Coffee Guide

There is good coffee and absolutely abysmal coffee. Both may start with the same elements, but one cup can taste completely different to another. Freshness is the key to great tasting coffee. Here is the play by play smackdown of how to create a fantastic tasting cup of coffee.

1.Use good beans. Go to a local coffee roaster and buy only enough coffee beans to last you a week. Buying fresh beans is one key to good taste. When you buy beans make sure the beans are all relatively the same size and same color for even grinding and flavor. If you buy beans from the supermarket at minimum, check to see if the beans are Arabica.

2.Use filtered water. Even if your coffee maker has a charcoal filter it is best to start off with filtered water to ensure there are no impurities like chlorine or minerals to alter the real taste. Use cold water.

3.For the best tasting coffee ensure you have a coffee maker which can brew up to 95 to 98 degrees Celsius, just off the boil. This temperature is the optimal temperature to get the best flavor out of the bean.

4.The grind. Only grind as much coffee as you are going to need for that moment. The finer you grind, the more flavor you will receive. The grind has to be even to ensure even taste. If you are using a cheap coffee maker you should only use a medium grind to avoid the over-extraction. However, grind to your equipment?s recommendations.

5.Use two level tablespoons of coffee per cup. If you are making more than 10-cups of coffee you should use the strength meter on its highest position possible to allow more water to penetrate the grounds evenly.

6.Use unbleached coffee filters or ensure your permanent filter is free from all coffee sludge. When it comes to coffee, cleanliness is next to Godliness.

7.Stir the pot. Once the coffee is brewed, stir the pot to infuse the taste.

At bare minimum, these steps should always be used when making coffee. Think about the farmer?s in the field, if you skip a step are you doing their hard work justice? On a selfish note, missing one of those steps will affect the taste of your coffee, even slightly. Other things to make a great cup of coffee are:

1.Always ensure your equipment is clean. Old coffee sludge can really change the taste of coffee. Polident can clean your equipment to almost new.

2.NEVER reuse coffee grinds.

3.NEVER grind beans just taken out of the freezer. Let them thaw first.

4.Always store coffee in air-tight containers away from direct sunlight.

5.NEVER leave the coffee on a heater for longer than ? an hour. It gets a burnt taste and smell.

6.Always warm your cup and never reheat coffee.

The best coffee starts with fresh beans, clean equipment and clean water. Adhering to at least those three guidelines will give you great tasting coffee. Everything else is just gravy.

Kate Simpson is a freelance writer who contributes for the Coffee Bean Queen – http://www.coffeebeanqueen.com/ ? a website offering information on everything from coffee to coffee making, capresso coffee and more.

I think the aroma of fresh coffee in the morning wakes up your senses and starts the day off with a feeling of vitality. With no coffee in the morning a lot of people have a hard time getting started. Coffee jump-starts my day.

I have used just about every type of coffeemaker there is. The percolators make a fine brew as do the programmable automatic ones. Whether you use glass or prefer stainless steel the finished product is only as good as the water you started with. Too much iron in the water tends to turn it green. Chlorine or fluoride will give the coffee an odd taste. Good water is essential. If you are lucky enough to have an artisan well I am jealous. I get coffee water from my neighbor, he has an artisan well with no iron.

I generally use a French Press coffeemaker but my favorite way to make the brew is with an egg.You are probably thinking, an egg? Yes, an egg. My great grandmother made egg coffee and it is a real treat. I make it for special occasions or when I want to share a cup with someone who has never heard of egg coffee.

To make egg coffee you need a clean pot and fresh cold water. I use an enamel one. Measure your coffee grounds into a cup and add a beaten egg. Stir the mixture into the cold water and put the pot over a low heat. Slowly heat to a boil, stirring often. When it comes to a boil, turn off the heat. Let sit for about two minutes then strain it into a cup.

That may sound like a lot of monkey business but I think it is well worth the effort. Coffee made like this over a campfire in the outdoors is delicious. At Christmas we add a little Irish Creme for flavor. Santa sure enjoys it.

I am such a cooking enthusiast that I made a website as a tribute to five generations of country cooks. You will find other cooking tips at http://www.pothaven.com

If you have been watching the stock charts at Starbucks you know that folks love Starbucks Coffee, some say they will drink nothing but Starbucks Coffee. The average store volumes are up 27% over last year and that means more and more people are becoming Starbucks Customers and more and more people are switching to Starbucks. It is truly amazing what Global Strategist Howard Schultz built; a world wide coffee brand which just keeps growing, where employees truly poor their heart into it with Starbuck?s Legendary Service. As a matter of fact let me recommend a book to you; ?Pour Your Heart Into It? By Howard Schultz; it is the History of the making of the greatest coffee house chain in the World; Starbucks.

