Coffee, Cappuccino, Espresso, Latte - Information, Discussion, And Cool Merchandise

Coffee lovers take note! This is the coolest coffee mug around. The perfect size for your favorite morning beverage or late night brew. Large, easy-grip handle.

When coffee is the most important element of your day, look to the periodic table! It's chock full of fun stuff, like caffeine. It's better than chugging a mug full of Pb, isn't it?

Treat yourself or give as a gift to someone special. Find it here!

Beloved Beans, your one stop shop for gifts and merchandise for yourself or the coffee or chocolate lover in your life.

Is the world shaking, or is it the caffeine kicking in? Once you consume the enough coffee and the buzz begins... It all becomes relative.

This is a very cool and unique retro graphic design. See this cool t-shirt as well as many other products sporting this design at:

Beloved Beans, your one stop shop for gifts and merchandise for yourself or the coffee or chocolate lover in your life.

This is a very cool and unique retro graphic design. It is the perfect gift for the coffee crazed loved one in your life. See this funny t-shirt as well as many other products sporting this design at:

Beloved Beans, your one stop shop for gifts and merchandise for yourself or the coffee or chocolate lover in your life.

How did the use of coffee begin? One legend goes like this: Once upon a time in Arabia, there lived a goat herder named Kaldi. Kaldi was a sober and responsible goat herder. One day, Kaldi's goats didn't come home so he went looking for them. He found them hopping with glee acting in an eccentric behavior around a shiny dark-leafed shrub with red berries.

Kaldi noted that the goats were eating strange red berries. So, he tried the berry.

Kaldi was soon dancing around the tree too. He became wide awake and was instantly ready to keep traveling.He mixed the berries with drinks at his monastery which kept people awake during prayer. It then spread to other towns and monasteries. Aucuba became a rich man. No one knows what happen to Kaldi.
Another legend gives us the name for coffee or "mocha." An Arabian was banished to the desert with his followers to die of starvation. In desperation, Omar had his friends boil and eat the fruit from an unknown plant. Not only did the broth save the exiles, but their survival was taken as a religious sign by the residents of the nearest town, Mocha. The plant and its beverage were named Mocha to honor this event.
It is almost certain that slaves taken from present day Sudan into Yemen and Arabia used to chew on the succulent outer cherry flesh, thus by accident their masters found out it's potency. Coffee began trade through the great port of its day, Mocha, now synonymous with coffee.

Initially, the authorities in Yemen actively encouraged coffee drinking as it was considered preferable to the extreme side effects of Khat, a shrub whose buds and leaves were chewed as a stimulant. The first coffeehouses were opened in Mocha and were called 'kaveh kanes'. They quickly spread throughout the Arab world and became successful places where chess was played, gossip was exchanged, and singing, dancing and music were enjoyed. They were luxuriously decorated and each had an individual character. Nothing quite like the coffeehouse had existed before: a place where society and business could be conducted in comfortable surroundings and where anyone could go, for the price of coffee.

The Arabian coffeehouses soon became centers of political activity and were suppressed.

On pilgrimage to Mecca, through the seaport of Mocha, in the middle 1600s, a revered holy man from India named Baba Budan, discovered for him the wonders of coffee. In his zeal to share what he had found with his fellows at home, he smuggled seven coffee beans out of Arabia, wrapped around his belly. On his return home, he planted the beans in the hills of Mysore, India, and nurtured the young coffee bushes that resulted. Coffee flourished in the hills of India - Chikmagalgur hills now named after Baba Budan.

From the Muslim world, coffee spread to Europe, where it became popular during the seventeenth century. The Dutch were the first to start the large scale importation of coffee into Europe, and eventually smuggled out some seedlings in 1690, as the Arabs were not allowed to export the plants or unroasted seeds. This led to coffee growing in Java, which was owned by the Dutch.[8] In 1538, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, having returned from a ten-year trip to the Near East, gave this description of coffee:

" A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water and the fruit from a bush called bunnu. "

Pope Vincent III considered banishing coffee from the Christian world after hearing it referred to as the "Devil's Drink." Fortunately, he decided to try coffee before condemning it. He enjoyed the brew so much that he instead baptized it, saying, "Coffee is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it."

When coffee reached the American colonies, it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe, as colonists found it a poor substitute for alcohol. However, during the Revolutionary War, the demand for coffee increased to such an extent that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies of it and raise prices dramatically; part of this is due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants. Americans' taste for coffee grew during the early nineteenth century, following the War of 1812, which had temporarily cut off access to tea imports, and high demand during the American Civil War as well as many advancements in brewing technology cemented the position of coffee as an everyday commodity in America.

This is a very cool and unique relevant graphic design. See this funny t-shirt as well as many other products sporting this design at:

Beloved Beans, your one stop shop for gifts and merchandise for yourself or the coffee or chocolate lover in your life.

