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Coffee Overview | ||||||||||||
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It turns out, there are oodles of sites on the web that offer the history of coffee. Just submit history of coffee in your favorite search engine, and you will be reading for days.
Some of the stories relate the tale of a sheep herder from Caffa Ethopia named Kaldi who ate the red berries of the coffee plant as he tended his sheep. Since most agree that coffee was discovered before 1000 AD, I am not sure that Kaldi is so much the discoverer as a scapegoat.
You take some coffee beans from a coffee plant. Roast them as desired. Grind them a lot or a little. Add hot water, ideally around 195 - 200 degrees F. Wait. Either filter to remove the grounds or leave them to settle to the bottom. Optionally add spices, milk product, sugar, etc. Drink. Smile.
Espresso is made when fine ground coffee is infused with hot water at high pressure for a short time. The resulting coffee is full bodied, strong flavored, and typically has a crema or foam on top. Combined with steamed milk for a latte or cappuccino, espresso is quickly becoming an American favorite. |
Vacuum brewing is definitely cool to watch. The method uses a device composed of two globes, one on top of the other, with a filter between them. Coffee grounds are placed in the upper globe, water in the lower. When heated, the water, due to pressure from the resulting steam, travels up a tube into the upper globe, mixing with the coffee. As the device is allowed to cool, the water (now coffee) filters into the lower globe. A mediocre cup of coffee usually ensues. |
Mr. Coffee, Bunn, Melitta, etc. We all know these devices all too well. When calibrated to the right temperature (as Bunn is known to do) the coffee is very good. Coffee grounds, a medium grind, are placed in a basket with a filter. Hot water drips into the basket, over the grounds, through the filter and into the carafe. Most paper filters actually are part of the problem and can be replaced by a gold mesh filter, which, if properly cleaned, works very well. An auto drip system can make a wonderful cup of coffee, too often it does not. |
There are those who would argue that instant coffee does not belong on this site. Although they are probably correct, since my dad drinks it when he is not at my home, well, I have to include it. Prepared instantly, just add hot water to a spoonful of the unknown granules for a simple, albeit weak, cup of coffee. Hey, it works, and is probably the best our troops get in the field, so we must support it! |