Coffee

If you want to drink coffee then the numbers of choices you have are rather limitless. The only limit that your are subject to is what you prefer and what you don’t. Different types of coffee shops have their own different types and blends of coffee available. These coffee shops also have a number of available specialty coffee drinks.

To make an order the first thing that you would need to do is select a drink size of coffee. The person who serves you coffee will usually take the time out to ask if you’d rather have a short, tall, grand or venti. These sizes are usually 8oz, 12 oz, 16oz and 20 oz respectively.

People who are ordering drip coffee can take milk and sugar along with their order. The choices of milk available are another thing entirely. You can opt for different types of milk such as frothed milk which is rather thick, steamed milk, breve, wet or panna which is whipped cream.

After your choice of milk, the next thing you need to decide is whether you want a latte, mocha or if you prefer a cappuccino. A latte is actually an espresso with steamed milk added. A cappuccino is actually a mixture of three things in equal parts : steamed milk, an espresso and frothed milk. A mocha on the other hand is a latte or cappuccino that has chocolate syrup added to it.

These are some of the specialty coffee drinks that you can by from a coffee shop. Some of the different names listed here may differ in the particular coffee shops that you visit for a whole lot of reasons

• Espresso Con Panna – This is an espresso shot that is mixed with whipped cream
• Double Dry Short – This is a double shot of espresso which is in short cup and which has no foam
• Solo – This is a single shot of espresso coffee drink
• Doppio – This is a double shot of espresso coffee drink
• Caffe Cubano – This is shot of espresso that is heavily sweetened
• Quad – This is an Espresso drink that is made with four shots of coffee
• Split shot – This is an Espresso shot with half the caffeine
• Caffe Americano – This is a single shot of espresso that has 6 to 8 ounces of hot water added to it.
• Ristretto – This is a restricted shot of espresso which is also called a short pull. While brewing this sort of coffee a whole lot less water is allowed to pass through the coffee grounds. The makes a flavor of coffee that is rather intense.
• Lungo – This is an extra long pull. During the brewing process of making a Lunho, twice as much water is allowed to pass through the coffee grounds.
• Dry – This is an Espresso that is made with small amount of foam and no steamed milk added
• Chairo – This is an Espresso drink that is made “clear” by the addition of more milk
• Caffe Medici – This is Doppio that is poured over chocolate syrup and orange peel, and finally topped off with whipped cream
• Frappe – This is a coffee drink that is created along with ice cream and milk
• Shot in the Dark (aka Redeye) – This is an espresso shot that is made in a coffee cup and then rest of cup filled up with drip coffee
• Café Breva – This is Cappuccino coffee made with Half & Half rather than whole milk
• Café Mocha – This is Cappuccino coffee that has chocolate syrup added to it
• Caffe Mochaccino – This is Cappuccino coffee that has chocolate syrup added to it.

All these different types of coffee make it hard to select one type of coffee over the other. When you find it hard to decide you can always try a demitasse instead. This word is simply the French word for “half glass”. In coffee terms this usually entails a very small cup of coffee. You can continue trying until you find your pick.

Darren Williger is an over-caffeinated, low carbohydrate eating, winemaking enthusiast who writes for CaffeineZone.com, MyLowCarbPages.com, and CoffeeZen.com

Author: Darren Williger
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Low Cost, Quick Turn PCB Prototype

For years, the idea of roasting your own coffee beans has been kept a mystery by the coffee roasting industry. It had been deemed “too hard” or “too complicated”. Well these are new times and the truth is out; it’s easy, fun and economical and it can be done in a number of ways using items you probably already own!

There is nothing like a cup of coffee that has been freshly roasted, ground and brewed to perfection. There are a growing number of enthusiasts who are roasting their own coffee beans and enjoying the benefits of truly fresh coffee at about one-third of the price of beans from your local coffee shop.

All that is needed to roast your own coffee beans at home is green coffee beans, available from a number of sources, an oven, cookie sheet, oven mitt, metal colander and a wooden spoon. Preheat your oven to 500F, spread raw beans evenly one layer deep on a cookie sheet, place on middle rack of preheated oven and watch them roast. In about 8-10 minutes there will be a crackling noise and smoke with a coffee essence. At this point the roast moves quickly and you need to pay close attention. About 2-3 minutes after the crackling, your coffee beans should be at the shade you like them. Carefully (using the oven mitt) remove the cookie sheet from the oven and pour the beans into the metal colander. Stir the beans with the wooden spoon to help cool quickly. Do this over a sink or outside, as there is chaff that comes off the beans during roasting. And remember; NEVER leave your roasting coffee beans unattended.

