoisseur of gourmet coffee calls for knowledge, experience and a great insatiable love for coffee.

Saman Rashid is an experienced writer. She has been writing articles and web copies since 3 years. To contact her, kindly visit http://www.mscopywriters.com

Author: Saman Rashid
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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