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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Most iced coffees can be bought from your favorite coffee house, but if you know how to make iced coffee, it can be easy as making an ordinary warm brew. Of course, you would have to add ice, cream, and a few toppings, but making this iced concoction is so easy and fun that you wouldn’t mind the extra work needed. Here are a few guidelines on how to make iced coffee right at home.

Choosing your coffee first

1. Depending on whether you are choosing brewed or instant, you would need to prepare the strong coffee first. Strong coffee is important since you will be adding ice in this cold beverage, plus sugar and cream. For a glass of iced coffee, you may need ½ cup of very strong coffee.

2. If you want to brew your choice coffee beans, it will be better to go for a dark-roast blend. Moreover, if you’re planning to make a creamy frapuccino, using espresso is best. For an extra-strong brewed coffee, double the amount of coffee you would put in the usual amount of water. If you’re used to putting one teaspoon per cup, make it two teaspoons per cup. You can brew the coffee using a traditional coffee pot or any coffee maker.

3. Coffee can also be cold brewed, although for this you might need a cold-brewing equipment. However, cold brewing your coffee can be manually done, too. Here are the easy steps:

* Take a pound of coffee, place it in pitcher or carafe, and pour an initial 2 cups of water into the grounds.
* Once the grounds are thoroughly wet, gently pour an additional 8 cups into the carafe.
* Cover the container and place in room temperature for 12 hours.
* Carefully strain the coffee brew after 12 hours, making certain that there are no loose grounds mixed with the liquid.
* Place the pitcher in the refrigerator and let cool before making into an iced beverage.

4. Instant coffee works just as well, but you would want it extra-strong just the same. You can put a mix of 2 tablespoons of instant coffee, 1 teaspoon sugar, milk, and 3 tablespoons warm water in a jar, and shake it until the mixture becomes frothy. You can add as much milk you like but 6 ounces or more will often suffice.

Adding ice to the blend

Once the strong coffee is prepared, you can now fill up a tall glass with ice cubes. Pour the coffee over the prepared ice. Add cream or milk, or additional melted sugar according to the demands of your taste buds.

Picking out the flavors you want Cream is a common ingredient in iced coffee, as well as ordinary milk. Many people also prefer using sweetened condensed milk so as to do away with the powdered sugar. If you are using sugar however, you need to mix it in while the coffee is still warm. This helps dissolve the sugar much easily.

Chocolate, cinnamon, and other flavorings can be added to the iced beverage as well. Caramel, honey, or a shot of Bailey’s also works wonders. You can experiment to your heart’s content, and reward yourself with one unique blend after the other. Once you know how to make iced coffee from your very own kitchen, you’ll realize that doing so is not merely convenient, but a lot of fun as well!

Mr Coffee coffee makers have a range of iced tea makers which are capable of making a perfect glass of iced coffee along with the iced tea.

Yogi Shinde offers coffee maker reviews on various brands of helping you find the best coffee maker to suit your needs.

Author: Yogi Shinde
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Instant coffee bears little resemblance in taste to freshly brewed coffee. It is commonly made with inferior ‘robusta’ beans. It is the product of a complex scientific process, yet we British love it.

It may be convenient, but do we actually know what we are drinking? Have you ever wondered how they make coffee soluble? After all coffee is made using tough coffee beans that surely cannot be made to dissolve in water.

The truth is that instant coffee does not contain any actual coffee beans; it is simply a dried coffee flavoured solution that is the product of a complex brewing process. Similarly to everything else in the world of food that has been altered by science is coined ‘Frankenstein’; maybe we should start calling instant coffee, ‘Frankenstein Coffee’?

The process

Extraction: The process starts by passing water through a series of cylinders full of ground coffee beans. Each of these cylinders is heated to a different temperature and in at least one of the cylinders pressure is applied to achieve a fuller extraction. One of reasons why instant coffee is bitter is because during this extraction process the coffee grounds become burnt as they are exposed to temperatures of up to 180°C. (The widely agreed optimum temperature, among coffee enthusiasts, to brew coffee is between 90-95°C).

Filtration & Concentration: This coffee solution is then filtered to remove any unwanted particles before the concentration stage. Here water is removed from the coffee solution to increase the flavour. There are several different techniques to do this, one of which involves heating the solution further to evaporate the water.

Dehydration: In this stage the coffee solution is converted to a dry form. There are two commonly used methods; Spray drying and Freeze drying. The spray drying method is quite complex, however the basic principle is to spraying hot air through the coffee solution in order to evaporate the remaining water. Freeze drying involves quickly freezing the coffee solution into blocks which are then broken up into small particles. These particles are then heated in a vacuum where the ice is vaporised and removed.

Aromatisation: All these different stages and the high temperatures used in them, destroy most of the natural flavours that occur in coffee. The dry form of the coffee solution is therefore both stewed and bitter. So to help improve the taste, aromas produced during the various stages of this process are captured and then sprayed onto the dry coffee particles.

If that is not enough to make you switch from a cup of instant coffee to a freshly brewed cup then you may want to consider that instant coffee, in the vast majority of cases, is not fairly traded. In fact, it can be argued that the instant coffee industry, which is mainly made up of large multinational companies, is chiefly responsible for the low price coffee farmers receive for their harvest. They have the power to drive down prices and buy when the market is lowest, leaving the farmer and their family to live a meager existence.

