Damen Choy: the Coffee Expert asked:


You may not know this, but unless you buy your coffee direct, the coffee beans used to make the morning cup of coffee that you love so much have probably been in the hands of half a dozen middle men. With so many stages involved in getting the coffee to your distributor, the quality of the beans suffers. Here’s a fresh idea – eliminate the middle men and get your coffee direct from the distributor.

Save Money when you buy Coffee Direct

Surprisingly enough, when you buy your coffee direct you may actually be able to spend less for coffee than you do at the supermarket. In the normal distribution process, each middle man takes his cut. By purchasing coffee in bulk from a distributor, you can save money over the long haul. Buying in bulk means purchasing up to 25 pounds at a time. When you buy this amount, you start to see some real savings.

Get Fresher Beans when you buy your Coffee Direct

There’s no way to tell how long coffee has been sitting on the supermarket shelf, and after a few months the flavor starts to fade and grow stale. Buying whole beans doesn’t always solve this problem, since the beans many pass through several warehouses before you buy it. Only when you buy coffee direct from a distributor are you guaranteed to get fresh and flavorful beans. Your taste buds will tell you the difference.

Buying Coffee Direct Tips

* What kind of coffee do you enjoy? There are many types to choose from, including dark, light, robust and mild. Consider the location where the coffee is grown. This could be Sumatra, Kenya, Columbia or even Hawaii. Once you’ve narrowed down your search, check the Internet to find a distributor in your community. Contact the distributor and buy your coffee direct.

* For the best tasting coffee, brew it as soon as possible after it’s roasted. Find a local coffee roaster and buy your coffee direct. If there are no roasters in your area, check the Internet to find out about having fresh roasted coffee shipped to you.

* For the best tasting coffee, invest in a grinder so that you can grind the freshly roasted beans that you buy.

* Buy only the amount of coffee you expect to consume within one month. This way you will always be brewing fresh coffee beans. After a month, most beans begin to lose flavor.

If you really love coffee, follow these tips and you’ll soon be enjoying the aroma and taste of the freshest cup of coffee you’ve ever had. Buy your coffee direct and get freshly roasted beans. You’ll be glad you eliminated the middle men and shortened the time from tree to cup.



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michelle faber asked:


Tips for Finding Perfect Premium Coffee…

There is coffee and THERE IS COFFEE! You likely know about the generic quality coffees you find at the supermarket, using the inferior Robusta beans. And, in contrast, there is the alternative: the coffee regularly termed Gourmet Coffee you buy direct from roasters around the country. Popular large volume roasters, like Starbucks as well as most of the the smaller roasters dispersed about town, essentially utilize this far better grade, high altitude, shade grown Arabica bean.

That being said, and broadly known by all nowadays, how can you siphon out the crème de la crème of gourmet coffee beans to purchase?

To begin with, let’s hone in specifically on taste. Nowadays, coffee has become a “drink of experts”…

evolved into an art of reflection! We’ve begun to savor our coffee…flavor identify and define the subtle hints and nuances, as well as the qualities that identify the bean’s continent of origin. You as a coffee drinker, can begin to explore and experience the undertones of your coffee’s region, but better yet, begin to revel in the independently specific flavors of the bean defined by the specific hill and farm where it’s grown.

Coffee Cupping: Defining Coffee by its “Underlying Flavors”

There are, nowadays, a limited number of coffee roasters that independently test their coffee beans for taste observations and aromas. These beans are graded and assessed just like fine wine. This activity is called Coffee Cupping or Coffee Tasting. Professionals known as Master Tasters are the assessors. The procedure involves deeply sniffing a cup of brewed coffee, then loudly slurping the coffee so it draws in air, spreads to the back of the tongue, and maximizes flavor.

These Master Tasters, much akin to wine tasters, then attempt to measure in detail, every aspect of the coffee’s taste. This assessment includes measurement of the body (the texture or mouth-feel, such as oiliness), acidity (a sharp and tangy feeling, like when biting into an orange), and balance (the innuendo and the harmony of flavors working together). Since coffee beans embody telltale flavors from their region or continent of their origin, cuppers may also attempt to predict where the coffee was grown.

There is an infinite range of vocabulary that is used to describe the tastes found in coffee. Descriptors range from the familiar (chocolaty, sweet, fruity, woody) to the conceptual (clean, vibrant, sturdy) to the wildly esoteric (summery, racy, gentlemanly).

