What is caffeine, anyway?
Those crazy chemists call it C8H10N4O2, and doctors think it's hip to refer to it as trimethylxanthine. But to everyone else, caffeine is a popular mild stimulant. Essentially it keeps a person awake for a while, and causes an increase in heart beat speed and metabolism speed. Caffeine is a drug, of course, and it is possible to overdose. However, unless you're a baby or have severe health problems it's pretty damn difficult to die from a caffeine overdose.
How much caffeine is in espresso? How about drip coffee?
That's a tough question. First of all, before roasting, a coffee bean has a caffeine content of somewhere between one percent and one and a half percent. So there's some variation to be expected. However, you can expect to find about 100 mg of caffeine in a shot of espresso, and about 130 mg of caffeine in a cup (around 8 oz) of coffee. The caffeine content in drip coffee varies more than espresso because espresso is generally made with a very dark roast, whereas the roast, grind, filter, etc. tend to vary with drip coffee.
What does caffeine do to the taste of coffee and espresso?
Caffeine is an alkaloid, so it adds a very bitter flavor
Is caffeine detrimental to one's health?
Unless a person suffers from heart conditions, probably not. Even then, it's unlikely to cause problems if consumed moderately and evenly over time. An article in the November 2002 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that it may not be caffeine that causes a rise in blood pressure when drinking coffee, because drinking decaf also causes a rise in blood pressure. Of course, I'm not licensed to give medical advice, so you should take everything I say about medicine with a grain of salt (unless you have high blood pressure, of course) and go ask your doctor.
Is caffeine addictive?
Caffeine is generally not thought to be physically addictive, because the withdrawal symptoms are relatively minor. Still, if you want to reduce your caffeine intake or even (*gasp!*) quit altogether, you are probably better off reducing your intake slowly over a period of time to avoid possible headaches.
How much caffeine does it take to overdose?
The amount of caffeine required to have an unpleasant experience varies significantly from person to person. However, it has been estimated that it would take 10 grams of caffeine or more (around 100 cups of coffee) to kill a healthy adult.
Posted in Coffee Beans
The environment and labor issues may seem like unrelated topics. But workers are people, people are animals, and animals are an important part of the environment.
Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. The real reason I'm lumping these two issues together is that coffee retailers often do the same thing. But they're (mostly) two separate issues so I'm going to address them separately anyhow.
The environment
Like all farming, there are environmental problems associated with growing coffee on a large-scale farm. Pesticides, fertilizers, and to some extent genetic modification may increase profits, but only at the long term expense of damaging our little planet.
But with coffee in particular, there is another issue -- coffee has to be grown in tropical areas, which often (but not always) means using rainforests as farms. While coffee has been grown in the shade of the rainforest for generations, there was a period in which it was thought (mostly by the US) that sun grown coffee would be a better idea.
In the 70s and 80s, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) paid coffee farmers to technify their farms. This meant cutting down large areas of the rainforest, planting only coffee trees (this is known as monocropping) and using pesticides and fertilizers. Not only does this ruin the rainforest, but it's also not a sustainable farming technique. This means that coffee can be grown in a location until the soil is ruined by a lack of nutrients or pesticide pollution.
Most brand-name coffee is still made this way, but some brands are now returning to old fashioned, sustainable shade-grown coffee farming. It can actually be cheaper for the farmer in some cases and it's always better for the environment.
If you want to help protect what's left of the rainforest, ask about the coffee you buy, whether it be in a cafe or the grocery store or the internet. If you've tried both "modern" and organic coffee, it's not just your imagination: old fashion, organic coffee farming results in much better tasting coffee.
Worker issues
Coffee is a very labor-intensive crop, and most of the farming is done in "developing" countries. I don't think I need to tell you what that means in terms of worker conditions or worker's paychecks.
The term "fair trade" (or "fairtrade") is thrown around a lot, but what does it mean? There are multiple fair trade organizations, which could have made this all very confusing. Fortunately, there is a standard labeling organization. TransFair operates in many coffee-consuming countries and roasters who meet certain criteria (and pay a fee) can use the TransFair logo on fair trade coffees. In some countries, this logo is a black and white person holding two bowls. In others, the logo is a blue and green ying-yangish thing with a green leaf and a person in the middle.
To be considered fair trade, coffee has to be imported directly from a farm run as a co-op (or similar organization) rather than through a middleman. There are also base prices that have to be paid to the farmers which vary according to market pricing. Also, financial has to be made available to the farmers if they need it.
Now if you're the typical capitalist sitting at your oversized desk, marking your next shoe-shine appointment on your calendar, you're probably thinking, "Hey wait! If we pay these farmers more than we have to, how will this benefit me? Won't it just cost more?"
Well think about it -- what if you were a farmer living on a couple bucks a day? Would you want to work hard? Would you even be able to work very well if you were starving? Fair trade coffee can be quite a bit better tasting (but isn't always) because it's made by farmers who are able to care about what they're doing instead of praying for their next paycheck.
