Tuesday, January 22, 2008

coffee



Introduction of Coffee

Coffee is the most widespread drink in the world with approximately half-a-trillion cups consumed every year. There are two fundamental types of coffee: espresso and regular, or non-espresso. Espresso is the variety of coffee available in cafés and restaurants, whilst regular coffee is generally meant for the home.


History of Coffee

Discovery of coffee took place in Eastern Africa in a region that is presently known as Ethiopia. According to a popular legend, a goat herder called Kaldi, watched his goats behaving in a strangely frolicsome manner after ingesting berries from a bush. Inquisitive about this occurrence, Kaldi made an attempt to consume the berries himself. He realized that these berries provided him with a new vigor. The news of this fruit rich in energy rapidly unfolded all through the region.

Monks learning about this remarkable fruit desiccated the berries in order that they could be shifted to far-away monasteries. They soaked these berries in water, consumed the fruit, and gulped the liquid to make available stimulation for a more stimulating time for prayer.

Coffee Basics

Usually people never care about small things in life. But the fact remains that small things make our life better. The biggest problem for you might be that you picked up a fight with your partner but the reason behind it might be as small as not having a cup of coffee in the morning. We realize how important such small things are only when we face problems in their absence. Coffee is one such thing. Have you ever thought of how widespread the use of coffee is and who provides you with this one heck of a beverage? Well don’t worry, at coffeeclues.com you will find all the answers to your question at one go.

Did you ever know that 70% of coffee comes from the continent of America? And that nearly 25 million earn their daily wages because of coffee plantation in Brazil? Commercially coffee is cultivated inside 1,000 miles of the equator. Coffee is produced in commercial amounts by more than 50 countries across the globe. Well these are world proven figures and benefits of having coffee plantation. Read more of such details in our introduction to coffee section.

If you read about the history of Coffee section on coffeeclues.com you will realize how interesting a beverage’s evolution can be. Find out the interesting tale behind how a Shepherd discovered coffee in Ethiopia when his goats behaved in a weird manner after consuming certain berries. Learn how widely and in a strange route the popularity of coffee traveled in our History of Coffee section.

Find out the best way to make coffee and win the best results through our coffee tasting section. Learn about the important traits that you should be careful to produce in order to earn the best results. How acidity, aroma, body and flavor together give an unforgettable result that one would cherish life long.

All You Need to Know About Your Instant Energizer - Coffee

If you want to jumpstart a day, there are many better ways you can do it - you can go and stand under a cold shower, have someone yell at you as if they were asking someone to send breakfast from the adjoining county and so on. But the best way is - to drink a cup of strong coffee.

There are many people who sleep heavily through out the night and wake up groggy. Then there are other sets of people who sleep very badly, not even for a minimum of eight hours. Both these kinds need a coffee jolt in the morning just to get away from the feel of 'I need more sleep'.

Coffee is not just to clear the mental cobwebs, it also gives you a bright eye and courage to face another day. It has become more than an emergency standby. It turned into a beverage that has to be consumed many times to have a pleasant day.

Normally you will have coffee when you wake up, when you arrive to work, during the first break, in the evening… on and on it goes. Coffee has become an all the time necessity.

Then, don't you feel like knowing more about your daily booster - - history of coffee, types of coffee, how it affects your health, how it is processed…. Coffeeclues.com gives you everything you need to know and want to know about coffee.

Go through every page of coffeeclues.com to know something different about the instant energizer.

Coffee tasting

Cupping is a technique coffee tasters employ to assess the distinctiveness of coffees. Cupping is a useful way to discover more about the characteristics of various coffees.

For cupping, a few types of fresh whole bean coffee are required for comparison along with grinder if possible a burr grinder. A tea kettle for almost boiling water, tablespoon, and porcelain cups measuring 8 oz for each coffee, silver spoon together with a cup for sputtering out the coffee are required for the purpose of cupping. Aroma is a chief constituent of taste; hence cupping should be done in the absence of strong, perfume-like smells in the air.

Coffee Categories

I wonder how many of us would realize while drinking coffee that after oil it is the largest traded commodity. And hence coffee trade is considered a global trade. Richness of soil contributes greatly to the growing of the best coffee beans. Learn how geographically divided the world is in terms of coffee growth from our section ‘How they are Divided Geographically’ on our coffeeclues.com website. Also learn about the three kinds of beans and their qualities.

It is not just enough to know the beans; the style and the right kind of roasting have to be learnt. How in different stages one has to be careful about the intensity of the beans being roasted. The fact that roasting coffee beans is an art is undoubtful. Dissimilarly roasted beans taste differently. One can choose the way of roasting keeping in mind what kind of coffee one wants to drink.

Every country prefers a different taste of coffee. Researchers have done a great deal of research in this aspect. To further complicate the preparation techniques the taste preferences vary within the country itself. Coffee industry has to thrive on these research materials to know what exactly is a country’s preference so that the exported material could match the expectations of the buyer.

The latest that people usually prefer are the blends that taste entirely different from the different pure versions of coffee. The intention is to achieve a unique flavor that can be attained easily but still remains unique.

Even flavored beans are sometimes preferred by people to get a unique taste of coffee. If you do not prefer the bare taste of coffee you can have a fruit flavored or spice flavored coffee to settle your differences with coffee drinking fad.

For those who are health conscious caffeine is the biggest factor because of which they avoid drinking coffee. But it is actually possible to get decaffeinated coffee, which would be completely healthy to drink. Know more about it in our “What is decaffeinated coffee’ section.

Coffee From Crop To Cup

The evolution of coffee from a crop to a cup is very fascinating. Growing and Coffee harvesting needs to be done in ideal situations. Not every soil responds well. In order to learn right conditions and the possibility of harvesting coffee check out our website ‘coffeeclues.com’. Even different techniques serve as important factors in coffee harvesting.