Following are a few key characteristics as defined by Coffee Geek. (http://coffeegeek.com/guides/beginnercupping/tastenotes)

Key Characteristics

Acidity:

The brightness or sharpness of coffee: It is through the acidity that many of the most intriguing fruit and floral flavors are delivered, and is usually the most scrutinized characteristic of the coffee. Acidity can be intense or mild, round or edgy, elegant or wild, and everything in between. Usually the acidity is best evaluated once the coffee has cooled slightly to a warm/lukewarm temperature. Tasting a coffee from Sumatra next to one from Kenya is a good way to begin to understand acidity.

Body:

This is sometimes referred to as “mouthfeel”. The body is the sense of weight or heaviness that the coffee exerts in the mouth, and can be very difficult for beginning cuppers to identify. It is useful to think about the viscosity or thickness of the coffee, and concentrate on degree to which the coffee has a physical presence. Cupping a Sulawesi versus a Mexican coffee can illustrate the range of body quite clearly.

Sweetness:

One of the most important elements in coffee, sweetness often separates the great from the good. Even the most intensely acidic coffees are lush and refreshing when there is enough sweetness to provide balance and ease the finish. Think of lemonade…starting with just water and lemon juice, one can add sugar until the level of sweetness achieves harmony with the tart citric flavor. It is the same with coffee, the sweetness is critical to allowing the other tastes to flourish and be appreciated.

Finish:

While first impressions are powerful, it is often the last impression that has the most impact. With coffee the finish (or aftertaste) is of great importance to the overall quality of the tasting experience, as it will linger long after the coffee has been swallowed. Like a great story, a great cup of coffee needs a purposeful resolution. The ideal finish to me is one that is clean (free of distraction), sweet, and refreshing with enough endurance to carry the flavor for 10-15 seconds after swallowing. A champion finish will affirm with great clarity the principal flavor of the coffee, holding it aloft with grace and confidence like a singer carries the final note of a song and then trailing off into a serene silence.

Coffee Buying Caveat

Buying coffee simply by name instead of by taste from your favorite roaster (in other words buying the same Columbian Supreme from the same ”Joe’s Cuppa Joe Roaster”) definitely has its pitfall! According to Coffee Review, “Next year’s Clever-Name-Coffee Company’s house blend may be radically different from this year’s blend, despite bearing the same name and label. The particularly skillful coffee buyer or roaster who helped create the coffee you and I liked so much may have gotten hired elsewhere. Rain may have spoiled the crop of a key coffee in the blend. The exporter or importer of that key coffee may have gone out of business or gotten careless. And even if everyone (plus the weather) did exactly the same thing they (and it) did the year before, the retailer this time around may have spoiled everything by letting the coffee go stale before you got to it. Or you may have messed things up this year by keeping the coffee around too long, brewing it carelessly, or allowing a friend to pour hazelnut syrup into it.”

Your savvy coffee-buying alternative is to look for roasters who buy their beans in Micro-Lots- smaller (sometimes tiny) lots of subtly distinctive specialty coffees. According to Coffee Review, “These coffee buyers buy small quantities of coffee from a single crop and single place, often a single hillside, and are sold not on the basis of consistency or brand, but as an opportunity to experience the flavor associated with a unique moment in time and space and the dedication of a single farmer or group of farmers.”

Coffee Review: Coffee Ratings

And finally, look out for the very small community coffee roasters that will submit their coffees to be 3rd-party evaluated by Coffee Review and other competitions for independent analysis and rating. Coffee Review regularly conducts blind, expert cuppings of coffees and then reports the findings in the form of 100-point reviews to coffee buyers. These valuable Overall Ratings can provide you with a summary assessment of the reviewed coffees. They are based on a scale of 50 to 100.

http://www.coffeereview.com/about_us.cfm

Bottom line for a certain premium purchase: To find the coffee that will ascertain most flavor satisfaction, seek out beans that been independently reviewed and rated. This approach will, without a doubt offer you the advantage of being able to choose the flavor profile suits you best in a bean. What’s more, it gains you certainty in quality due to its superior rating. The higher the rating, the better the flavor. True premium coffees start from the upper 80’s. By finding a roaster that consistently rates within the 90’s will ultimately buy you the best java for your buck!