As for the price, fair trade coffee doesn't always cost more than "unfair" trade coffee. Since the coffee has to be imported directly from a co-op, there are no middlemen who cost you money but contribute nothing.
Besides, don't you want to be able to sleep at night knowing you're not needlessly oppressing farmers in developing countries?
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Coffee Beans
There's a time and place for everything. For coffee, the time is now and the place is... I think it'll take a bit of explaining. Read on.
Raw beans
Before roasting, raw (green) coffee can be stored in sacks, bags, barrels... it hardly matters. Unroasted coffee will keep for months in moderate storage conditions. In fact, why not fill your basement with green coffee and swim through it?
Roasted beans
After roasting, however, care must be taken to ensure that the beans don't lose their flavor or oils. Store your beans in an airtight container twelve hours after roasting -- any sooner and the container may explode due to carbon dioxide release from the beans. (This is why freshly roasted vacuum-sealed coffee has to include one-way valve in the packaging.)
It's also vital to keep coffee at room temperature and out of direct sunlight. If coffee gets too hot it will lose its aroma. On the other hand, don't put your coffee in the freezer or it'll collect condensation and you'll be left with soggy beans. Eww!
According to The Joy of Cooking, there is another reason that coffee beans shouldn't be refrigerated or frozen -- they will absorb smells. Before baking soda was used to absorb the stench of rotting leftovers, people used coffee. My, isn't coffee versatile? So if you kept your coffee in the fridge for a week and now your espresso comes out smelling like garlic and pizza sauce, you'll know why.
Posted in Coffee Beans
Most people who drink coffee don't know much about where it comes from. But that doesn't give you the right to remain an ignoramus!
Coffee plants are actually trees, believe it or not. Most farmers keep the trees rather short to make harvesting easier. The best of these trees are grown in the shade of the South American rainforest. Almost all the world's coffee is produced near the equator as coffee does best in tropical environments. Coffee trees need quite a bit of water, shade, and sun, but don't require good soil. They do produce more coffee with fertilizer, which presents some environmental problems.
Coffee berries
Coffee beans are actually the seeds of a small berry (sometimes called a cherry.) Each berry contains two green coffee beans, although mutations are not uncommon (kind of like with peanuts.)
Types of plants
There are only two types of coffee trees that are grown today on commercial coffee plantations. Let's compare the two, shall we?
Arabica (coffea arabica) is the better of the two. It's cultivated in the Americas as well as parts of Africa and Asia, but can only grow at relatively high altitudes. Around 75% of all coffee grown today is arabica.
Robusta (coffea Canephora) contains more caffeine than arabica and has a bitter taste. Robusta is primarily cultivated in Africa. Since instant coffee tastes awful no matter what you do to it, the majority of instant coffee is made with Robusta. It's a more robust plant (see where the name comes from?) than arabica so it's easier -- and cheaper -- to grow.
Harvesting and processing
Coffee berries turn red when ripe; that's when they should be harvested since the berries can't ripen when removed from the plant. In spite of this, some coffee farms pick all the berries at once (known as "strip picking.") This reduces the labor but not all of the beans will be ripe, so the quality of the coffee suffers.
On the other hand, traditional harvesting is extremely labor intensive -- it can take up to a week for a single farmer to hand-pick enough coffee to fill a 100 pound bag with beans. Considering seven million tons of coffee are produced each year, it takes a large number of workers to pick enough fruit to keep up with demand.
Native origin of coffee
Coffee is believed to have originated in the Ethiopian rainforest. If geography isn't your best subject -- and it was never mine despite a cow-crazed seventh grade teacher's torturous tests -- Ethiopia is a landlocked country in eastern Africa, south of the Red Sea and north of the Indian Ocean. Don't you feel smarter now?
Weird fact to tell your friends
Some people grow coffee plants indoors. These are usually grown for their looks (tall, shiny green leaves) and sweet smelling flowers, and because of this they often won't produce much -- if any -- coffee. It takes four years before a coffee plant bears fruit, and people tend not to keep their indoor plants that long anyhow. Weird eh?
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Coffee Beans
Deciding what beans to buy can be a daunting task for a beginner. There are many variables to take into consideration. But rather than saying, "ah, screw it" and getting smashed with your friends, read through the rest of this page and you'll be scolding foolish Yuban customers in no time.
Bean classifications
Not all coffee is created equal. For that reason, you'll find that coffee is divided into a number of categories and sub-categories. For simplicity, I'm only going to explain the major categories of coffee here. One other thing -- if you don't know the difference between arabica and robusta (the two types of plants coffee beans come from) you might want to read the page on coffee plants.
- Milds are the arabica beans from plants grown at high altitudes. These produce the best coffee and are what you should always use for espresso.
- Brazils are arabica beans grown in Brazil. But here's where the classification system gets a bit screwy -- milds also come from Brazil. The difference is that "Brazils" are from plants grown at low altitudes. These beans will not be as good as milds, but are quite a bit cheaper.
- Robustas come from the inferior robusta plant. Don't even think about buying these flavorless and aroma-less beans.
