Coffee Biz

There is less caffeine in dark roast than in medium roast. It is because, the longer the beans are roasted, the more caffeine burns off.

Ants don’t like coffee, so you can use coffee to keep them away from you plants or out of your rooms. Just put the used coffee grounds around the plants or on the ant tracks in your house.

Coffee, n. break fluid.
~Author Unknown

There is a lot of information on the Internet about foaming milk. Many people have something to say about this and not everybody agrees with certain techniques. However, if you stick to some basic rules then you can have good quality milk for Caffe Latte’s and Cappuccino’s in no time.

The most important thing that you should think about is control. You need control over the jug, so you will need to control the jug with two hands. Do not do other things whilst you are steaming your milk, focus entirely on the milk.

You are looking for milk that is around 60 to 65 degrees Celsius and that has smooth and shiny foam without any visible bubbles.

Here are some basic rules that you should stick to:

- Use fresh milk, the milk should come straight out of the fridge
- Start with a clean cold jug and use the right size of jug
- Steam only the amount of milk that you need. You can add extra milk if you like so you can texture longer to make the milk even smoother
- Foam the milk only when it is below 40 degress Celsius, foaming above this temperature will create hard bubbles that you don’t want
- When you stretch the milk to create foam by just breaking the surface with the tip of the steam wand, do it bit by bit. You should hear the foam being created but you should not see any bubbles
- When you have stretched the milk enough and you are happy with the amount of foam then place the steam wand a little deeper into the milk. Create a whirpool inside the jug, you should see the milk moving around a lot. This will break down any existing bubbles and makes your foam smooth and shiny. There is absolutely no need to move the jug up and down, just keep it still, the angle of the steam from the steam wand does the trick for you.

And don’t forget to turn the steam off before you take the steam wand out of the jug.

• Acidic: Very desirable coffee quality, sharpness detected towards front of mouth; denotes quality and altitudel can be fruity (citrusy, lemony, berry-like. etc) or a pure tongue-tip numbing sensation.
• Bitter: Basic flavor sensation detected at the back of the mouth and soft-palate, often as after-taste, sometimes desirable to a limited degree (as in dark-roast, espresso). Not to be confused with acidity.
• Fruity: Flavor / aroma often found in good arabica coffees, reminiscent of a wide range of fruits: citrus, berries, currants, etc, always accompanied by some degree of acidity; this is usually positive, but can indicate over ripeness or over-fermentation.
• Clean: Pure coffee flavor, no twists or changes in the mouth, no different after-taste (Costa Rica sometimes provides good examples).
• Dry: A certain type of acidity and / or mouth feel, but not, as in wine, the opposite of sweet; often accompanies light, or even delicate coffees, such as Mexican, Ethiopian and Yemeni.
• Earthy: Aroma / flavor reminiscent of damp black earth, organic, mushroomy, cellar-like.
• Neutral: Bland coffee, very low acidity, not derogatory, as implies no off-tastes; good for blending (often describes many ordinary Brazilian arabicas).
• Rancid / Rotten: The flavor of a spoiled oily product, as in rancid nuts or rancid olive oil; fairly disgusting; can cause involuntary gagging.

• Germany is the world’s second largest consumer of coffee in terms of volume at 16 pounds per person.
• Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.
• An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2,000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
• The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their coffee.
• With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.
• Up until the 1870′s most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over a charcoal fire. -It wasn’t until recent times that batch roasting became popular.
• Each year some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide. Most of which is hand picked.
• Major per-capita consumers of coffee are Canada, the United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Nordic countries.
• 27% of U.S. coffee drinkers and 43% of German drinkers add a sweetener to their coffee.
• The world’s largest coffee producer is Brazil with over 3,970 million coffee trees. Colombia comes in second with around two thirds of Brazil’s production.
• Hard bean means the coffee was grown at an altitude above 5000 feet.
• Arabica and Robusta trees can produce crops for 20 to 30 years under proper conditions and care.
• Most coffee is transported by ships. Currently there are approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the beans each year.
• The popular trend towards flavored coffees originated in the United States during the 1970′s.
• October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.