Reply #39: Ummmm...Coffee (best Homer S. impersonation)

[zizzer]

There are three basic components to good coffee, the bean, the roast and the preperation. Between those three things a lot can go wrong.

There are two basic sorts of beans in the world, Arabica and Robusto. Good coffee is Arabica, most of the robusto in the world is consumed in it's country of origin. Several factors go into the bean itself, the altitude at which it is grown, the quality of soil and of course the seed stock. I prefer high grown coffee, that being grown above five thousand feet.

A few notes about "shade grown coffee". Coffee, in it's natural state is a shade loving plant and fields traditionaly have been very eco friendly as you HAVE to plant shade trees throughout a field. This whole notion of "shade grown" is simply a way to market coffee for more money. There are more and more "sun grown" vareities and they are evil!

One last note about the beans, there are two types of bean, the traditional, which grows two beans to a cherry and the "pea berry" which grows more like a pit in stone fruit(peach, nectorine, etc). Coffee BTW bears fruit year round and the fruit matures at diufferent rates so a plant year round will have ripe fruit and flowers propducing new fruit all of the time.

On to the roast.

The basics go something like this. THe beans are picked and the meat of the fruit is removed. The beans are then washed and dried in the sun. They are then placed into a rotating drum that rests over a very high heat and the beans are cooked. This was initialy done to prevent the seeds from germionating anywhere other than the Arabic penninsula, where coffee comes from...hense Arabica). The problem that people talk about with Starbucks coffee is realy from the raost. There are some basic roasts, light, medium, dark and espresso. I'm not gonna get into an argument about specifics with these but that's the basics. French raost falls somewhere between dark and espresso. Starbucks uses a VERY dark roast and some would say even burns the coffee. I am one of those. I prefer a nice medium roast. You get the nice coffee flavour without the charcoal taste you smetimes get at starbucks and with some espresso.

Preperation...

French press, turkish, espresso, drip, perk are just a few ways to make coffee. All of them have there pro's and cons. For just a cup of coffee perk is the best, it takes some pratice and a bit more time than other methods but is simply fantastic! Turkish coffee takes MORe time MORE practice and some tools. Typicaly, it is boiled three times and sugar and other ingredients are added durring the boiling process. It served in small glasses with a dolop of the crema added to the top. It is typicaly sweetened with sugar or honey and VERY strong. French press is nice that it is elegent and easy, simply put the pot toigether, add coffeepour hot (never boiling) water over the top, put the lid/plunger and and let steap. When done, push the plunger to get the grounds out of what you drink and enjoy.

Espresso is partly about the roast and partly about the preperation. The beans are roasted VERY dark and then ground to powder. To make the drink itself steam is forced through the grounds and the heat extracts those wonderfull oils. Espresso is traditionaly served with cardoman and or a piece of lemon zest. To make all of those facny drinks you add either heated or frothed milk in differing amounts.

Drip coffee is a failrly American way to do things, it is cheap, it is easy and produces a mediocer cup of coffee. THis is what I primarily drink so don't go getting all indignant with me.

Any other questions you may have can be posted here and if I have time I will answer some of them.

Zizzer, I have actualy toyed with the idea of doing a public access TV shopw about coffee and preperation and tradition...