Countries of origin
There are over three dozen coffee producing countries on this little planet. Each country's coffee is different; sometimes drastically different. Some you'll find more often than others. For example, you'll find Brazillian coffee just about everywhere. Within each country, every farm is going to have varying batches from one "season" to the next (coffee berries grow eight or more times a year.) Much like the IT industry, one coffee can be excellent today but mediocre or overpriced two months from now.
So since the information I could give you here would be outdated by the time you go to purchase coffee, I recommend finding a knowledgable seller and asking them for their recommendations. But do keep in mind that some of best coffee isn't terribly expensive. If your local coffee roaster is always trying to hawk their most expensive beans, perhaps you should look elsewhere.
Raw Beans
Ever see unroasted coffee? Raw beans smell kind of like grass, and are soft in texture. They tend to be shipped in burlaps sacks. I don't think it's possible to make coffee out of these, but if you did it would probably be completely disgusting. In fact, it might even taste like wheatgrass juice! Barf!
If you're going to buy unroasted beans and do your own roasting, feel free to skip the next section.
Roasts
Just about any coffee shop that roasts coffee will have a variety of roasted beans. If you find yourself wondering what the hell the difference between "House" and "Espresso" roasts is, you're not alone. Here are some common names you'll find:
- Light/Cinnamon Roast: These have been roasted very little. They'll produce an acidic, highly caffeinated coffee. It will be quite bitter. Contrary to the name, it does not contain cinnamon -- but the color is similar. You may not find this anywhere other than in North American.
- House/Medium/American Roast: This is simply a medium roast that any coffee shop in America will use for all their drip coffee. The cheap stuff (Yuban, Folgers, etc.) is often a medium roast.
- Dark/City Medium Roast: Darker roasts have less caffeine, and are less bitter and acidic. You'll notice that they're often sweeter than a medium. This is the lightest roast that's generally used for espresso.
- French/City Roast: This tends to be even darker than a dark roast. The beans should look very dark brown and oily. At coffee shops run by clueless people, this means the coffee will be burnt to a crisp and kind of disgusting. Some people use such burnt beans *cough* Starbucks *cough* for their espresso. Then again, some people also listen to Britney Spears voluntarily.
- Espresso/Italian/Full City/Very Dark Roast: This is the darkest roast, typically used only for espresso.
One thing you should keep in mind when purchasing roasted coffee is you have to judge the coffee by your own eyes. The aforementioned roast names above are somewhat vague and not completely universal. A good roaster will have suggestions for you if you're doing espresso. NONE of the coffee should look charcoal black -- the darker roasts should be oily and therefore shiny.
Now that you know what to look for in a roasted bean, you may be wondering what all this means. Simple: it's all chemistry. Chemistry was never my favorite subject, but fortunately, it's not very complicated if you remember some basic rules.
The darker beans should produce a slightly sweeter coffee, as the natural sugars in the beans will caramelize. As the roast gets darker some of the acid and some of the caffeine get burned off. This means that the lighter coffee is more bitter, acidic, and less sweet. For espresso almost everyone uses darker roasts are best, as they create (at least ideally) espresso that's sweet with a (relatively) less bitter aftertaste.
Blends
Blended coffee is (if you'll pardon the pun) a mixed bag. Sometimes roasters blend coffee to create consistent quality for consumers, which is awesome. Other times, cheap coffee is blended with better coffee to create an adequate cuppa joe that costs little to produce (but isn't necessarily cheaper for the consumer.) Espresso is almost always made using blends
You've probably seen a few common blends before -- even supermarkets stock blends labeled "Mocha Java." Mocha in this context refers to the coffees from Yemen and Ethiopia, and Java refers to Indonesian beans. Ideally, Java provides a good body and Mocha beans flavor the coffee. But it has nothing to do with a chocolaty espresso drink.
Not all blends are so simple. The ratio and content of many blends change as coffee fiends work in secret underground laboratories to achieve a perfect balance. Most roasters will sell their first born child before they'd tell anyone their top-secret blend recipes.
Flavored Beans
You've seen flavored coffee beans in grocery stores and import stores, but rarely in serious cafes. There is a reason for this: flavored beans tend to be made with low quality coffee. The flavor is supposed to mask the mediocrity but it rarely does. You'd might as well just buy your coffee at 7-11 if you can stomach flavored beans.
Where to buy
Just about everybody knows Illy, a top Italian coffee company. Their coffee is served at cafes worldwide. If you order online they'll throw in free shipping if you order enough (currently $75 or more.)
If you order coffee from BocaJava, you can not only get fresh, roasted-to-order coffee, but they'll throw in free shipping (some conditions apply, etc. etc.) Seems like a good deal.
CoffeeForLess.com has a wide variety of coffees -- some good, others bad (Folgers? Are you serious?) but they have real coffee at good prices as well as espresso machines, grinders, and -- get this -- battery powered mugs that mix and reheat your coffee! What'll they think of next?
Posted in Coffee Beans