In observing Starbuck?s Success in the market place it is quite fascinating indeed as people line up to over pay; that is to say pay three to four dollars for a cup of custom coffee. But why; well it is a combination of strategic locations, brand name, appealing coffee flavor and the fact that coffee is a basically a drug which effects the central nervous system of the human body in a way which pleases folks. All in all this proves to be quite the winning combination both for the customer and for Wall Street; think on it.

Lance Winslow

As the father of three children, one of whom has special needs, my daily break is often the morning commute. To make the most of this time, I need good music, the right seat position, and coffee – lots of it.

Obviously, drinking coffee in the car, while actively pursuing the fastest lane has its challenges. Over the years of searching for the right cup that doesn’t spill, fits in the cup holder, and is large enough to satisfy even the most cafeine addicted, I have come up with the solution.

You might think that a fancy metal mug would be best – wrong. While they look sharp, and have a solid feel, they just don’t have enough practical advantages to justify the cost. At $25 each, I could only afford one metal cup. That means I have to remember to take my sole cup home each day and wash it. After a while, the cup can seem to be another body appendage. Plus, sixteen ounces of coffee just doesn’t work for me. I need more.

So what’s the solution? Dollar stores. Trust me, I don’t own stock in any dollar store chain. At one buck each, I can afford to purchase a cup for every day of the week. Granted, they don’t look great, or have a solid feel, but that’s not the point. The point is to get the maximum amount of coffee into your body, without spilling, as you maneuver through traffic. I’ve found too that bringing two coffee cups works well. One for the actual commute and one to take into the office. This isn’t a problem at a buck a piece.

Lastly, I customize my cups by enlarging the small hole at the top of the cup. By enlarging this hole, I’m able to get a better flow of air, and therefore more coffee into my system.

As for the stickshift, I haven’t found a great solution to address that, and I refuse to trade down to an automatic.

Safe Driving.

Christopher R. Auer, MA is the author of Parenting a Child with Sensory Processing Disorder: A Family Guide to Understanding and Supporting Your Sensory Sensitive Child (New Harbinger, 2006) Additional information at http://www.spdresources.com or email spdresources@comcast.net

If you aren’t familiar with coffeehouses and the many different varieties of coffees and flavors to choose from, you may be overwhelmed when you go into a caf? and try to make your choice. Coffeehouses may feature dozens of different coffee flavors and mixings at their shops. In addition to the many coffee flavors, there are cappuccinos and espressos and other selections of coffee breeds. So if you?d like to order coffee from these establishments, it has become quite important to have a decent knowledge of coffeehouse lingo.

Coffee flavors vary from one bean to another, and how coffee is prepared may sway quite a bit from your ordinary cup you make at home. In order to enjoy some of the various coffee preparations, it?s necessary to be able to translate a little of these strange and exotic-sounding names coffees are given.

What follows then, are a few of the basic coffeehouse words and phrases, to help better make you a better coffee connoisseur.

When it comes to coffee makers there are thousands to choose from. Among these thousands there are differences in price, functionality, warranty and style. Sure, you can go to the closest big box store and pick one up for about 20-bucks, but generally the machine is just plain boring. Why not spend some more cash for better longevity, better functionality and sexiness-factor? We all like to be sexy, so why not your kitchen?

The roasting drum roll please? The top 5 snazzy, sexy and sensational coffee makers for 2005 are:

1.The Cuisinart Grind & Brew Thermal Coffee Maker: Best of all is it?s timed grinding and brewing feature. You wake up in the morning to the sound, smell and taste of the freshest ground coffee. This model is very tall and looks exceedingly modern with all of it?s stainless steel. You have to ensure you have enough space in your kitchen for the Grind & Brew ? not only in terms of the overall length, but the lid, which is located on top, has to open to pour the water in. It has a thermal carafe, so it doesn?t burn your coffee and you can get warm coffee up to 2-hours later. It also uses charcoal water filters to clean the impurities out of your water. It has a 3-year limited warranty.

2.The Melitta Javapod One:One, Coffee Pod Machines: This is a space age looking coffee machine which makes one cup at a time. The only bummer with this type of coffee maker is it can?t be used in high elevations?or kaboom! It comes in five snazztacular colors: red, white, black, mango and kiwi. It makes one bold cup of coffee in about a minute. It can host many other brands of coffee pods, so you are not just stuck on one kind and it can also make tea. It has a 1-year limited warranty.

