You
may have noticed that the last time you were at a coffee shop or at
a supermarket that there is a number of coffee products are
labeled as gourmet, it's not surprising that many coffee lovers are
attracted to gourmet. But what exactly is gourmet coffee? The answer
is a little bit complicated.
Gourmet coffee refers to a number of different things that all
result in a delicious cup of coffee. Cultivation practices, growing
area, altitude, soil, and climate are just some of the factors that
will determine whether a coffee bean is a gourmet coffee. Similar to
how a wine is judged as a fine wine or not, gourmet coffees will
vary from year to year, country to country, region to region.
However, there is one uniform characteristic of gourmet coffee: it
is made from the best coffee beans that each coffee producing
country is able to offer. Gourmet coffee undergoes a vigorous
process to ensure that it has the highest quality. Gourmet coffee
beans are carefully handpicked, processed, and sorted in the country
where it has been grown. It is then roasted to perfection in the
country that it is being exported to. The final step in the gourmet
coffee process is when the coffee lover gets to enjoy an excellent
cup of gourmet joe.
Gourmet coffee is often described as specialty coffee and some
examples of the most popular types of gourmet coffee include the
Hawaiian Kona, the Indonesian Java, the Yemeni Mocha, the Columbian
Supremo, and the Ethiopian Harrar. Additionally, flavorings can be added to gourmet
coffees to create intoxicating new tastes and these flavored gourmet
coffees included such favorite flavored coffee drinks like Amaretto,
Irish Crème, and Viennese Cinnamon. However, the process involved in
flavored coffee with gourmet coffee means that flavorings are added
to coffee beans while they are still warm and absorbent immediately
after roasting.
Gourmet coffee comes from the best coffee beans of coffea arabica.
This species of coffee plant known as Arabica coffee is the most
commonly grown species of coffee grown throughout the world. As a
result, all types of Arabica coffee are not gourmet coffee. Rather,
the specific growing conditions of Arabica coffee plants will
determine whether they are gourmet or not.
As
most coffee lovers know, Arabica coffee plants thrive in high
altitudes. Usually gourmet coffee comes from Arabica coffee plants
that grow at altitudes of above 3,000 feet between the Tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn in tropical or subtropical conditions. The
higher the Arabica coffee plant is, the higher the chance is that it
will produce coffee beans that can be classified as gourmet. Coffee
beans are graded in terms of its density, with a higher density
being preferred. There is a direct correlation between coffee
density and the altitude that the coffee plant is growing at, with a
higher altitude equaling a higher density. As a result, gourmet
coffee usually encompasses coffee beans grown from Arabica coffee
plants that are situated at a high altitude.
Most gourmet coffee are grown in an organic fashion. Organic coffee
refers to coffee that has been made using coffee beans that have
been shade grown. Although the shade grown method of growing coffee
results in less coffee bean growth for the grower, it produces a
much better tasting coffee that matches the standards of what
constitutes a gourmet coffee. This is because the shade trees slow
down the maturation of the coffee plant, which allows for the coffee
bean to develop: more natural sugar, better flavor, and less
caffeine. Additionally, organic coffee is free of pesticides and
other chemicals that effect the taste of the coffee.
However, it isn't just the specific growing conditions that will
determine whether a coffee is gourmet coffee. Rather, another
important issue that will determine whether a coffee is gourmet or
not is its specific blend. While Arabica coffee beans that have
grown in excellent conditions under organic means will generally
constitute a gourmet coffee, coffee economics have ensured that this
is often not the case. This is because many coffee companies attempt
to increase their profit by blending the fine Arabica coffee beans
with lesser coffer beans, which dilutes the quality of the coffee.
Some coffee blends have more Robusta coffee beans than Arabica
coffee beans, which produce a coffee that has less flavor and higher
caffeine content. While some Robusta-Arabica coffee blends can be
good, particularly high quality Espresso roasted coffee blends;
gourmet coffee is usually made up of unblended, high-grown Arabica
coffee.
Another important component of gourmet coffee is its roast. The
roasting process will impact the taste of a cup of coffee and there
are no standardized rules of coffee roasting. Rather, the degree of
roasting needed for a specific coffee bean will depend on the coffee
bean's country of origin and its optimal flavor characteristics. As
a result, a coffee bean may need to be roasted to a light brown
color to release its flavor characteristics that makes it gourmet,
while another type of gourmet coffee bean may be ruined by that
exact type of roasting. When purchasing gourmet coffee, it never
hurts to ask a coffee expert about the specific roasting of that
coffee.
One
last thing that gourmet coffee lovers will need to look out for is
the freshness of the coffee. While roasting coffee beans is
essential to releasing the desired flavor characteristics of the
coffee bean, it also begins the stage of oxidizing. Once a coffee
bean is roasted, the volatile oils contained within the bean become
vulnerable to oxidizing, which will damage the quality of the coffee
bean. It is highly recommended that one purchase gourmet coffee in
oxygen-proof bags or to try to purchase whole bean gourmet coffee
that can be grinded just before being made.
Now
that you've learnt all of the various degrees of gourmet coffee, you
will realize the difficult process that a coffee bean becomes
classified as gourmet. With its rich taste, you can now sit back and
enjoy a nice cup of gourmet coffee and ponder how much work has been
done to create that prefect cup of coffee.
