Coffee Pop

Who Makes The World’s Best Coffee?

As an avid coffee devotee I am always looking the best place to get a super cup of coffee, and on my long and exciting adventures throughout the UK I’ve had coffee that is brewed in the style of many of the countries of the world and I have really really enjoyed the experience of taking on the pleasure of the different styles of coffee I’ve enjoyed  so I went on an odyssey to experience the coffees of the world first hand.

First I go to the beautiful streets of the French capital Paris. I needed to find a perfect hostel in Paris (or as they call it auberge à Paris) when I was there so that I could be comfortable as I took my first More

An Inappropriate Post for This Blog…

Because this blog page centres on the near-divine subject of coffee, I am about to put myself in a very dangerous position. You see, I thoroughly enjoy my cup of coffee (especially that mid-morning one!)… but I also have a very real love for tea. There, now I’ve actually gone and written the forbidden word! And I just know that this will be like opening a can of worms. I’m fully expecting to get heaps of nasty comments within a few minutes of posting this; along with quite a few death threats too.

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Three Alternatives to Caffeine-Free Coffee

Coffee is a big deal the world over – this is something we know without question. In America for example, the average consumption of coffee per head is no less than 3 cups each day, making coffee the number-1 source of caffeine in the lives of most across the western world. However, for those who for one reason or another cannot or choose not to consume caffeine, flavorful alternatives can be few or far between, though the following are indeed worthy of trying out for those seeking something a little different:

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Winter warmer

Hot drinks are a lifesaver at this time of year. OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, unless you are stuck in the snow in a broken-down car, but I could not imagine leaving the house on a cold winter’s morning without at least one piping hot cup of tea nestled in my tummy! I always make sure I treat myself to a few hot chocolates once the nights start drawing in too; made with milk, heated on the stove, of course, not sachets and hot water…

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Project Based Learning: Brewing Coffee Around the World

Hot drinks are an important part of every culture. If you travel to Morocco, you will drink mint tea. In Turkey, you will be served small sweet and very dark cups of coffee. In India, chai rules. The rituals for preparing and presenting coffee are different across the world. In Britain, coffee rituals far too often centre around a jar, a spoon, and an electric kettle. I moved to the UK because of the plethora of great english teacher jobs in secondary schools, but I missed the diversity of coffee rituals that I was used to as an international traveller. My solution : introduce a coffee brewing module for my classes.

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Alertness, awakeness and energy

What’s the best way to lead an active life, in terms of what you put into your body? There are more schools of thought in this discussion than I could list here in a month of Sundays, but I think there are a couple of excellent front runners. One of them of course, and I think it is my favourite, is to drink a sensible amount of really good coffee. Most people who lead an on-the-go lifestyle need a bit of a caffeine fix during the day, and the benefits of drinking caffeine are well known: it is a mild stimulant, meaning that drinking a normal amount – say 2 or 3 cups a day – will be likely to increase your intellectual concentration and focus on a task. It can’t make you more intelligent, but it can help you do whatever it is that you do best! A recent survey came up with the figure that over 80% of the world’s population are regular caffeine drinkers. Although I can’t say how reliable this figure is – or indeed how on earth they calculated it! – it doesn’t strike me as a surprising one. And so many people can’t be wrong, can they?

A second option to drinking the great drink of coffee is one aimed at those with a more physically active lifestyle: drinking protein shakes. These are energy drinks which are high in protein (did you guess??) which are designed to replenish the nutrients lost by active people during physical recreation.

Of course we haven’t even started on health foods like goji berries and wild seeds, but two main contenders for keeping up your energy levels in the 21st century are drinking coffee, and drinking protein shakes.

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Coffee Parties

Irish coffee. That is about all I have to say. Irish coffee has solved my social problems and reintroduced a love of fun into my life. It is a difficult time and I work too hard, and working too hard makes you tired. When you are tired, you no longer want to go out to bars and clubs add the cost of a baby sitter for a night out and your social life becomes limited. The hot thing right now with my circle of friends is to have dinner parties and sleep overs.

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Choosing the Right Blend

A major supermarket just opened down the road from where I live. The local residents have mixed reviews. It is apparently the largest supermarket in Europe. It has been seriously disappointing. Instead of a huge range of interesting products, there are two aisles of crisps. The one good thing, though is the choice of coffee. They carry a blend called ’Good African’. Good African is smart, because they roast and package the beans in Africa and keep the added value at the site of production. The problem with a lot of fair trade products is that the farmer may be getting the premium price for the bean, but the real money comes from the packaged and finished product. This profit goes to the multi national corporation that is really just benefiting from the feel good marketing feature of a fair trade product.I know I can be a sucker fro marketing, but I love opening the lovely green and black package, pouring it into my French press, pouring in boiling water from a stove top kettle, and tipping the delicious brew into my favourite mug. I am trying to apply these principles to all of my purchases. Recently, I was trying to find a red diesel supplier. I was committed to finding one that was not a huge multi national corporation.I was delighted to find a smaller, local supplier that employed people from my community. It is an important lesson to learn; wherever you shop you can still make good choices.

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Where Does Coffee Come From?

Millions of people drink coffee every day. No matter what you do for a living, you are likely to start your day with a cup of fresh coffee, even truck drivers in Inverness drink some coffee while waiting for the Red Diesel Inverness to be fueled into their trucks. But do you know how and where did coffee originate?

There are several legends about how coffee originated in the Middle Eastern countries. One of the many legends says that some monks saw that their sheep ate coffee cherries and became very lively. So they began to do the same to keep themselves up through their all night prayer. Coffee first was consumed in the 6th century but became used as a beverage in the year 1300 CE.

It was soon realized that when coffee beans were roasted their flavor came out, so people began crushing the roasted beans, putting them in boiled water and drinking them with the grounds. Spices were mostly added to the coffee then in Egypt around early 1600’s sugar was added to reduce the bitterness. Later in the 17th century milk was used to bring more taste to coffee.

Until the 1600’s most coffee came from the Middle East, then the Dutch began to cultivate it in the East Indies and in the early 18th century it began to be produced in the Americas.

Coffee continued to spread throughout the West Indies and in 1729 coffee was grown in Brazil. Since the mid 19th century Brazil had taken the lead in growing coffee. In the 19th and 20th centuries other South American and Latin American countries began to develop coffee plantations.

Coffee production does not use machines extensively however there are about twenty different things that happen between the coffee bean growing and it becoming a drink that is consumed. It has traveled throughout the entire world which isn’t too bad for a little bean.

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Coffee and ADHD

I’ve recently found out that I have this horrible condition – adult ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. For those of you who have no idea what ADHD is, I will explain briefly. The main symptoms are: inability to concentrate and hyperactivity, which lead to anxiety and poor performance at work. You get easily distracted, you are constantly thinking about random stuff like why the oil companies keep polluting the oceans or why your breaths smells so bad and even the tiniest noise breaks your concentration. You are also always hyperactive and it is extremely difficult to stay still for more than 10 minutes. However I kind of self-diagnosed my ADHD. How did I find out in the first place- funny story. Ever since I can remember coffee has made me sleepy. I was curious why this is happening because I know that it is supposed to work the other way around, so… I just googled “coffee makes me sleepy” and I found out that this is typical for kids and adults with ADHD. So I kept on looking for more and more information until I was a 100% sure that I have it. Anyways, here are the effects coffee has on me. First of all it makes me all happy and careless, then it eases my mind and my thoughts are no longer chaotic but rather calm. My hands suddenly stop shaking and I feel that I am in control of my energy. I can concentrate much better for longer and the best thing is that I can finish what I have started on time. One more reason to love coffee I guess.

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