Gourmet Coffee Beans

The popular convention is that espresso has a stronger punch and more caffeine than a regular cup of coffee. Is it because of the stronger taste that people convey into a stronger cup of coffee? Well you may be surprised to read that coffee has much more caffeine content than a cup of espresso.

A 12 oz cup of coffee has 240 milligrams of caffeine. Compare that to a single shot of espresso (1 oz.) which contains 75 milligrams of caffeine. Now if you were to drink 12 oz. of espresso you would be riding a rocket ship of energy since it would pack a whopping 900 mg of caffeine.

In Miami Cuban coffee is the popular far which most people also believe is stronger than regular coffee. Cuban coffee is just plain espresso loaded with several teaspoons of sugar in just one ounce. People mistake the strong take plus the sugar rush with a high caffeine content

We have experience a problem with our coffee farmer in Costa Rica which has stopped shipping coffee. This was a sudden decision and unfortunately we were not ready to suddenly transition to an different coffee farm but our search has been completed. We should have this back up on our website within one week.
We have decided on a coffee that comes from the same valley in Tarrazu in the town of San Marco. We visited them a few weeks ago and the coffee is of equal high quality. This coffee also is Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance Certified.

We could have easily have purchased Costa Rican Tarrazu coffee from a wholesaler here in the states as most other coffee companies but that would go against our business mission. The problem with buying from wholesale coffee traders is that what you are buying is always in question. The Tarrazu coffee that the Costa Rican coffee board certifies is a rather broad geographic designation.

By going directly to the coffee farmer we are assured of the consistent high quality.

My apology for the delay in getting restocked but I believe that you will be please with our selection.

The other Saturday morning I decided to splurge and have some Blue Mountain Coffee using a coffee press. I took my time to prepare it. I had not noticed before but for some reason it had hints of a rich chocolate drink. It had all of the flavors of Blue Mountain but had a lingering chocolaty taste that brought a smile to my face. Boy I love coffee!

I found this on Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. There is a term for those of us who are into the latest food fads. I would consider gourmet coffee as one so that makes us foodies!

foodie \FOO-dee\ noun

: a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads

Example sentence:
A serious foodie, Beryl reads cookbooks like novels and scours specialty shops in search of exotic ingredients.

Did you know?
“Foodie” is a relatively recent addition to our language (dating from the early 1980s), but it derives from a much older word, “food,” which has been with us for as long as there has been anything that could be called English. “Food” can be traced back through Middle English to the Old English form “fōda,” which is itself related to Old High German “fuotar,” meaning “food” or “fodder,” and Latin “panis,” meaning “bread.” “Panis” is the source for “empanada,” a Spanish turnover with a sweet filling, “panatela,” a type of cigar, “panettone,” an Italian bread containing raisins and candied fruit, and “pantry,” a room used for the storage of provisions.

Colombia’s coffee ambassador to the world, Carlos Sanchez, is finally quitting after four decades of playing the role of Juan Valdez. And the national federation of Colombian coffee producers is searching for a man to inherit his poncho — as well as his trusty mule, Conchita.

Sanchez has promoted Colombian coffee since 1969 with a leather bag, bushy mustache and straw hat typical of rural Colombia. He inherited the role from Jose Duval, a Cuban, who became the first Juan Valdez in 1959. Sanchez, 71, said his advancing years made it hard to keep up a strenuous schedule traveling the globe promoting coffee.

The new Juan Valdez has a lot of selling to do: Colombia’s coffee industry has taken a beating during the global glut of the past decade. In 2005, coffee exports were about $1.4 billion, or $100 million less than those of a decade earlier.

In searching for a replacement, the federation sent teams across the streets, farms and — of course — cafes in the country’s western coffee region. With the help of U.S. consultants, it narrowed the field from 400 contenders to 10. The new Juan Valdez, the third incarnation, will be announced by June 30. Read the full article.

Latte’s popularity is now greater than cappuccino in the UK.

London – The latte has overtaken the cappuccino as Britain’s favourite coffee - with 227,000 cups downed every hour.
Britons now consume 935 million lattes every year, enough to fill 561 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The firm Costa Coffee has seen its latte sales rise 10 per cent this year and say hit TV shows have increased the popularity of the latte.
Mike Lawless, head of UK Marketing for Costa, said: “Customer research showed lattes have become the most popular drink for the first time in our 35-year history.”

Here in South Florida we have had the original Latte now for several decades, its called Cafe con Leche. This is the identical drink but with more sugar and made with Cuban coffee.

I have to report this cool looking volcano eruption in Indonesia. The cone looks very much like the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica which was the inspiration for our trademark and picture on our packaging.

Washington – A team of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists from the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) in Washington state has spent three weeks in Indonesia, working with the government there to evaluate the threat of volcanic eruptions.

Their work included studying Mount Merapi in central Java, a 9,800-foot peak considered the most dangerous of Indonesia’s 129 active volcanoes because of the large nearby population, a frequency of severe eruptions, and increased activity in past weeks.

Mount Merapi´s threat is magnified because it is near Yogyakarta, home to more than 1 million people, and located less than 20 miles from the volcano’s summit, according to a May 17 USGS press release.

More than 100,000 people also live within hazardous zones on the flanks of the volcano. During the past 12 years, Mount Merapi erupted six times.

Mount Merapi began showing signs of new unrest in summer 2005, with an increase in seismic activity that prompted the Merapi Volcano Observatory to conduct volcano hazard education programs in villages on the volcano’s flanks. Read full article.

Legend has it that 90% of the world’s coffee can be traced to a simple act of theft. The Dutch were the first to bring coffee to the new world and cultivate it commercially. The mayor of Amsterdam in 1714 sent Louis XIV of France a coffee tree. About nine years later a young naval officer, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu stole a seedling from this tree and brought it to his home in the Caribbean. De Clieu took special care of the seeding despite the harsh voyage. He planted it in Martinique and 50 years later there were more than 19 million coffee trees on the island.

It is believed that that all of the trees in the West Indies came from this single seeding. Missionaries, traders and colonists tooks seedings to other islands and throughout Latin America. Coffee became one of the New World’s most profitable crops by the end of the eightenth century. This one seeding is responsible for the existence of coffee farming in the New World.

Italians first brought coffee to Europe. The first shipment came from Turkey to Venice in 1615. Coffee houses had opened in the major European cities of Paris, Marseilles, Oxford, London, Venice and Exeter by the mid-seventeenth century.

The Coffee shops of Europe became platforms for intellectual discussions and had a nickname, “penny universities” which was the price to enter. Women were not allowd in English coffee houses and were exclusively for women.

The coffee house that was frequented became associated with a man’s politics. At the height of the coffee house popularity in London, they were denounced as places for treasonous activities. So much so that King Charles II attempted to ban them but it was reversed due to popular demand.

To determine the exact number of cups does take some measuring to pinpoint it. It is a learning process. I first put the cup setting to grind the projected amount in my burr coffee grinder then I measure the coffee grounds from the container to find the best setting. This also varies depending on the type of ground fine or coarse. A less for for fine a grind because the grounds are more compact and and more for coarse.

In my Cusinart Burr Coffee Grinder, if I want to grind a different type of coffee, such as decaf for a single pot, I usually pull out my blade grinder since emptying out hopper and the blades is a major project.

To keep my beans fresh I usually only fill the bean hopper about half-way. The top does keep it sealed so I would not worry too much.