Almost any appliance used to pop popcorn can be used to roast coffee beans. The hot air poppers are great, however, you may want to roast outside or in your garage as they blow the chaff out and can be messy. There are a number of manufacturers of home coffee roaster, including several that use a gas grill and rotisserie.

The internet is full of sources to purchase raw beans, but you want to make sure that the supplier you use knows their beans and “cups” their coffee before selling it to you. One of the most reputable sources for green coffee beans is U-Roast-Em, Inc., a high quality, no frills supplier with 30 years in the industry. They can be found at http://www.u-roast-em.com on the web. Many other sources can be found using your favorite search engine. If you’re interested in using a gas grill to roast your beans, check out http://www.rkdrums.com or http://www.buzzroasters.com. For electric, countertop-type coffee roasters, visit http://www.freshbeansinc.com.

Green, raw coffee beans last for years when properly stored. This allows you to build a collection of fine coffees to choose from as well as buy larger amounts of the great coffees and save more money. Keep your bean collection in a cool, dry place out of any direct sun light and they will last until you roast them. As coffee ages it loses acidity and becomes more mellow. Many like the rich mild cup of a coffee that has had a couple years to rest and mellow. More important than the year of the crop is the quality of the bean, the preparation at origin, transportation and warehousing in country of consumption. If all of these things are done correctly, your green coffee will last for years. Suppliers who know how to cup samples of coffee beans are able to determine if all of these criteria are done correctly before they purchase the beans.

Home roasting is one the fastest growing hobbies in the country and for good reason. It’s fun, easy, saves you money and delivers a cup of coffee like you never thought was possible. Join in the fun and start roasting your own coffee beans.

Jim Cameron is a 30 year veteran in the specialty coffee roasting industry. Jim has authored many articles on various aspects of the industry and traveled abroad to speak at international gatherings of coffee proffessionals. Semi retired, Jim now writes on the subject of roasting and makes green coffee beans available to the home roasting market at his web site: http://www.u-roast-em.com

Author: Jim Cameron
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Canadian crossborder shopping

Coffee bean direct is your best choice. You probably don’t think about it much but the chances are, the coffee beans used in your morning cup o’ joe have passed through as many as five or six different middlemen on their way to your mug. All that passing from hand to hand adds to the price and subtracts from the quality of your cup. There’s a better way:  you can do what I do and buy your coffee bean direct from the source!

Coffee bean direct from the source costs less

Did you know that by buying direct can actually cost less than buying coffee at the supermarket? All those middlemen certainly don’t work for free. You can actually save money by buying it in bulk direct from the source. By “bulk” I mean at least 10 to 25 pounds at a time – this is where you start to see significant price discounts.

Coffee bean direct from the source gives you higher quality and better taste

If you’re buying ground coffee from a supermarket, did you know that those coffee beans were ground months ago, and most of the flavor has already faded away? And even if you’re buying whole bean, that coffee has waited in several warehouses for who knows how long before it was placed on the supermarket shelf. When you buy your coffee bean direct from the distributor, you know that the coffee is fresh, and you’ll be able to taste and smell the difference.

Tips for buying

* Do some research: what kind of coffee do you like? Dark, smoky, and robust – or light, crip, and mild? Did you like that Sumatra you tried at the local coffee shop? A quick search for “Sumatra” on the internet will yield distributors who sell Sumatra coffee to the public. Contact the distributor closest to you and start enjoying fresher Sumatra right away!

* Coffee is at its peak flavor right after the beans have been roasted. In some areas you might be able to find a good coffee roaster in your area, but even if you can’t find one nearby you can always find one on the internet and have the coffee shipped to you.

* Don’t buy more coffee than you can consume within one month – coffee beans begin to lose their flavor after this time.

* For many coffee aficionados, going through 10 to 25 pounds of coffee in a month is no problem, but if you think this might be too much for you consider sharing an order with a friend.

* Coffee tastes its best when brewed right after grinding, so buy your beans whole and invest in a good coffee grinder – unless you know it was ground very recently and you plan to consume it soon. (Still, nothing beats grinding it at home and brewing immediately after!)

So if you really savor the aroma and taste of a great cup of java, wait until you try it at its peak – right after roasting – when you buy it direct from a distributor. Give it a try today! 

Damen Choy, editor of Coffee Bean Direct Coffee-Bean-Direct.com provides timely information about the coffee market, as well as tips and ideas for coffee lovers and their friends. Visit Coffee Direct to know how coffee bean direct roasters ship coffee to you directly at wholesale pricing.

