December 13th, 2009 by Ned Marks
I am simply amazed at the variety of coffee lovers’ gift baskets that are available today. One of my real coffee-loving friends had an upcoming birthday, and I had determined that I would send him a gift basket made up of coffee and coffee items. We had shared many cups of coffee over the years, and it seemed like an appropriate and thoughtful gift for my old friend.
The idea sounded simple enough, I thought. I would just go online, find a nice coffee gift basket and have it sent to him. Problem solved! That was before I discovered how many choices there were available. It was a mind-boggling array.
I had the option of choosing a gift basket that was already made up and consisted of a variety of gourmet coffees.…
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December 11th, 2009 by Ned Marks
I have friends who merely like coffee, and then I have friends who are true coffee lovers but are stuck on only one kind of coffee. I also have a few friends who are real coffee lovers and who also have adventuresome taste buds. They are the ones who go to Starbucks and order a different coffee every time. This last group is the one that I send gourmet coffee gifts to.
Coffee, you see, is a universal beverage. Coffee is served in some form in almost every country on this planet. Coffee that is served in different parts of the world bear little resemblance to one another, and yet they are all coffee. Coffees made from coffee beans that are grown in different regions of the world have tastes that are unique. For…
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December 7th, 2009 by Ned Marks
I have a dotty old uncle who lives alone and drinks his coffee right out of the coffee pot. He doesn’t bother to pour his coffee into a cup…maybe washing a coffee cup just makes more work…who knows?
Most people, however, prefer to drink their coffee out of a coffee cup or a coffee mug. It is the civilized thing to do.
When people buy place settings of fine china of just a set of everyday dishes, the thing that determines their choice is the shape and size of the cup. After all, plates, bread plates, soup or cereal bowls, saucers, and other pieces in a place setting or set of dishes are all pretty much the same. They may come in varying sizes and the patterns are different, but still they are all basically the same design.…
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December 5th, 2009 by Ned Marks
I love my coffee mug! I use it everyday. There isn’t anything particularly fancy or special about my coffee mug, except that is my coffee mug and it holds enough coffee to actually do some good, unlike those itty bitty cups with the tiny little handles that my wife prefers. I hate those cups. My fingers get stuck in the handles and they don’t hold enough coffee.
Not that I have ever paid a lot of attention to my coffee mug. It is just there every morning. I fill it up with coffee and carry it around with me from room to room as I prepare to go to work, or it sits within easy reach as I read my newspaper. It keeps the coffee hot for awhile, and I don’t have to…
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November 25th, 2009 by Ned Marks
The aroma of freshly ground coffee beans is like no other aroma on earth. It is almost intoxicating, and certainly warm and inviting. That aroma that has an underlying nutty essence is unquestionably one of the most pleasant odors on earth.
That wonderful aroma is likely one of the reasons that so many people now own coffee bean grinders and grind their own beans to make every pot of coffee.
Grinding coffee isn’t a new thing. In the old days, people actually used a bowl and pestle to grind coffee as well as wheat and corn. Using a bowl and a pestle to grind coffee required muscle power and time…a lot of time. As mankind got smarter, hand grinders were invented that made the task of grinding coffee much less physically challenging as well as quicker.
Manual coffee grinders were used for many, many years. In…
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November 11th, 2009 by Ned Marks
Mankind (and womankind) has been drinking coffee for thousands of years. There are several stories about how the coffee bean was discovered and by whom, but it doesn’t really matter much. Today coffee is brewed and severed in countries around the world.
Coffee is named many times for the region in which the beans are grown; Blue Jamaican Coffee, for example. Sometimes, though, coffee is named for the country or area that brews it; Turkish coffee, Italian coffee, etc. Coffees are varied, and so are the methods used for brewing it.
Turkish Briki: The coffee that is used in the Briki is powdered. It takes between 7 and 11 minutes to make a cup of coffee using the Briki. The coffee is very strong but clear.
Espresso Machine: Very fine coffee grounds are used in an espresso machine. It takes between 12 and 17 minutes to…
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