Recently in Beverage Knowledge Category

Coffee ingestion on average is about a third of that of tap water in North America and Europe. Worldwide, 6.7 million metric tons of coffee were produced annually in 1998-2000, and the forecast is a rise to 7 million metric tons annually by 2010.

Grinding Your Own

How Fine the Grind

In general, grind coffee as fine as you can without clogging the holes of the brewer or turning the coffee to mud. The finer the grind, the more contact there will be between coffee and hot water, and the faster and more thoroughly the essential oils will be released, without activating harsher, less-soluble chemicals.

On the other hand, you don't want to grind your coffee to a powder, because completely pulverizing it destroys the essential oil, which becomes vaporized by the heat and friction of the grinding process.

Brewing Coffee

No matter what they're called, all ways of brewing coffee are basically the same: The ground coffee is soaked in the water until the water tastes good. The only equipment you really need to make great coffee is an open pot, a flame, and, possibly, a strainer.

Coffee is an important export commodity. In 2004, coffee was the top agricultural export for 12 countries, and in 2005, it was the world's seventh largest legal agricultural export by value.

Buying Coffee

  Specialty coffee stores carry as many as 30 varieties of coffee. Each one has a name, plus a few aliases. The following material makes sense of all these coffee names.

European Names

Most names given darker-roasted coffees are European: French, Italian, Viennese, Continental. These names do not refer to the origin of the beans. Rather, these coffees are distinguished by the length of time the bean is roasted. Italian roast, for instance, is usually darker and has been roasted longer than Viennese.

Non-European Names

Non-European names, such as Sumatran, Kenya, or Mexican refer to the origin of the bean. A coffee labeled Sumatran, for instance, should consist entirely of beans from a single crop in a single country, Sumatra.

Coffee History

Botanical evidence indicates that Coffee Arabica originated on the plateaus of central Ethiopia, several thousand feet above sea level, where it still grows wild. By about 600 a.d., coffee found its way to the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula to what is now called Yemen

In Arabia, coffee was first mentioned as a medicine, then as a beverage taken in connection with meditation and religious exercises by dervishes. From there it moved into the streets and virtually created a new institution, the coffee house