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R. L. Fielding asked:


Techniques for brewing coffee range from the practical to the artful. When purchasing a coffee maker for your home, you’ll want to select a machine that matches your own coffee brewing style.

Is drinking coffee a languid morning ritual or something you do on-the-go? Do you prefer an uncomplicated cup of black coffee or an espresso with a light crema layer? To help you decide on the ideal brewer for your lifestyle, here is a rundown of popular coffee machines, from single cup Keurig coffee makers to the more elaborate espresso makers:

Drip Coffee Maker

You can’t get more traditional in your approach to coffee brewing than by using a drip coffee maker. Introduced for home use in the 1970s, these machines work by letting water pass through coffee grounds held in a paper filter or plastic filter. The clear, light-bodied coffee then collects in a brew pot.

Drip coffee machines range in size, but typically brew eight to twelve cups at a time. Many models have a heating element which keeps the pot warm. Coffee left sitting in the heated pot for too long may develop a burnt or bitter taste.

Benefits: Ease of use. Brew multiple cups in a single pot.

Drawbacks: Moderate brewing time. Need to clean up used grounds and coffee pot.

Single Cup Coffee Maker

Single cup coffee machines are among the newest trends in coffee brewing. These machines use individual portion packs of coffee to brew one cup at a time. Simply fill the water reservoir, pop a portion pack of your favorite coffee in the holding chamber, and press the brew button. In under a minute, you’ll have a fresh cup of gourmet coffee.

While the most common type of portion pack is the coffee pod – a paper filter containing coffee grounds – some brands of single cup coffee maker call for the use of their own proprietary portion packs. For instance, single cup brewing systems from Keurig use K Cups and those from Tassimo use T-Discs.

Prices for single cup coffee makers range from less than $50 to more than $300, depending on the size and model. Many models can brew tea and hot cocoa as well as coffee. Some high-end models are capable of producing coffee with a crèma layer. A single cup coffee maker is a great choice for someone who’s always on the go.

Benefits: Quick brewing time. Minimal clean up.

Drawbacks: With the exception of some high-end models that take loose ground coffee, you must use portion packs.

Percolator

Coffee percolators are a type of drip brew coffee maker. Highly popular in the early twentieth century, percolators have resurfaced as a nostalgia item in many homes.

What distinguishes percolators from standard drip brewers is the way water moves through the percolator chambers – boiling first in the lower chamber, bubbling up through a vertical tube, then percolating down through the coffee grounds before re-circulating. This process gives percolated coffee a unique taste. If heated for too long after the percolating process completes, the coffee may develop a bitter taste.

Benefits: Characteristic “perking” action. Non-electric and electric versions available.

Drawbacks: Slow brewing time. Diminishes natural flavor of coffee beans.

Espresso Machine

Espresso machines offer coffee with a more European flair. The machines operate by forcing hot water through finely ground coffee beans. This process results in espresso’s characteristic crema layer. Espresso typically has a thicker consistency than drip brewed coffee and contains more sediment from the coffee grounds.

The flavor of espresso is much more concentrated than drip brewed coffee, making it the perfect base for lattes, mochas, macchiato, and cappuccinos when mixed with varying amounts of frothed milk. While espresso is higher by volume in caffeine than drip brewed coffee, the customary small serving size means that most espresso drinks contain less caffeine than a mug of coffee. This is a true luxury item.

Benefits: Trendy. Quick brewing time. Produces a variety of espresso drinks.

Drawbacks: More complicated to operate. Espresso flavor degrades quickly after brewing.

Remember, not all coffee makers are created equal. Once you’ve decided which type of coffee machine best suits your lifestyle, making a purchase becomes a matter of deciding your price range and desired features. It helps to read consumer reviews posted on the Internet before choosing a particular model. If you take your time and research all the options, you’re sure to find a coffee maker that will perk up your mornings for years to come.

About CoffeeCow

CoffeeCow.com goes to great lengths to provide the highest quality products, the fastest service, and the deepest discount prices you will find on Keurig K-Cups, coffee pods, and a wide selection of related coffee supplies. Developed by coffee professionals with over 35 years of experience in fulfilling any coffee service need, CoffeeCow offers all the coffee conveniences for your home or office. Visit http://www.coffeecow.com for more information.