Processing plays an important role in separating the green beans from the cherries. There are two kinds of processing procedures: Natural and Washed. Natural technique includes the dry technique. Washed technique is famous for Arabia coffees. Even in washed technique there are two different mechanisms that can be employed to process the coffee beans. If you want to go for a not-much-complicated technique natural processing is the best way to choose. And that is apparently the oldest method of processing coffee.

Though all this makes it appear that coffee making is a complicated method, once learnt it is not so difficult. The case is similar to roasting the coffee beans. Coffee roasting at home is neither tricky nor bothersome; and the only thing ludicrous is opting for less than the finest coffee achievable. The greatest motivation for home roasting is that it gives an opportunity to exercise total control over the degree of freshness of one’s coffee. Or else it can also be ones hobby.

Grinding and brewing is the last process through which the beans have to go through. If you get the basic things right it doesn’t matter if you add a little twisters to make the coffee taste better.

TYPES OF COFFEE


TURKISH COFFEE


Derived from the Arabica bean, Turkish coffee is a very fine, powder-like grind. An aromatic spice called cardamom is sometimes added to the coffee while it is being ground. One can also boil whole seeds with the coffee and let them float to the top when served.


CAPPUCCINO COFFEE


Cappuccino is a strong coffee with frothy cream, topped with a pinch of powdered chocolate. The pale brown color of the coffee is reminiscent of the robes worn by Capuchin monks.


ESPRESSO COFFEE


Espresso is a black strong coffee prepared in Italian way by forcing live steam through dark-roast coffee beans. Coffee is placed into an espresso machine designed just for this purpose and hot water is forced through the coffee at very high pressure - extracting all the flavor possible.


Coffee and health

The talk on decaffeinated section brings to the aspect of health attached to drinking coffee. Caffeine in coffee is know to increase blood pressure and increases heartbeat. But recent research establishes that this effect is actually milder than what it was thought to be. On the other hand there are several benefits of drinking Coffee.

When consumed in sufficient quantity coffee drinking helps reduce the risk of developing colon cancer. Coffee, akin to wine, possesses antioxidants that aids in checking heart disease and specific types of cancers by eliminating oxygen radicals from the blood that damages cells. Benefits can be reaped only when coffee is consumed moderately.

To be aware of the amount of caffeine in coffee check out our ‘caffeine content in coffee’ section. From the types of beans to the way the beans are crushed everything determines the amount of caffeine in one-cup coffee.

Though caffeine is responsible for the short-term effect of coffee, there is a complex blend of chemicals in coffee. Therefore the speed with which one gains energy by drinking coffee will fade equally fast. Coffee if had before bedtime may delay your sleeping routine.

Long-term effects of drinking coffee include a habit-forming tendency. If it is consumed limitlessly in a day and if it becomes a habit then there are chances of a quick heart attack It can also lead on to decrease in fertility rates in both- men and women.

The best relief to all this is to avoid an overdose of caffeine. People find it difficult to stop consuming coffee with their morning cup, this generates trouble in long run. To understand what is the health y amount that you can consume check our coffee and health section.

How to Reduce Caffeine Intake?

A cup of coffee seemingly invigorates one’s senses but consumption of large amounts of caffeine which is present in coffee can adversely affect one’s health.

This is due to the fact coffee merely invigorates the central nervous system, augments the stress hormones in the blood streams, consequently causing a person to feel unusually alert. As a result stimulated alert conditions have an inclination to suppress the body’s natural impulses and stop it from unwinding. This results in unwarranted strain and causes different types of ailments. Addiction to caffeine can take place while combating strain and dejection.

Cyclic disorder

  • Daily caffeine ingestion causes a 24 hour cyclic disorder in one’s body.
  • Although a cup of coffee in the morning helps in elevating one’s mood the majority of individuals are unable to stop at that.
  • Nearly all those who go out for work acquire a desire for the subsequent cup and afterwards a heavy tiredness sets in by late afternoon.
  • Although continual cups may revitalize an individual at a specific point of time during the day, a complete collapse is predictable by evening.

Bad temper, exhaustion and depression together with an unpleasant feeling are the common indications of addiction to coffee. What is awful is that at long last when one makes an attempt to sleep away one’s depression at night, one simply cannot. That's not the concluding stage. The subsequent morning one gets up exhausted, craving for a hot cup to calm down one’s disposition.

It is imperative that people who are addicted to caffeine should reduce their caffeine intake to avoid health complications that may arise due to an overuse of it.

Gradual reduction

  • When individuals realize that caffeine is the source of problem in one’s diet, they should diminish their caffeine reliance status.
  • However it should be borne in mind that one should not take any hurried decisions of reducing all such ingestion.
  • In case of sudden eradication of all caffeine products from one’s diet, the withdrawal symptoms maybe excessively difficult to manage.
  • Consequently, one may undergo a number of the following withdrawal symptoms for example headaches, bad temper, increase of premenstrual symptoms, exhaustion, widespread muscular stress, queasiness, short of appetite, constipation, short of concentration and absentmindedness.

Hence it is vital to ensure that one should decrease one’s normal caffeine ingestion slowly. To begin with one should try to diminish one’s ingestion by half. One should keep away from the other half by substituting it with a cup of mild organic green tea or herbal tea. For instance if an individual is accustomed to four cups of coffee every day, he should begin ingesting two cups of coffee and two cups of mild green tea. Slowly one should substitute the mild tea with soup or plain hot water blended with honey and lime. Subsequently one can substitute the remaining two cups of coffee with mild tea and stick to the identical pattern.


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