Here are a few coffee articles I found interesting in the news and tweeted to my followers on Twitter this past week:
Freshness valve keeps coffee beans at their peak
If you want fresh roasted coffee to stay fresh and great tasting, it’s so important to properly store beans to maximize flavor. Always store coffee beans in a cool, dark place, and not in a refrigerator or freezer as you may have heard. Actually, even sealing up coffee beans in canisters or bags isn’t perfect as there is oxygen still left in the canister or bag you just sealed up, quickly degrading the bean and causing flavor loss. The canister in this article helps to prevent this by removing oxygen and any C02 from the beans through a freshness valve.
French Press Coffee: A Step-by-Step Guide to Handcrafted Coffee
A pretty good article on making french press coffee. I agree with most of it except where it suggests steeping for 10 minutes for a strong brew. Normal steep time is about 4 minutes. Anything more and you’ll be overextracting (10 minutes is way too long), anything less and you’ll be underextracting… unless you have a very small french press (ex. 3 cup), then 3 minutes might be OK. For more information on french press coffee, see my blog post on it.
The Fisticup Coffee Mug
You know, I’m not even quite sure what to think about this product… it’s a coffee mug that uses something that resembles brass knuckles for the handle. I thought it was unique and mildly humorous, though you might not want to take it to work with you… probably breaks your company’s code of conduct. :)
Home brewed: Making your own coffee in the comfort of your home
This article explains how making coffee in your home can not only be more affordable than going to a coffee house, but you can also make better tasting coffee at home as well. I really liked this part: “In general, the more recently your coffee was roasted, the better your cup will be. That’s why you should consider buying your coffee locally.” That is spot on, especially since fresh roasted coffee only stays fresh for 10-14 days max after roasting. You might not have a coffee roaster locally, but you can always buy fresh roasted coffee from an online retailer. This is one of those articles that validates what we do at Weekly Roast Coffee since not everyone has access to a local roaster.
Coffee Shop Customers Donate Cups Of Java
Have you ever gone up to pay for your cup of coffee only to be told that you don’t need to pay anything because the person in front of you already paid for your drink? It’s only happened to me once, at the hospital when my son was born last October. I was so tired from being up all night, I said “thanks” and walked out without ‘paying it forward’ to the next customer (hey, I was really tired). Well, this is a nice story about a coffee shop in Missouri who had customers ‘pay it forward’ over one thousand times!
Kopi Luwak: Coffee beans or coffee buttons?
As mentioned in the movie The Bucket List, Kopi Luwak is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. This article explains why, but more importantly, will probably deter you from ever wanting to try it. Although I’m in the coffee biz, I’ve never tried this kind of coffee (and never want to!), but it’s supposed to be good to the last drop(ping).
Please comment below with your thoughts on any of these stories and share this post with a coffee loving friend. For more coffee news, as I find it, follow me on Twitter and let’s connect.