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About Coffee |
Coffee is a natural product, the taste of which can vary greatly from one crop year to the nest, depending on the seasonal sunshine, rainfall and soil conditions, the process, the storage conditions and the shipping. Tea and wine has good and bad years - why not coffee?Most coffee beans today are the fruit of the evergreen tree Coffea Arabica. To produce the best beans, the tree must be planted in rich, well-drained soil and receive only a few hours of direct sunlight every day. The temperature must remain between 15 oC (55 oF) and about 25 oC (80 oF); if it falls outside this range, the beans will be damaged. Finally the trees need just the right amount of rain, about 154 cm a year.Fortunately for coffee lovers, mountainous regions with a tropical or subtropical climate meet the coffee tree's requirements perfectly. Colombia and Brazil in South America, Jamaica in the Caribbean, some Central America countries and Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in Africa all grow and export coffee. Some coffee is also grown in Hawaii.After drying, the green coffee beans are roasted and packaged. If the beans are to be decaffeinated, however, they're subjected to either the solvent or water method of decaffeination before roasting. In the solvent method, the beans are place in a rotating drum and exposed to a mixture of steam and a solvent to force out the caffeine. The beans are then dried and roasted. In water method, the beans are soaked in hot water to remove the oils and caffeine. The soaking liquid is separated from the beans, and a solvent is added to it to extract the caffeine. Finally, the caffeine-free liquid is returned to the beans, which reabsorb the oils.From the Bean to the Cup |
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A word of caution: The caffeine in coffee does not in any way counteract the adverse effects of alcohol on reaction time and driving skill. |
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