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Aaron Matthews-Morgan asked:


Coffee Brewing Methods range from popular Espresso or French Press methods to lesser used methods like Turkish. Here we explore the four most popular Coffee Brewing Methods: Espresso, French Press, Drip Filtration and Mokta or Stovetop method.

Espresso

Probably the most popular of the Coffee Brewing Methods in recent times is making an Espresso using a machine. Super hot, pressurized water is forced through fine ground, tightly packed coffee. The pressurized infusion process ensures that the water stays in contact with the coffee grounds long enough to draw out much of the coffee ground flavor. The water then finds a path through the coffee grounds. And the coffee commences to pour into your cup. When the water finds a path through the coffee grind it is referred to as the ’shot being pulled’ through the group.

The sign of a good espresso, using fresh coffee beans, is the richness of the crema. Crema is the hazelnut foam that sits on the surface of the coffee. This is produced by the pressurizing process and the oils of the coffee bean. Oils break down with time, and so a rich crema will be produced using fresh beans. And if you didn’t catch it when I started talking about Espresso, use a fine grind. Using a course grind allows the water to ‘brush past’ the grind rather than infuse with it. Using a course grind will still produce a good coffee, but it will taste more like a coffee produced using a Drip Filter coffee brewing method rather than true Espresso coffee.

French Press

One of the simplest of all Coffee Brewing Methods is the French Press or Plunger. This is probably the easiest way to make great coffee! The French Press works by directly mixing ground coffee with near boiling water. The coffee flavors get drawn out into the water and then the press or plunger is depressed, separating the exhausted coffee grind from the brew. While the process has a similar taste to the Drip Filtration style, the French Press can extract more flavor from the coffee grind by extending the brewing time. Manual infusion requires you to get your timing right. If you let the brewing process run too long you may end up with a bitter coffee. Conversely, if you brew too quickly you will have a weak tasting coffee.

One more point, use a course grind. You don’t want fine ground coffee escaping through the metal filter and into the brew. A dusty cup of coffee is not an experience worth having.

Drip Filtration

Let’s start with the Drip Filtration style. Drip Filtration is probably the most popular method of all. The Drip Filtration machine works by spraying hot water across ground coffee that is held in a conical shaped filter. The hot water then slowly moves through the ground coffee. Once the water reaches the bottom of the conical filter, it drips into a container beneath it.

The most widely used conical filters are made of paper, while expensive stainless steel or gold conical filters are also available. When buying paper filters, be sure to use oxygen bleached paper. Chemically treated papers may affect the taste of your coffee. Another point to be aware of with paper filters is that you may also have some of the flavorful coffee oils trapped by the paper filter. It is the oils that produce the rich crema when you make an espresso. The grind is also important with Drip Filtration. If the grind is too fine, you may clog the pores of your filter. You can avoid this by using a course grind (read about grinding here).

Finally, if you do not expect to drink the full pot of coffee, either by yourself (all that caffeine….) or with friends, beware the constantly heated coffee. It loses its flavor and may even become bitter. And the golden rule….never reheat coffee.



Mokta Pot/Stovetop

The Moka Pot style is also known as a Stovetop coffee pot. Moka pot’s come in several sizes including 2, 4 or 6 cup capacities. The Moka Pot a simple 3 piece pot. The water reservoir is at the base, with a coffee basket in the middle and the brewed coffee ends up in the top.

The coffee brewing method is very simple. The pot is placed on a stove top which heats the water in the lower reservoir. As the water reaches boiling point, the steam rises and the water starts to push upward through the coffee grounds. This continues to travel up the central funnel and seeps into the top chamber where it comes to rest. The process finishes when the coffee stops moving into the top chamber. This should only take a few minutes to brew depending on the cup size of the Moka pot.

The grind should be a fine grind, similar or finer to that used in an Espresso machine. If you want to fill the coffee basket the way traditional Italian drinkers do, then heap the coffee grounds high in the coffee basket and ***** the two pieces together. Don’t worry about compacting the coffee. When the top half of the pot is screwed on, the grounds will be compacted by the filter screen. You should end up with a dry, compacted puck of coffee grounds at the end of brewing.

So there you have it. The four most popular Coffee Brewing Methods.