James Grierson is the owner of Galla Coffee: http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk – UK online retailer of designer coffee accessories. Through the Coffee Knowledge section of his website he aims to help people understand more about coffee and give them tips on how to make great tasting coffee in their home.

Check out http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk/acatalog/Coffee_Knowledge.html for more articles or if you have a question send it to: coffeeknowledge@gallacoffee.co.uk

Author: James Grierson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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This form of coffee is often the choice to be used in many recipes when it comes to baking especially. The taste it affords when used in this method is comparable to brewed coffee. The biggest advantage of using the instant here is because it’s quick and easy.

This coffee goes way back to 1906. It was actually discovered by an English chemist who was residing in Guatemala at the time. This gentleman most enjoyed his coffee and happened to notice that on the spout of his silver coffee pot there was a powdery film forming. This was the beginning of the experimentation of the discovery of instant coffee. It was officially discovered by this chemist whose name was George C. Washington and he produced the very first brand called Red E Coffee.

Now once again there may seem to be a little confusion as to who really did invent this coffee or at least discover it. Others say that in 1901, a Japanese American by the name of Satori Kato was the one who invented this drink, but it was true that George C Washington was the first to market it in mass production. Years after that, Nescafe came out with freeze-dried coffee.

There are two easy methods for making instant coffee. It can be either freeze-drying or spray drying. So which produces a better cup of this type of coffee? Many would argue that freeze drying does but then like any other variation of coffee its all going to come down to personal taste. One of the supporting factors for freeze-drying being the better of the two methods is that with spray drying the natural oils of the coffee are adversely effected and more flavor is lost. This is because of the high heat that is required in the spray drying method. However many instant coffee producers prefer this method to freeze-dried because it is faster and in some ways more cost effective.

This form of coffee is often the choice to be used in many recipes when it comes to baking especially. The taste it affords when used in this method is comparable to brewed coffee. The biggest advantage of using the instant here is because it’s quick and easy.

There are some people who think they are experts when it comes to instant coffee just like there are with brewed coffee. One of the problems with this coffee is that the ingredients that are being used are inferior quality beans that don’t meet requirement for any of the coveted gourmet type coffees. Naturally, this in itself is going to affect the taste. Avid coffee drinkers believe that if you are using a good freeze dried instant , and your water is boiling hot when you add it to the coffee, you are going to enjoy a very good cup of coffee. Naturally, avid brew coffee drinks would be the first to say there is just no comparison.

Try going to http://www.coffeebeansroasting.com for more details regarding coffee, coffee growing, coffee brewing, coffee roasting, coffee types, etc

Author: Carl Da Costa
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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There was a time when I thought all coffee was basically the same. Sure, you could add milk to it and get what people today call cafe latte, or make it strong and then it was espresso, or just use instant. In fact, instant was what I drank for many years. To me, that was coffee. I did keep some ground coffee for an old percolator I had, just in case guests might want it. Looking back, I truly did not know what I was missing. It wasn’t until a dear friend of mine rejected my stale, generic coffee. I thought he was a bit of a snob, but it made me think. I looked into coffee and it became an exploration and journey that opened up a whole new world for me, the world of delicious, delightful coffee. I learned to differentiate between types and blends and processing of coffee, of roasting and preparation, and of gourmet flavored coffee beans that can add so much to the enjoyment of this most wondrous of beverages.

Once I realized that instant coffee really wasn’t the real thing, no matter what the TV commercials said, I experimented with different ways of brewing coffee. I tried different types of automatic and semi-automatic coffeemakers. I fell in love with the simple elegance of the French press with its simple plunger system but also experimented with a variety of other systems. I initially bought coffee that was already ground, for no other reason than that I had unpleasant childhood memories of mom making me grind coffee beans in an old hand-powered mill. I hated it. However, I found that I was quite particular in the way I liked to have my coffee ground. It had to be just right, not too coarse and not too fine.

I also began to appreciate the many different types of gourmet coffee beans from all over the world. A lot of people still think that coffee is coffee, and it’s either black or with milk or cream, I think coffee is really more like wine-no two types and roasts are the same. After you’ve sampled imported coffee beans from various countries and regions, you begin to appreciate the subtle and not so subtle differences. Likewise, there’s a huge difference between light roasts and dark roasts. Did you know, for example, that lighter roasts actually have more caffeine, and that the way coffee is stored also makes a difference?

These days, coffee has become a hobby and passion for me. I love exploring various flavors. Yes, you can get toasted cinnamon pecan flavored coffee beans, or white chocolate, or raspberry almond, or pralines and cream. Or all sorts of Italian espresso. Or special private blends from specialty coffee places on the web. The Kona blend gourmet beans I get from my favorite place are out of this world. And when I feel adventurous I may sample coffees from Jamaica, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia or Costa Rica. Some of the Central and South American coffee growing countries offer delicious shade grown and organic coffee beans, and I also keep some decaffeinated blends for when I feel like having a cup at night before I go to bed.

Amazingly, gourmet flavored coffee beans aren’t even that expensive. The better supermarkets in my area actually often charge more per pound than the online gourmet discount coffee bean places, without having nearly the same selection and quality.

Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Learn more about Gourmet Coffee Beans

Author: Chris Robertson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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