Here’s a cool looking coffee cup, with a unique yet functional design. One interesting feature is that the cup’s saucer will double as a lid! You can buy it for $22 at Lux-Delux.com. (via Slashfood)
Add comment June 29th, 2007
Here are some interesting facts about coffee (via Source2Resource):
1. Germay is the world’s second largest consumer of coffee in terms of volume at 16 pounds per person.
2. Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.
3. An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cheries. That amounts to approximately 2000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
4. The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their coffee.
5. With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.
6. Up until the 1870’s most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over a charcoal fire. It wasn’t until recent times that batch roasting became popular.
7. Each year, some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide - most of which is hand picked.
Add comment June 28th, 2007
Have you ever heard of the medical condition known as “blepharospasm”? Neither have I. For many people, usually between 50 and 70 years old, it’s a life-altering affliction characterized by an uncontrollable twitching of the eyelid. In extreme cases, their eyelids may be clamped shut, rendering them effectively blind. Researchers in Italy found that drinking one or two cups of coffee a day seemed to reduce the risk of this condition (as reported in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry). From the article, it appears that coffee drinking won’t help treat an existing condition, but rather can help prevent it from forming.
On a more humorous side, those Italians take their coffee drinking so seriously that researchers found that “the low frequency of decaffeinated coffee intake in Italy prevented us from examining the effects of caffeine on blepharospasm” and thus they’re not certain whether it’s the caffeine that provides the benefit, or some other ingredient in coffee.
You can read the full story over at the BBC News website.
Add comment June 20th, 2007
According to the medical journal Gastroenterology, drinking coffee appears to lower your risk of developing liver cancer. The study (actually, eleven separate studies) involved 239,146 people, 2,260 of who had liver cancer. For every two cups of coffee drank per day, a forty three percent reduced risk of liver cancer was observed. Read more here.
Add comment June 7th, 2007
While I love the iRoast2 coffee roaster I bought from Sweet Maria’s, it can really only roast around a quarter of a pound at a time, and I often want to roast more. That’s where the Diedrich Home Roaster comes in. Diedrich specializes in commercial-grade coffee roasters, and at first glance, that’s what this “home roaster” appears to be - a scaled-down version of a larger industrial-grade machine. Which is just fine by me! I imagine my wife won’t want this sitting on the kitchen countertop though. That and the fact that it costs $3800 means I probably won’t be picking one up for a while, but it’s definitely on my list of coffee equipment to get someday.
Add comment June 6th, 2007
Ever wondered why coffee roaster instructions usually/always say to never leave the machine unattended? Check out this story of someone who did just that. I’m not trying to be critical though; I’ve done this myself though not with such drastic results. In my case, the move from sea level to 8500 feet elevation caught be off guard, with roasting times almost cut in half with the old roasting temperature profile I was using.
Add comment June 4th, 2007
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