Author: Damen Choy
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
How Electric Pressure Cookers Work

If you have ever had the pleasure of visiting a specialty coffee shop, you may have found yourself wondering how the shop owners decide what kind of great coffee makes it into the shop and which kinds don’t. The answer lies with coffee graders. Coffee graders give all coffee beans the thumbs up or thumbs down, and what they say carries a lot of weight in the coffee world. A good score from the coffee graders can get coffee fans everywhere buzzing.

Coffee Graders in Action

Long before the first steaming hot sip of coffee hits your lips, you should know that coffee graders have traveled long and hard, on arduous journeys in unpleasant and sometimes dangerous territories, to make sure you don’t have to settle for second best in your cups.

The grading of coffee happens well before the coffee is packaged and shipped to you back home. Before coffee hits the commercial market, a coffee grader known as a green coffee seller makes decisions about which beans should even make it to the roasting process. The “green” in the name refers to the fact that the coffee is raw – that these are coffee beans in their pre-roasted state.

Before they head off to be roasted, coffee beans are checked in a number of ways. First, all beans have to be of similar size and of approximately the same shape. Beans that are similar in size take a similar amount of time roasting, and which means your coffee taste won’t be thrown off a mix over roasted and under roasted beans. If you throw large and small beans in together, the small ones will pop and burn before the large ones even brown at all.

After the roasting process, new graders come along, and these graders are looking for different things in the beans. First and foremost, graders are looking for beans that have similar colors. When beans are different colors, it usually suggests that they have been roasted differently, which will impact the taste of your cup.

Likewise, they want to see that beans have been separated according to where they were grown. While mixes of beans are sometimes used in the final product to achieve a particular taste, this has to be done with care. Simply through beans together from all over the world will leave you with one unpleasant cup of coffee. Further, without this separation, you could be shelling out big bucks for what you think is matchless Kona coffee only to find out what you really bought was Folgers.

The next time you drink a great cup of coffee, spare a thought for the work of the coffee grader who helped put it on your table.

The copywriter Linden Walhard is very excited about information similar to coffee grinder reviews and coffee grinders. His abstracts on how to choose coffee a bean grinder are found on http://www.coffee-espresso-maker-tips.com and also different web pages.

Author: Linden A. Walhard
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Video news

Coffee, Coffee what a wonderful thing. There is nothing like waking up in the morning to the smell and of coffee in the air and the sensation of that first sip. If you are like me it seems as if, the longer I drink coffee the more I enjoy it. But along with the enjoyment I have become picky about my coffee as well. I guess this is not a bad thing but it sure can get annoying sometimes. There is nothing worse than ordering a cup of coffee at your local coffee shop and having to toss it out as you walk out the door because it tasted like swill. Since I have acquired this coffee snob disease it has forced me to learn a little about what makes a good cup of coffee.

Having taken time to break down the elements that separates a good cup of coffee from a bad cup of coffee, I have narrowed it down to three things. Temperature, extraction time (or brew time), and water quality. Now I know there are some other variables involved here, such as bean quality, coffee freshness, and the coffee grind but for the sake of this article lets stick with strictly the brewing elements.

Temperature:

If you have had the privilege of tasting the same coffee at brewed at different temperatures then you understand this variable very well. It is a amazing that a coffee brewed at 185 degrees can taste completely different than the same coffee brewed at 198 degrees. By having a brewer that you are able to adjust the water temperature opens up another world for the coffee connoisseur.

Extraction Time:

This is the actual time that it takes for the coffee to brew. A lot of times if coffee brews too fast it will leave a sour taste in your cup. If it brews to long it can cause burnt or bitter notes to be present. By controlling this variable we can achieve a wonderful cup of coffee.

Water Quality:

If you have bad tasting water you are going to have bad tasting coffee. The way to correct this is to make sure your water is properly filtered or use bottled water when you brew your coffee.

On my quest to find the best cup of coffee possible I stumbled upon a coffee brewer that is capable of controlling these three variables. It is the Breville brewing system made by Keurig. This brewer allows you to brew one cup at a time using the k-cup coffee technology. Not only can you brew one cup at a time you can adjust the water temperature. Another feature is you can control the extraction time by having four cup size options 6oz, 8oz, 10oz, and 12oz..This allows you to deliver the exact volume of water each and every time your coffee is brewed. This ensures the brew strength and taste is to your liking every time. Last, but not least, this machine comes with 60oz water reservoir that includes a water filtration system. This filtration system improves the taste and smell of your water guaranteeing that you will experience the best tasting coffee.

If you are ready to experience coffee shop quality coffee from the comforts of your own home. Then I would recommend doing some research online about the Keurig K Cup Brewers and about K Cup coffee in general. You will not regret it!

Author: Burke Lane
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Advice on AdSense