Coffee

Coffee has been around for a very long time, but until recently when shopping for coffee you didn’t really have that much choice. You could choose instant coffee, or drip coffee. And the only options were taking it with milk and sugar. Then suddenly the amount of options suddenly expanded. There is a lot of variety in the choices of blends, countries they are from and even style which can confuse anyone. There are also a lot of different ways to brew the coffee, from a french press to a coffee maker that makes just one cup.

Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer and has been for over a hundred years. It’s not really that amazing when you consider how big the country is, plus it’s suitable for growing coffee. Brazil produces wonderful blends of coffee which are enjoyed all around the world.

Colombia is the most famous of the coffee producer, even though it’s only the second largest producer of coffee. It makes quite a sweet light cup of coffee which is available in supremo and excelso blends. These are considered as the best coffee blends in the world.

Other than these two coffee powerhouses there are lots of other countries which produce coffee. Each one of these producers is slightly different.

Mexico produces a unique bean which makes a lovely delicate coffee which is not very acidic. These make quite a mellow coffee which is enjoyed by many people. The Cuban coffee is drunk straight down like a shot is another option.

Indonesian coffee is well known, they produce very well known aged coffee which the environment helps with. They are the fourth largest coffee producer in the world, and so they should have enough for some time to come!

Malaysia also produces coffee, they brew theirs in a muslin bag which filters out the grounds. This makes a very strong cup of coffee. Even small countries such as Thailand produce wonderful blends of coffee which can be served with ice if you enjoy iced coffee.

Mauna Loa produces a very sweet bean which can make quite a nice medium body drink. The Java is full of flavor and has a very rich body. The whole process or roasting, finding and filtering the beans through water to produce a drink began in the 15th century and so over time this has produced a number of delicious drinks.

The Europeans have created a number of these designs, including France who adores their café au lait, which is actually half coffee and half milk. Austria likes it two thirds of a cup dark to one third regular which is a very old fashioned and traditional coffee blend.

The Italian espressos were pioneered by Luigi Bezzera in 1901 and improved in 1938 by M Cremonesi. We should thank these people for showing us just how delicious coffee can be. If you’re not into espressos then there are still plenty of other options such as the latte and cappuccino.

Coffee is a very personal thing and I can’t tell you which one you should buy. My advice is to try a few and see which style you like the best.

Being passionate about single coffee brewer, Clinton Maxwell is writing plenty of long articles in the area. With his writings like http://www.coffee-espresso-maker-tips.com/single-cup-coffee-maker.html, he confirmed his knowledge on information corresponding to single cup coffee maker.

Author: Clinton N. Maxwell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Twenty-nine million American adults drink gourmet coffee beverages every day. Though specialty coffee shops like Starbuck’s can be found just about anywhere, Cuban coffee, known for its strong taste, is only found in areas of the United States where there is a large Cuban American population. Sought after by coffee connoisseurs, it is the finest and most sought-after coffee in the world. Often compared to espresso, it is actually a rich blend of Cuban, Spanish and Italian coffee traditions.

Cuban coffee is roughly double the strength of regular American coffee. It is usually served in small cups called “tacitas,” which are smaller than demitasse cups, at the end of a meal. It is a mud-thick java brew with a tantalizing flavor and aroma made sweet by the amount of sugar that is used. The secret to “Cafe Cubano” or”cafecito,” as it is known in Cuba, is the finely ground, dark roasted coffee beans.

Coffee was brought to the eastern region of Cuba by French immigrants in the mid 18th century. By the early 1800′s it became a bigger import than sugar. Cuba’s natural humid climate, fertile soil and two centuries of cultivation techniques, have made it the ideal setting for growing coffee beans. The coffee beans are grown high in the shady jungles of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The cultivation of the beans is labor intensive and its planting, growing, harvesting, and processing procedures have been perfected every step of the way. Large beans are used and are left out to try in the sun instead of using mechanical dryers. No pesticides are used so the coffee is 100% organic.

Cuban coffee beans have a superior reputation in Asia and Europe with Japan and France accounting for 70-80 percent of the exports. Other importers of Cuban coffee include Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Embargo on Cuban goods has created a challenge for those i America who would like to enjoy this distinctive coffee. However Cuban American grocery stores and cafeterias sell their version of Cuban coffee. There are a number of Cuban coffee companies like Tu Cafe and Cafe Llave with Cafe Pilon being the top seller, that market “authentic Cuban coffee.” The beans for these brands are grown in Brazil,Colombia or other parts of Central and South America.

There is no secret recipe or process for making Cuban coffee. All that is needed is freshly ground dark roasted coffee beans, sugar and a “cafetera,” a unique italian double chamber coffee pot. Water is placed in the lower chamber and the ground coffee goes into a perforated holder. The top is screwed on and the pot is heated. The brewed coffee rises into the upper chamber. The coffee is poured into a “tacita” and sugar is added.

Drinking “Cafe Cubano” remains a prominent social and cultural activity within Cuba and in Cuban American communities. The rest of the world is slowly catching up to enjoy this particular style of coffee. One can find “authentic” Cuban coffees in many supermarkets and the specialty brewers are sold everywhere. So if you want a true coffee experience try Cuban coffee.

Cuba has always been a major player in world events both politically and socially. It is hard to believe that an island nation that has been politically ostracized from the rest of the world for more than fifty years, can still create such an impact. The Cuban coffee thing is just part of the whole Cuban experience. In my blog My Cuban Thing I write about my observations as a Cuban kid who grew up American.