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Stephanie Larkin asked:


best coffee beans available all over the world, roast them to perfection, season with an advanced social conscience and a mission to help change the world, flavor with a very savvy sense of marketing and business and you might end up with one of the most successful specialty coffee businesses in the world. Ask the founders of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the specialty coffee business that started as a small café in Waterbury, Vermont back in 1981 and recorded nearly $350 million in sales in fiscal 2007.

The road to success for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has been a series of excellent business decisions coupled with right-place-right-time social policies. The Green Mountain label stands for excellent coffee combined with a mission to make a difference in the world. That mission imbues everything that the company does, from sourcing their coffees to point of sale and beyond – the company even uses recycled/recyclable packaging materials. Mission and social responsibility aside, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters owes its success to one factor – the amazing flavor.

The Green Mountain brand is built on high quality specialty coffees. The company began as a small café in Vermont, with a commitment to serving specialty coffees roasted on premises. It wasn’t long before restaurants and shops in town started asking to serve Green Mountain’s coffee. When skiers who had tried Green Mountain’s specialty coffees while on vacation started asking if they could order coffee and have it sent to their homes, the company added its mail order business, and things just grew from there. These days, you can buy Green Mountain Roasters specialty coffees in your supermarket or order it online, sign up for Café Express to have Green Mountain coffee delivered to you automatically, drink Green Mountain coffee at many of your favorite restaurants, and buy Green Mountain coffee pre-packed into Keurig K-cups – Green Mountain sells the most varieties of coffees in K-cups of any of the Keurig partners.

The connection with Keurig is not the first strategic market placement decision that’s paid off for Green Mountain. Many avid fans got their first taste of Green Mountain’s specialty roasts at a most unexpected place – local convenience stores like 7-11 and Store 24, Gas-n-Go shops and other on-the-run coffee pickup spots where the last thing you expect is excellent coffee. As the various convenience stores have expanded their repertoire to include self-service coffee bars – and the technology for making good coffee has improved – Green Mountain has often been the coffee served.

Who Is Green Mountain Coffee Roasters?

Why not ask the company themselves? According to their press releases:

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was ranked No. 1 on the list of “100 Best Corporate Citizens” in 2006 and 2007, and has been recognized repeatedly by Forbes, Fortune Small Business, and the Society of Human Resource Management as an innovative, high-growth, socially responsible company.

Is the coffee really as good as all that? With the fastest growing sales in the industry, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters stands by quality as a watchword. They send coffee sourcers throughout the world to taste and test the crops at coffee plantations in Africa, Asia and South America, bringing back the best that they find. Unlike the biggest chains that must be able to buy in large enough volume to supply hundreds or thousands of stores with any variety they choose, Green Mountain has no issues with selling limited edition coffees, often as single origin coffees.

Green Mountain Coffee Sourcing

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is also popular with “socially conscious” consumers who love the company’s environmentally and community-friendly policies. The company makes every attempt to source directly from growers around the world, and is one of the leading buyers in the Fair Trade coffee market. Green Mountain buyers work directly with coffee growers whenever possible. It is their commitment to high quality coffee and improving the world that has spurred the roasting company’s success.

Favorite Green Mountain Coffee Blends

If you’ve never tried Green Mountain Coffee, one of the best ways to get a real feel for the brand’s variety of flavors is to order one of the company’s variety samplers. If you’d rather pick and choose your own sampler pack, here’s a list of all-time favorite Green Mountain Coffee Blends.

Breakfast Blend – The #1 all time favorite and best seller, lighter roast, rich taste and medium acidity

Nantucket Blend – Exotic blend, full-bodied with a hint of floral and fruit, bright acidity and complex flavor

Dark Magic – An extra bold dark roast specially blended and roasted for espresso

Wild Mountain Blueberry – Seasonal flavored coffee that has become one of Green Mountain’s most popular coffees ever

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Brian Jenkins asked:


There are many excellent reasons why a company would choose to provide coffee for its employees, customers and clients, but can you really save money using a coffee service? When you count in all of the costs associated with providing coffee for your business, you may be pleasantly surprised to find out just how cost-effective it can be to use a coffee service for your office coffee needs. Take a look at some of the obvious, and not so obvious, cost benefits of using a coffee service as opposed to providing the same coffee and machine on your own.

