Plain coffee is fast becoming a thing of the past. It's now
quite simple to whip up a gourmet hot beverage for guest, family, or just for
yourself. Nowadays there are a number of coffee clubs and circles in which
coffee drinking has become somewhat of a social club. These social clubs meet
in the community or on the Internet.
Where did the good old days go where you could get just a
regular, good cup of coffee all across America.
It's all because there is a big craze over coffee these
days. People are almost worshipping the coffee bean now. People get a thrill
out of ordering and buying special coffees from speciality stores. They really
like grinding their own coffee beans. They like visiting places such as Costa
Rica and bringing back their special blends. And "coffee tasting"
seems to be about as popular as "wine tasting".
They even have furniture and home interior designs with a
coffee theme. This would make great gifts for the coffee buff.
Coffee got its beginnings around 900 A.D. where it was at first
used as a stimulant. It was also at times used as a wine and medicine. It
doesn't look like anything is much different today.
There are not many products such as coffee that have
continued "as is" for hundreds of years. And yet people are still scrutinizing
and getting creative with it today and probably will be for years to come.
What is also interesting is that coffee is second to oil in
dollar volume as a world commodity.
Did you know that there is two times more caffeine in a
pound of tea than in the same amount of roasted coffee? This may be good news
for those of you who hate the taste of decaffeinated coffee however wait just
one moment. A pound of tea will make about 160 cups whereas a pound of coffee
will usually make about 40 cups. This means that a cup of tea has about 1/4th
the caffeine of a cup of coffee.
The content of caffeine in coffee decreases as it is grown
at higher altitudes. If you want less caffeine in your coffee, grow it higher.
Gourmet coffees are typically grown at higher altitudes so they have less
caffeine than their grocery store counterparts.
There are many different types of coffee beans and way too
many to describe in this article. Here are just a few of them:
You have Latte, Espresso, Low-Fat, Organic, Cal, Decaf,
Half-Decaf, Black Forest, Cappuccino, Cafe au Lait, Alpine which has brown
sugar, Arabian (lightly spiced and without filter), Cafe con Miel (Spanish for
coffee with honey), and Cafe de Olla (a sweet coffee made with chocolate).
And you really should attend a coffee tasting at least once.
You will get to experience how making and brewing gourmet coffee is slowly
becoming a form of art. What is fun about the coffee tasting is that you could
get a chance to taste two dozen or more different blends. You may even leave to
start your journey as a coffee connoisseur. Any way you look at it, the tasting
experience will be fun if you like coffee.
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