November 11th, 2009 by editor
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 make 5 cups (4 oz) of coffee using an espresso machine. The coffee is very strong and muddy.
French Press Plunger: This coffee pot…
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November 9th, 2009 by editor
There are as many opinions about what a great cup of coffee consists of as there are coffee drinkers in the world. Every coffee drinker knows exactly what he or she wants in a good cup of coffee. Some like it hot, some like it cold, but very few like it in a pot nine days old…..as the old nursery rhyme goes.
The one thing that all coffee drinks will agree on is that coffee needs to be freshly made. About the only other thing that coffee drinkers will agree on is that the best coffee is made in a clean coffee maker. The pot doesn’t need to be “well seasoned.” It needs to be well cleaned after every use.
There are a great many coffee-pot-cleaning products out there on the shelves of your local supermarket or chain discount store. All of them work when they are used as directed, but you honestly do not have to buy the products in order to keep your coffee maker clean. Granted, these products do make keeping your coffee maker…
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October 29th, 2009 by editor
Calculating what the actual cost of a cup of coffee is ranks right up there with the necessary mathematical challenges of quantum physics. You might not have even considered what the price of a cup of coffee that you brew at home actually costs.
You don’t buy the makings for your coffee by the cup. You buy a pound (we still say a “pound” of coffee even though that “pound” is now 13 ounces rather than 16 ounces) of coffee at your local supermarket. You take it home and store it, and then you make pots of coffee using the ground coffee, but you drink that coffee by the cup — not by the pot or by the pound or even by the ounce.
So what is the real cost of a cup of coffee that you make at home? I have no idea, and you probably don’t, either. The first consideration is the kind and brand of coffee that you buy. Then you must consider the strength of the coffee that you brew…
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October 23rd, 2009 by editor
Those who love espresso coffee also love their espresso coffee makers. When you happen to overhear them discussing their espresso coffee makers, you would think they were debating the advantage one sports car has over another rather than coffee makers.
There are espresso coffee machine owners who believe that nothing can possibly compare to the coffee that a manual espresso coffee maker brews. There are those who swear that only the semiautomatic variety will make really, REALLY good coffee. Then there are those who wouldn’t dream of owning anything other than a fully automatic espresso coffee maker.
According to them, only the fully automatic espresso coffee maker can make perfect coffee every time. And so, the debate rages on!
The manual espresso coffee machine owners tell you (and anybody else who will listen) that their manual machines give them full control of the coffee-making process,…
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October 6th, 2009 by editor
One of the secrets of making really good coffee is the filter that you use in your coffee maker. The standard paper filters are abundant, and the ones that are most often used. Barring other choices, they are at least sufficient. You certainly should not ever make coffee in an automatic drip coffee maker or in a percolator without using a filter. If you do, there will be little coffee grounds floating in the pot of coffee.
If you are going to use the paper coffee filters in your coffee maker, you need to buy the ones that actually fit your coffee maker. Paper coffee filters do come in various sizes and are made for specific brands of coffee makers. The reason that it is important that the coffee filter is a perfect fit for the coffee maker is that a coffee filter that is either too large or too…
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October 4th, 2009 by editor
There was a fellow that I talked to not long ago that I hadn’t seen in a good many years. The first thing that he said to me was, “I remember a cup of coffee that I had at your house about twenty years ago. It was the best cup of coffee that I have ever had in my life!” Of all the things that he could have said, that would have been my last guess. But that is exactly what he said.
There are a few basics that go into making a perfect cup of coffee. First your coffee maker must be kept clean. Making coffee time after time after time without cleaning the coffee maker will make the coffee bitter. All coffee makers must be cleaned regularly — both drip makers and percolators.
There are two ways to clean coffee makers. The first way is that after every…
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