Author: Mario Del Sol
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Although we can buy coffee products with the technology of the web it is well worth knowing that your state food and drink vendor can give you a mass of knowledge focused on products like cuban coffee beans, kenyan coffee beans or even espresso machines, while using the internet we obviously have the benefit of being able to carry out coffee price tag comparisons, the question is what might we be missing out on if we ignore the local food and drink or coffee store?

Suppose for a moment you are actually wanting to track down a italian coffee jug or a product like a german coffee grinder, it may be that you can locate these sort of products directly from the web but using a regional coffee dealer may in fact be a far smarter move on the part of any consumer of food and drink products and merchandise.

Because of the fact that the staff in a food and drink store will often have a useful knowledge of most coffee items you might possibly find out that the items you previously thought about buying may not in fact turn out to be the most the better suited coffee merchandise for your needs, it does not matter if you were looking for electric bean grinders or cappuccino coffee makers the thing goes for many kinds of coffee related merchandise and accessories.

A brief conversation with some person who deals with coffee products on a daily basis might easily save you from getting a product that not ideal, this conversation could possibly persuade you to buy a less expensive product. An individual once came to my own coffee store to try and buy a stainless steel coffee grinder and a selection of coffee products, so anyhow I chatted with this person and as it turned out he had checked out a food and drink website for tips and had totally misunderstood the coffee information he had sourced. Due to our chat a less expensive item was purchased by this person and I had secured a customers trust and custom for subsequent coffee purchases.

One great piece of advice when visiting a coffee dealers store is this, if you are contemplating obtaining a 4 cup coffee maker or possibly antique coffee table, talk to the salesperson about the items and find out if the assistant is the right person within the store to assist you, if it happens that their replies to your coffee targeted queries are poor then you know you need to do a little more digging in order to get access to the stores resident food and drink specialist [ nearly all coffee suppliers will have one ].

Now if you are resourceful enough to discover a coffee dealer that also runs an internet store then this is more than ideal for any consumer of food and drink merchandise, not only can you quickly discover if the dealer holds the coffee products you could possibly be interested in purchasing, in addition you can go to the store and question them on the products you know that they have available to purchase, lets say for instance you are thinking about buying a Green Mountain Coffee product you could see on the internet they retailed such merchandise and question them on the nitty gritty aspects of such coffee products or accessories.

Valerie Shapero the coffee writer contributes for the high profile coffee website Fuzzy Coffee. An outstanding source for facts about beverages and drinks. Visit: http://fuzzycoffee.com

Author: Valerie Shapero
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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You may know about which coffee beans taste best and maybe even about roasting and grinding beans, but here are ten coffee beans facts, some of which you may have never heard before!

1. Colossal Coffee Beans – The largest coffee bean is the Nicaragua Maragogipe, a variety of the Arabica species.
2. Good Things Come to Those Who Wait – With just the right amount of shade, sun, rain, and the right climate, coffee plants will begin producing coffee berries containing the “beans.”
3. Coffee Bean Not a Native of Costa Rica – The Spanish traveller, Navarro, introduced Cuban coffee to Costa Rica in 1779.
4. Not Really “Beans” – Believe it or not, coffee beans are not really beans at all. They are not in the legume family, but rather they are the pits found inside of the coffee berries.
5. Making the Grade – Coffee beans are graded in various ways. Columbian beans are graded from highest to lowest as: “Supremo” “Excelso”, “Extra” and “Pasilla”. Kenyan beans are graded with letter grades AA, AB, PB, C, E, TT, and T and the grades simply refer to the size, shape, and density of the coffee bean. For coffee beans, size does matter because larger coffee beans contain more of the oil that makes coffee so tasty. Costa Rican coffee beans are graded as Strictly Hard Bean, Good Hard Bean, Hard Bean, Medium Hard Bean, High Grown Atlantic, Medium Grown Atlantic, and Low Grown Atlantic, from highest to lowest, respectively, and these grades refer to the heights at which the beans were grown – Strictly Hard Bean, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the Costa Rica coffee crop is the top grade grown above 3,900 feet.
6. Hand-Picked – Even to this day, most coffee is still picked by hand, and a coffee worker can pick from 100 to 200 pounds of coffee berries a day!
7. An Acre of Coffee – How much coffee would you guess to get out of an acre of coffee plants? One acre typically yields about 10,000 pounds of coffee fruits or coffee cherries – which comes to around 2,000 pounds of coffee beans.
8. Imported Coffee – As much as Americans adore coffee, no coffee is grown in the Continental U.S.; the only American places that produce coffee are Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
9. The Most Expensive Coffee – The most expensive coffee in the world is Kopi Luwak, selling for between $100 and $600 USD per pound (2009)
10. Also the Most Unusual Coffee – The most expensive coffee is also quite possibly the most unusual coffee in the world – since the coffee berries go through the digestive tract of the Kopi Luwak (a small cat-sized Indonesian animal), are then harvested from the animal’s waste, and then the beans removed, cleaned (hopefully!), roasted, and sold.

That’s right, believe it or not, it takes 3-5 years for a coffee plant to produce coffee, and only if the conditions are perfect; coffee beans aren’t really beans at all; and the most expensive coffee comes from digested coffee gathered from animal feces!

Jennifer Hall enjoys spending her days in coffee shops writing articles and trying out different blends and offers tips and information on coffee beans for Coffee Beans 101 – the premier coffee bean site on the web!

Author: Jennifer Hall
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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