Welcome to About Coffee

A Cup of Joe. Mud. A cuppa. The morning Brew. Your go juice. Jitter juice. Bean juice. Java. Your morning jolt. Liquid energy. Your rocket fuel. It is your morning break, your afternoon break, it’s a meal in itself, and it is always in your own style.

For many of us, it is the first beverage in the morning, aiding our return to the world of the living. For others, it may be the last beverage of the night despite allegedly disrupting our sleep patterns.

The story of coffee is a story of our lives. Coffee is heavily entwined in our culture. The history of coffee is a history of human migration and settlement and how it has survived with humans.

Our Chosen Style

We are all different coffee drinkers, some people prefer cold milk coffee or a warm milk blend. There is also a distinct habit in its preparation, especially at home. Some of us prefer percolated coffee and the gentle drip that delivers our necessary way to start the day. This generally makes coffee in a slow drip, heated by an element, but sustaining that perfection delivered by the drip percolator.

Then there are those of us who prefer plunger coffee, also known as a French press. This type of coffee is dependent on the perfect bean and grind, as well as the ideal time to steep. The coffee plunger itself is a work of art, perfectly engineered to avoid beans being left in the morning wake-up call. For this reason, it could be worth reading about the best coffee plungers.

The various coffee machines and equipment are the modern era’s weapons of choice in making a brew. Each morning and at meal time, we take great pride in the process and order in which we prepare our coffee. Gone are the days of making a brew started with some instant coffee powder and good intentions. The modern era demands precision in our brew.

There are also the more bespoke options; Aeropress, drip cones, cold brew makers and Moka pot. These options all offer an alternate method of making coffee that has been built by a local culture. Coffee making is no different to how different cultures treat the serving of meat, fermenting of wine, or the various ways in which they make bread from wheat. Coffee is a discovery of how every culture creates magic from this one glorious bean.

This brings us to espresso coffee. Once, only found on street corners in Italy, this method of making coffee is constantly becoming commercialized and more accessible to people at home. This touch of Italy from a retail perspective becomes discerning, with every one of us preferring a certain procedural aspect within the order, preparation, and dispatch of this coffee to our lips. It has become ingrained within our personal and business interactions.

Making a Coffee

When it comes to making a coffee, first consider your coffee beans and how to select the best coffee beans; there is a significant difference between different blends of beans let alone different origins. There are a range of tastes to choose from when it comes to the blend and location in which the bean is grown, as well as how the bean has been roasted.

It all starts with the bean. There are many species from which the coffee cherry is grown, but they all fall into four main types of coffee beans. There is the well-known Arabica, a bean that delivers a strong flavour that compliments the superior high-altitude growing conditions of the bean.

There are also the Robusta coffee beans, delivering a more bitter and highly caffeinated option. Then there are also the Liberica and Excelsa beans; the rarest and highly demanded by the bean hunter looking for a unique experience.

Next, when you have selected thy bean, comes the choices in coffee grinders. While the choice in bean is of the utmost importance, so too is the choice in a grinder. Too fine or too coarse for the brewing method will make a difference in the end taste.

It is easy to forget this appliance when so much focus is put on the coffee-making apparatus. Choose wisely when it comes to the machine that grinds your bean.

Own Your Brew

There are multiple movements in coffee. When it comes to espresso there are many different coffee drinks that coffee drinkers associate with. When a coffee drinker who is partial to a latte sits with another who is partial to a latte, there is a tribal feeling to the exchange. Coffee is a way to find people that we know, who have shared beliefs in how to live life.

There is also a movement with green coffee beans, coffee that does not undergo the roasting process. This complements the range of approaches to roasting, and the range of tastes to be found.

The point of roasting or having your coffee green is to understand your taste just as much as someone cultivates a palette with wine. Understand and develop your coffee taste. Be adventurous!

There are also unique trends that become popular with coffee. Many of us have heard about the popularity of kopi luwak; an obscure method of harvesting coffee beans. There is also cold brew coffee that has become a popular trend within the last decade.

Every October social media is thick with the annual fad of the pumpkin-spiced latte, which becomes popular around Halloween in America. Not long ago popular coffees included French vanilla or hazelnut flavours being added with the brew. Like many aspects of life, coffee is subject to the same ebbs and flows in preferred methods of consumption. Even decaf coffee has enjoyed periods of popular resurgence based on the advice of medical professionals. 

This is the purpose of what we do. The current era of specialty coffee celebrates our differences in what we enjoy in coffee and broadens our cultural horizons from the previous era or coffee being a mere beverage to drink in certain situations. Coffee is now an experience in itself. Having a kopi luwak or trying someone’s cold brew can be a transformative experience.

So go forth, and learn as much as you can about coffee. Take on the adventure that coffee offers, and maybe even expand your own cultural horizon.