The Cost of the Coffee Machine



When considering the cost of the coffee machine, be sure to evaluate your office’s needs in terms of cups of coffee served per day. If you’re making more than two or three pots of coffee a day for your office or company, chances are that a coffee maker designed for use in a home kitchen just won’t do. While you may not need a coffee machine designed for restaurant or coffee shop use, you do need one that will handle higher traffic than the typical kitchen coffee maker or you’ll be replacing the coffee machine every few months. A coffee maker that can handle the typical office or business traffic will easily cost you upwards of $150-$200, while a top-of-the-line coffee machine or a coffee vending machine can easily run into the thousands of dollars.

By contrast, most office coffee service companies provide a high quality, professional coffee maker for free as long as you contract to buy a minimum amount of coffee and supplies through their service.

The Cost of Coffee through an Office Coffee Service



Office coffee service companies tend to buy their materials from coffee suppliers in large quantities. These companies are usually able to get a discounted price for the coffee that they buy. In general, you won’t pay more for coffee bought through an office coffee service than you would if you bought the coffee at your local supermarket or through a coffee subscription service. There are, however, many other ways that you’ll see savings when you buy coffee through a coffee service.

- Coffee ordered from a coffee service is delivered directly to your office on a pre-determined schedule. That means that no one has to spend time shopping for coffee and no one has to run out in the middle of the day to buy coffee because you’ve run out.

- Generally, the coffee service will deliver coffee packaged in pre-measured pouches just right for making one pot of coffee. That helps you control the amount of coffee that’s used per pot, potentially saving you money on every pot of coffee.

- If you choose a single serve coffee system, your potential savings are even greater. Because your employees will be making coffee to order, one cup at a time, you won’t be pouring old coffee down the drain because it’s become undrinkable.

In addition to the savings you’ll get by choosing a coffee service, you’ll also be serving better coffee. You won’t be brewing up ground coffee that’s gone stale in the can or the bag because your coffee will be in vacuum packed pouches or cups until just before you brew it.

Save Money on Supplies and Equipment through an Office Coffee Service



Your coffee supplier will also offer a range of coffee making equipment and supplies to mix with your coffee. That means that you won’t be paying supermarket prices for cream, milk, sugar and creamer for office use. Similar to the coffee, you’ll be able to purchase office coffee supplies through your coffee service in individual serving packets, which is both more sanitary and more economical. You won’t be throwing away cream or milk that’s gone bad in the refrigerator, or running down to the store to pick up another quart of milk before a big meeting.

Those supplies also include napkins, coffee cups and stirrers. Disposable coffee supplies are optional, of course, but could be an enormous boon if you regularly serve coffee to clients or customers.

Save Money on Repairs, Service and Replacement



One expense that’s not often counted when you’re calculating the cost of providing coffee at the office is the cost of maintenance. A coffee machine requires regular maintenance and cleaning in order to continue making good coffee. A broken coffee carafe often means buying a new coffee maker because it can be difficult to replace the carafe with the right size.

When you use an office coffee service, your service provider takes on the responsibility for maintaining and servicing your machine on a regular schedule. If your coffee machine malfunctions, the coffee service will replace or repair it, often within 24 hours so that you’re not left without a functioning coffee machine for your employees and customers. Depending on your contract with the coffee service, those replacements may be at no cost to you, or at a very nominal cost.

An office coffee service isn’t right for every office, but if your company provides coffee for employees or for customers and clients, it’s an option well worth exploring. If you’re considering using an office coffee service, the points above can help you make a realistic analysis of your possible savings.



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Paolo Brainard M. Reyes asked:


The History of Coffee — No one really knows how coffee originated; its origin was lost in legends worldwide. However, a frequently told story that the history of coffee is attributed its discovery to a 16th Century herd of hungry goats and their Ethiopian caretaker named Kaldi. The goats, tired of searching for greener pasture, began to nibble the sweet red berries from a strange and unknown bush. Soon unusual behaviour followed, the herd became friskier and begun to kick their heels; witnessing the lively behaviour, Kaldi decided to taste the berries. Soon after, he became restless as well. He then shared his discovery to a monk and the news was brought to a monastery. The monk started serving them in the monastery and their evening prayers suddenly became more pleasant. The glories of the magical berries then begun to spread rapidly.

Coffee was then considered as a standard Ethiopian tribal food. They mixed the coffee berries with animal fat, rolled them into balls, and ate them when they travel at night which made them awake and alert. Below is the time line in the evolution of coffee.