Everyone just calm down for a minute. Let's brew a pot of java and talk about things. (Java is brewed... Java is consumed... Talk commences... War is back on...)

Sorry about that. This cool and unique design is so relevant for our time. Let's settle our differances at a local coffee shop.

The objective in coffee brewing should be to get the most flavor out of the coffee bean when infused with hot water. This starts with properly matching the style of coffee maker with the correct coffee grind.

Decide on the fineness of the grounds based on the brewing process you are going to use. If you are going to expose the grounds to hot water for a short duration, you need a fine ground. The longer the exposure, the coarser the ground needs to be. If you grind the beans too fine for the brewing method, you expose too much of the surface to hot water, and the result is a bitter taste. However, if the grind is too coarse, the coffee may be weak and watery.

The following are the basic grinds you might choose to achieve:

Course - Distinct large bulky grounds of coffee, much like heavy grained kosher salt.
Medium - Gritty just like that wonderful beach sand.
Fine - Smooth to the touch and a little finer than granulated sugar and table salt.
Extra Fine - Finer than granulated sugar but not yet powdered.
Turkish - The finest grind yet which looks like flour and feels like powder.

Here is how they match up to various methods of brewing:

Automatic Drip Coffee Makers: This is the most common coffee maker which you pour water into the top of the brewer to start the brewing process, or the auto where you just press the start button and the coffee begins brewing. Some automatic drip coffee makers can pulsate the water to extract the flavor of the bean better. This style coffee maker will have a round filter basket with a flat bottom and flat bottomed filter. This grind we call a Medium Grind, the coffee feels and looks much like beach sand.

French Coffee Press: This brewer actually brews the coffee in hot water opposed to spraying hot water of the coffee grounds. After the grounds have saturated the water a metal filter separates and traps the grounds at the bottom of the carafe. This leaves the fresh brewed coffee ready to drink at the top. This grind we call a Course Grind which distinctly looks like large bulky grounds of coffee, much like heavy grained kosher salt.

Espresso Machines: Whether you have a home or commercial model espresso machines need the correct grind or they do not operate properly. This grind we call an Extra Fine grind which is finer than granulated sugar but not yet powdered.

Ibrik/Cezve/Jezve/Briki/Mbiki/Toorka Coffee Makers: A small metal pot with a wooden handle that only brews 1-2 cups of strong flavorful coffee. This grind we call a Turkish Grind which is the finest grind yet which looks like flour and feels like powder.

Pick the freshest coffee beans you can find. Look for the roasting date, rather than the expiration date. Coffee beans are best if used within one week of roasting. The beans need to be stored in airtight containers, rather than the bins that most stores use. Coffee beans emit carbon dioxide for about 2 weeks after they are roasted, causing their packaging to expand, so if you see vacuum packaging that conforms tightly to the beans, they are probably not fresh.

Decide on the fineness of the grounds based on the brewing process you are going to use. If you are going to expose the grounds to hot water for a short duration, you need a fine ground. The longer the exposure, the coarser the ground needs to be. If you grind the beans too fine for the brewing method, you expose too much of the surface to hot water, and the result is a bitter taste. However, if the grind is too coarse, the coffee may be weak and watery.

Bad cannot win while coffee exists. In the darkest hour, the loniest moment, the era of depression... There is still coffee.

Grind the bean. Boil the water. Steep the grinds. Drink the dark water of life.

This is a very cool and unique graphic design. See this funny t-shirt as well as many other products sporting this design at:

Beloved Beans, your one stop shop for gifts and merchandise for yourself or the coffee or chocolate lover in your life.

Believe it or not, saccharin has been around for over 100 years! It is said that in 1879, a Johns Hopkins University researcher spilled a chemical on his hands but neglected to wash it off before sitting down to lunch. The chemical transferred to the bread he was eating when he discovered the sweet taste. In 1884 the researcher, Constantine Fahlberg, obtained a patent for saccharin.

In 1907 food safety officials tried to ban saccharin but the idea was adamantly opposed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Saccharin became wildly popular during World War 1 because of sugar shortages.

In 1958 Sweet 'N Low was introduced and quickly became a hit among dieters and diabetics looking for a way to sweeten coffee and other foods, without the added calories of sugar.

There has been major controversy over the safety of saccharin over decades. Nonetheless Sweet 'N Low, whose main ingredient is sacchrin, remained popular among coffee drinkers.

Beloved Beans is a great web store chock full of nuts and resources for coffee and chocolate lovers. Lots of information and merchandise related to Java (yeah that's coffee)and cacao (the good part of chocolate).

Looking for the perfect coffee cup, t-shirt, or other gift for the coffee lover in your life? You have found the right place. We have brought together the best designs of many Cafepress store owners. Try us out here.

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