What Do You Have With Coffee?
When I say “have” I mean some sort of companion to your coffee. In case I am not being clear, let me give you an illustration. When I am at work and I go on my coffee break, I always have a cigarette with my cup of coffee – okay, fine, sometimes two cigarettes. At home, normally at the weekend, when I have my afternoon cup of coffee, I like to have a slice of cake with it. It does not really matter what kind of cake I eat with my coffee – I like most kinds of cake.
There is this Oreo Cheesecake from Starbucks that I really like with my hot café latte, though. I don’t know if they serve it in all Starbucks branches but a slice of this cheesecake is just heaven! They do have other cakes but this is my favorite.
Coffee Bean also has some nice cakes but do not get their tiramisu. I tried it once and I was disappointed. It wasn’t bad but it was not what I was expecting.
What else can you have with coffee? How about those nice buttery biscuits that come from the UK? I forgot what they are called but a friend of mine sent me a couple of packets a month ago and they were just perfect with black coffee! Come to think of it, most any biscuit can be good with coffee.
How about you? What do you normally have with coffee? Why not share your favorites so we can try them for ourselves!
Home Roasting
What? That may be the first thing that came into your mind when you read the title for this post. I am talking about roasting your own coffee beans at home as opposed to merely buying ground coffee beans from the supermarket or your coffee shop.
So why should you even think about roasting your own coffee beans? Why go through all that hassle? To be honest, I have not even tried it for myself yet but from what I have been hearing and reading from others, you do not really know what good coffee is until you make a batch from freshly roasted beans. I do not know how true it is but being the coffeeholic that I am – always in search for the best coffee – I am more than willing to give it a try.
You may be thinking that home roasting would entail a lot of effort, time, and money. Well I found this really great post from the CoffeeGeek which will allow almost anyone to roast his own coffee at home. Guess what his main tool is? A popcorn popper!
Ingenious, isn’t it? Seriously, I might not have thought of this idea had I not ran into the CoffeeGeek’s post. Well, I would suppose that a popcorn popper is not a difficult thing to acquire – plus the fact that it is quite affordable. You may even already have one at home!
If you are interested in trying this out, you should pay a visit to the step by step guide on how to roast coffee beans at home using a popcorn popper. Here’s to a successful endeavor for all of us! Happy New Year!
Coffee for the Skin
I depend on my morning cup of coffee. I’d rather have brewed coffee, of course, but when on trips, sometimes, I have had to settle for the instant kind. It does not matter, as long as I have my morning dose of caffeine – taken orally in the form of a hot cup of coffee.
I was pleasantly surprised and amused when I read about skin care companies experimenting with coffee-based products, though. Does coffee have skin care properties? Though I have not really seen or tried these products, it seems that in the US and other world markets, coffee-based skin products were released last year.
The idea is that caffeine perks you up – thus my dependence on that morning cup. Skin care companies think that if applied topically, their coffee-based products could perk you up as well and make your skin look and feel better. I don’t know about this, but it could work.
Then again, if you are thinking of using coffee-based skin products to perk you up, I doubt that it will be as effective and as enjoyable as simply brewing a pot of coffee and drinking a cup or two. For one, though the products may contain caffeine, I doubt that there is enough there to give you a jolt. Another thing is that these products are applied topically. That means that if the caffeine is to enter your blood stream, it has to go through the skin – that takes a while and the amount is probably small. The bright side is that you will smell like coffee all day long!
In any case, these products should be worth a try, don’t you think?
Shade Coffee
Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I don’t know, but for some reason, when I read the term “shade coffee,” I thought of something mystical. In any case, it is just a term used to refer to coffee that is grown without full exposure to the sun. Why do they do this? Because shade grown coffee takes much longer to ripen and it is believed that longer ripening times makes the coffee’s flavor better.
I am not an expert in this area so I think I’d better share with you the view of a person who knows more about this. Here’s an excerpt from a post in Coffee and Conservation – a very interesting blog on coffee and the environment:
In order to produce faster, higher yields and prevent the spread of coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), many coffee plantations have begun to grow coffee under sunnier conditions. The fewer shade trees that are in coffee plantations, the less biodiversity there is in those plantations.
This loss of biodiversity, especially in birds, has led conscientious consumers to look for “shade grown” coffee. However, coffee is grown under a continuum of conditions, from rustic or traditional, to full sun, and these “shades of shade” are not all equal when it comes to the health of ecosystems. Unfortunately, there is no official definition of “shade grown,” so coffee so labeled may be grown under what are technically shady conditions, but which are little better full sun.
There is more to be learned about shade coffee. I suggest that you visit the blog and find out for yourself.