 

1st Century

By the 1st Century, Arab traders brought back coffee to Arabia and cultivate the plant for the first time on plantations. They created a drink out of the berries and called it “qahwa”; which literally translates as “that which prevents sleep”

15th Century

Around 1453, coffee was introduced into Constantinople by the Turks and the first ever coffee shop, Kiva Kan, opened there in 1475.

16th Century

Jesuit missionaries then brought arabica coffee beans to the country of Colombia. The volcanic soil of the Andes Mountains, along with the mild temperatures and abundant rainfall of the Colombian topography, provided ideal growing conditions enabling the coffee plants to flourish.

By the late 1500’s, the first traders were selling coffee in Europe, thus introducing the new beverage into Western life. The Dutch planted coffee in their tropical colonies of Batavia and Java, while the French planted it in Martinique in 1723 and later on in the Antilles. The English, Spaniards and Portuguese followed suit in their own colonies.

17th Century

In 1607, coffee was thought to have been introduced to the ‘New World’ by Captain John Smith; the founder of Virginia.

In 1652, the first coffeehouse opens in England. Coffee houses multiply and become such popular forums for intellectual discussions that they are dubbed “penny universities” (a penny being the price of a cup of coffee).

In 1668, Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse opens in England and is frequented by merchants and maritime insurance agents. Eventually it becomes Lloyd’s of London, the best-known insurance company in the world.

In 1672, the coffee shop opened in Paris.

In 1675, the Turkish Army surrounded Vienna. Franz Georg Kolschitzky, a Viennese who had lived in Turkey, slips through the enemy lines to lead relief forces to the city. The fleeing Turks leave behind sacks of “dry black fodder” that Kolschitzky recognizes as coffee. He claimed them as his reward and opened central Europe’s first coffee house. He also establishes the habit of refining the brew by filtering out the grounds, sweetening it, and adding a dash of milk.

With a coffee plant smuggled out of the Arab port of Mocha in 1690, the Dutch become the first to transport and cultivate coffee commercially, in Ceylon and in their East Indian colony – Java, source of the brew’s nickname.

18th Century

In 1713, King Louis XIV was presented with a coffee tree. It is believed that coffee additives was first used as coffee additive in his courts.

1721: First coffee house opens in Berlin.

1723: French naval officer Gabriel Mathieu do Clieu stole a coffee seedlings and transported it to Martinique. Within 50 years, official survey recorded 19 million coffee trees on Martinique. Eventually, 90 percent of the world’s coffee spreads from this plant.

In 1727, coffee growing started in northern Brazil through Lieutenant colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta who was sent by government to arbitrate a border dispute between the French and the Dutch colonies in Guiana. Not only did he settled the dispute, but also came up with a secret liaison with the wife of French Guiana’s governor. Although France guarded its New World coffee plantations to prevent cultivation from spreading, the lady said good-bye to Palheta with a bouquet in which she hid cuttings and fertile seeds of coffee

19th Century

The first espresso machine might have been invented in France at the start of the 19th century. But the first manufactured machine is said to have happened 100 years later in Italy.

In 1886, former wholesale grocer Joel Cheek names his popular coffee blend “Maxwell House,” after the hotel in Nashville, TN where it was served.

20th Century

The 20th century saw a major evolution of coffeein the way it was made and served.



In 1900, Hills Bros. begins packing roast coffee in vacuum tins, spelling the end of the ubiquitous local roasting shops and coffee mills.

In 1901 a Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato of Chicago, created the first soluble “instant” coffee.

In 1903 a German coffee importer, Ludwig Roselius and a team of researchers perfected the process of removing the caffeine content from the coffee beans without destroying the flavour. He marketed it under the brand name we still know today, “Sanka.”

In 1905 the first commercial espresso machine was manufactured in Italy.





In 1906, George Constant Washington, an English chemist living in Guatemala, notices a powdery condensation forming on the spout of his silver coffee carafe. After experimentation, he creates the first mass-produced instant coffee (his brand is called Red E Coffee).

In 1908 Melitta Bentz invented the world’s first drip coffeemaker by using blotting paper.

In 1933 Dr. Ernest Illy developed the first automatic espresso machine.