3.The Hamilton Beach Eclectrics Coffee Makers: These metal beauties come in the most fantastic modern-retro designs and colors. Colors really wow you with intensity. Think about this?we pick paint sometimes because we like the name and now you can pick a coffee maker for the same reason. The Eclectrics series comes in Intrigue Blue, Apple, Moroccan Red, Sugar (ok, this one?s white), Pineapple, Licorice (black) and Seabreeze. For color and design alone these coffee makers are snazzy, sexy and sensational. An added bonus is its warranty: 3 years, one of the best in the industry.

4.Kitchen Aid Pro Line 12-cup Coffee Makers: So you like coffee and you like lot?s of it. This machine will be your Godsend. It comes with a portable second warmer. This second warmer is great for those winter Sundays, where you can put it on your bedside table to read and drink coffee all day long, without having to get up. It is also great if you want to brew two types of coffee like decaf (it even comes with an orange lid) and regular at the same time. It?s made of die-cast metal, has a timer and a two temperature heat setting. For great tasting coffee this gem comes with a Ion exchange water filter. It has a 2-year warranty and if you, for some reason, get a replacement the replacement has a 2-year warranty.

5.Capresso CoffeeTEAM Luxe Coffee Maker : Capresso coffee and espresso machines are simply the cr?me de la cr?me of coffee makers. This pearl has a programmable grind and brew feature, it holds a quarter pound of coffee beans and it has a filter indicator to tell you when your water filter is pooched. It brews to over 200 degrees, so it really extracts the flavor from the beans. It has a one year warranty, but I doubt you will need it. It only comes in black or white.

There you have it, 5 snazzy, sexy and sensational coffee makers to make your kitchen smile with pride. Do yourself a favor, buy a good coffee maker. It will last longer and it looks good in your home?best of all your coffee will taste better.

Kate Simpson is a freelance writer who contributes for the Coffee Bean Queen – http://www.coffeebeanqueen.com/ – a website offering information on everything from coffee beans to coffee makers and specialty coffee types.

I really can?t believe it. I now drink coffee. I never pictured myself as a part of the coffee generation. I still love my soda, but now in the morning I find myself having a cup of coffee before I leave for work and one to two cups while at work. This has just taken place in the past year or so. As I look back, I think it may have had something to do with having a toddler in the house and also just beginning to build a website.

Building a website from scratch is quite an undertaking and there are many hours accumulated hovering over the computer. In order to find a few more hours in the day I started getting up at about 5:00 am before work and also on the weekends. This not being my normal routine, I guess I found myself in need of some additional wake up help to be able to get up that early in the morning. Along came coffee!

Long ago, I never really cared for the mocha flavor of coffee at all, even in sweets or baked goods. I think it all started when my husband and I were on a particularly cold motorcycle ride with quite a few more miles to go before home. We had stopped at a gas station for fuel and I thought I might be able to get a cup of hot chocolate. The only thing available was flavored cappuccino. I gave it a try because I was really cold and was surprised by how good it really was. (Now I know all of you coffee experts out there are probably chuckling at the quality of gas station cappuccino, but I guess we all start somewhere.)

Anyway?at some point I started buying the cappuccino mix at the grocery store and then graduated to General Foods International Coffees. My husband drinks regular coffee at home, but I never touched it, at least not then.

Then at work we moved our offices and now, with a coffeemaker nearby, I have started drinking coffee at work. Just recently did I learn how to make a decent pot of coffee. Talk about feeling out of touch! I am not sure if I make the coffee too strong or too weak, but no one has complained yet. I have even learned that it is pretty easy to make coffee in a large party percolator pot, a task that was completely foreign to me before.

I still add a flavored creamer to the coffee, but I am really starting to like the mocha flavor on its own. My favorite flavor creamer is hazelnut. I have also tried a type of hazelnut flavored coffee concentrate syrup that can be used in baking and with ice cream and I am really starting to develop a taste for it as well.

My husband says it is only a matter of time before I start drinking coffee straight up black, with nothing added. I am not so sure, but not so long ago I wouldn?t have thought of myself as a coffee drinker. Go figure. Time will tell.

Laura Warnke is owner of an online gourmet retail store, The Topping Shoppe, LLC. Here you will find a great selection of dessert sauces and ice cream sundae toppings to purchase. If you want to know more about how to use different types of dessert sauces in your recipes please visit my website at http://All-About-Dessert-Sauces.com