In 1938 Nescafé instant coffee was invented by the Swiss Nestlé company, to aid the Brazilian government in solving its coffee surplus problem.

In 1945 Achilles Gaggia perfected the espresso machine with a piston that creates a high pressure extraction to produce the thick layer of crema that we all love today.

In 1971, Starbucks opens its first store in Seattle’s Pike Place public market, creating a frenzy over fresh-roasted whole bean coffee.

In 1979, Mr Cappuccino opens for business.

In 1991, Caffè Carissimi Canada, a network of espresso service providers is formed in Canada, modeled after a visit to Franco Carissimi (roaster and equipment manufacturer) in Bergamo Italy. It becomes the fastest growing network of private and independant super automatic machines providers in Canada.

In 1995, Coffee is the world’s most popular beverage. More than 400 billion cups are consumed each year. It is a world commodity that is second only to oil.



Visit www.coffeetology.com for more facts and trivia about coffee…



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Mike Cole asked:


What is the first thing that most workers do when they get to work? Is it sit down and immediately become productive? Probably not. Most likely they head for the coffee. They grab a cup of coffee, say a quick hello to their co-workers, and then they start their daily tasks. For many workers, if they were to skip those first five coffee minutes, they wouldn’t feel like they would be able to be very productive in the morning. In fact, a lot of ideas start flowing around the coffee area first thing in the morning as workers come to life and start to chat.

If this is what happens regularly in your place of business, and you feel like you spend more time restocking the coffee supplies than you do the rest of your job, it might be time to consider hiring a coffee service. A coffee service can routinely stock your coffee supplies, making sure that you never run out (and you know you don’t want that to happen). That’s not all a coffee service can do, though.

What a coffee service can supply

Yes, coffee services deliver coffee. But they do so much more.

Provide coffee and coffee related beverages such as cappuccino, espresso, teas, hot chocolates and other hot beverages based on your companies needs. A coffee service should be able to determine how much your place of business will need based on the number of employees. Provide the machines to brew the beverages in. Provide disposable cups and lids, napkins, and stir sticks. Provide sugar and sugar substitutes, creamers, non-dairy creamers, flavored syrups, honey and other items that routinely go into hot beverages. Water delivery – water coolers, individual bottles of water, and water filtration devices. Provide foods such as cup of soup and oatmeal that can be made quickly the hot water from the coffee machine. Offer other light snacks and beverages such as juices or soft drinks.

Other services a coffee service may be able to perform

Maintenance of machines – Machines need to be routinely cleaned to provide the best tasting beverages, and a coffee service will do this task for you making sure it’s done regularly and done right. If a machine breaks down, a coffee service can fix it or replace it, ensuring that there is minimal disruption of the availability of coffee in your place of business. Rental of additional machinery for special events – Sometimes you need additional supplies for a conference or other special event. A coffee service can rent you extra brewing machines, carafes, durable mugs, and other supplies you don’t want to have on hand every day. Of course, the service can provide you with the additional coffee, tea, creamers, sugars and other supplies you’ll need for your event. Same day service for “emergencies” – Okay, so running out of coffee may not be an emergency of say Hurricane Katrina proportions, but a lack of coffee can be disastrous to productivity and moral. If the coffee runs out or a machine breaks down, many coffee services will say “help is on the way” the same day. Vending services – Some coffee services stay in the beverage and light snack area, while others combine their services with other services such as vending machines for snacks and cold beverages, microwaves and microwavable meals for employees, and all of the cups, plates, napkins, utensils, and condiments that are needed for those services. Green your coffee offerings – Everyone’s doing an environmental part these days. Some coffee services may be able to help you green your office’s coffee by having options such as organic or fair trade coffees, teas and sweeteners, cups made from recycled materials that can also be recycled, compostable stir sticks, and other eco-friendly products.

Hiring a coffee service for your place of business can save you a lot of time, a lot of headaches (both figuratively and literally), and even save you money. Replacing over worked coffee machines routinely and buying coffee, teas and their accompaniments at retail prices can really add up. Coffee from a service can cost as little as 10 cents a cup.

A good coffee service will come out and provide you with a tasting of their coffees and other beverages before you purchase. They will also speak to you at length about the coffee habits of the people you work with so they can determine your needs. Many coffee services will also throw in the first coffee machine for free as a bonus to signing on to their service. Shop around for the best office coffee service in your area.



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