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An environmental revolution in coffee-roasting is about to arrive in Britain  -  the machine promoted as ‘the greenest coffee roaster in the world’ will be launched in the UK during the first week of October.

Coffee roasting, while an extremely skilled process, has always suffered from its environmental image.  It creates a vast amount of smoke, and a very distinctive smell  -  most ‘industrial’ roasters have had to contend with objections from their neighbours, and ‘roaster-retailers’, the shops who roast small quantities of coffee on retail premises, have suffered a particularly high number of complaints.

The answer, according to the Loring Smart Roast company from California, is its new Kestrel 35 machine, which will be distributed across Europe through a new company, Smart Roast Europe, formed by Chris Glossop and Steve Penk, the two men who brought La Spaziale espresso machines to the UK. 

An energy survey by Pacific Gas and Electric in the States has concluded that the Smart Roast system uses only 20% of the energy required by a conventional roasting machine of  a comparable size, and the target for the new European company is to persuade coffee roasters to upgrade to a cleaner and more economical system.

Technically, there are certain major differences.  In a conventional drum-roaster machine, the coffee beans are placed in a drum which rotates, rather like a cement-mixer, in heat. This, says Smart Roast, is too energy-intensive, and so it has devised a system whereby the drum remains in one place, and an internal paddle agitates the beans.

Many conventional roasters use an ‘afterburner’ to burn-off particulates in the exhaust to achieve cleaner emissions. This, says Smart Roast, is an expensive, environmentally-damaging and inefficient solution, because the afterburner can use six times as much fuel as the bean-roasting process itself, and consequently produces up to six times as much carbon dioxide. In the Smart Roast, there is no afterburner, but the exhaust is re-circulated within the machine and burns off its own waste.

There is also a claim that the machine works on a lower-oxygen basis than conventional roasters, and that there is a distinct improvement in coffee taste as a result.

It is also suggested that significant grants are available to assist in the purchase of such  equipment.

The Loring Smart Roast will be demonstrated to the trade at James’ Gourmet Coffee roastery in Ross-on-Wye over the first weekend of October. Places are by invitation, enquiries to 01246 454400.

By Ian Boughton

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Are you drinking too much coffee? We seem to need it to wake up in the morning, to stay alert when we drive, and even our work breaks are now referred to as “coffee breaks.” A sign that may indicate that we’re getting a little too carried away is when we have a mug, with a picture of our favorite mug on it. But don’t put your favorite cup away just yet. There’s new evidence suggesting that coffee in moderation can actually be good for you!

New evidence shows that antioxidants are not only in green tea, but are also in coffee. Surprisingly, there’s four times the amount of antioxidants in coffee as what there is in green tea. Of course this doesn’t substitute for the amount of antioxidants that you find in fruits and vegetables. But one to two cups of coffee per day lowers your chances of having cancer and chronic diseases.

Harvard University School of Public Health shows that the risk of Type II diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers. Why? It boosts the liver’s ability to break down sugar. Too much sugar that stays in our bodies not only causes us to gain weight, but also weakens muscle strength. And who wants saggy muscles?

Did you know that almonds lower your cholesterol and help to increase your memory? That’s right, a few of those delicious nuts with coffee, and it’s even more of a super memory booster! You actually have an 80% less chance of getting Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s drugs are now being developed with caffeine derivatives for this very reason.

In medicine, caffeine is used as a diuretic (to increase urine) and as a cardiac stimulant. It boosts energy and triggers alertness.

After a large cup of coffee, our muscles tighten up, our heart beats fast and our hands get cold. Coffee stimulates the brain like cocaine and heroin. That’s why it’s so addictive and for the same reason why most of us need it first thing in the morning, to start our day. Once you get into the coffee cycle, you can’t stop. If you try, you get a wicked headache and you start squirming like a snake.

But recent studies reveal that regular coffee drinkers are less likely to contract heart disease. “Until now, we have attributed the cardiovascular effects of coffee to caffeine, but we found non-coffee drinkers given decaffeinated coffee also display these effects,” says Roberto Corti, M.D., a cardiologist at University Hospital in Zurich. Then could there be other ingredients in coffee that are causing the “jitters”? If there is less elevation in blood pressure, could this mean that we are increasing our tolerance to caffeine? Should hypertensive people still drink coffee?

The American Heart Association agrees that there’s a lot of contradiction about caffeine and regular coffee drinkers and the link with cardiovascular disease. If you sit down and calculate how much caffeine you consume in one day, you might be surprised. But could only one or two cups of coffee be harmful for you?

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there is more risk for a heart attack if a regular coffee drinker carries a gene called cytochrome P450 1A2*1F. This gene metabolizes caffeine slowly. They have decided however, that more research still needs to be done before they can make this conclusion.

Dr. Florian Koppelstatter of the Medical University Innsbruck, in Austria, claims that caffeine boosts brain activity. Vanderbilt University also found coffee to increase blood flow to the brain thereby, preventing degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Again, maybe there are some good benefits as long as we consume this beverage in moderation. Apparently, adding an extra paper filter in your coffee machine when brewing your coffee, even if you have a plastic filter, helps to lower cholesterol and your blood pressure.

We all know that coffee sometimes prevents constipation. Nothing like that morning brew to get things moving! Some practitioners in alternative health medicine actually suggest doing coffee enemas for bowel cleansing. Myself, I prefer bottoms up to be my cup!

Are we addicted to the coffee or to the lifestyle and habit that we’ve grown into over time? Well at least now we know that there are some healthy benefits.

But can having too much coffee and drinking the brew too late in the day cause insomnia? Without a good night’s sleep, our body can’t replenish itself. Let’s not forget the increased risk of osteoporosis for menopausal women. I think I’ll stick to my martinis and use the coffee grounds for something else.

I heard coffee grounds make good fertilizer in the gardens because they’re high in nitrogen. Use them to fertilize your evergreens, azaleas and rosebushes. Also coffee grounds mixed with orange peels placed around your plants in the garden will keep the cats away. You can even mix some carrot seeds with ground coffee when you sow and pests will stay away. Placing a small container or dish of coffee grounds in the freezer, rids your freezer of spoiled food smells. For you fishermen, coffee grounds mixed with earth will keep your worms wiggly.

Meeting new people and socializing with coffee is one of America’s favorite pastimes. From espressos to café lattes or ice cappuccinos, we keep thinking of new delightful ways to enjoy our quick fix. And now with convenient drive-thru coffee shops, it’s even easier to grab a mug on the go. The coffee places make fabulous meeting places for a quick chat, to play games, or to read the newspaper. Some go alone and others gather in groups. Ironically, we all go out of our way to have something that we can make fast and effortlessly at home.

A man and woman were in the kitchen having a discussion on who should brew the coffee in the morning. She suggested that he do it because he was the first to get up in the morning. “This way you won’t have to wait,” she said. He quickly replied, “You should do it. You usually do the cooking around here.” The wife walked out of the room for a moment and reached for the Bible and opened the New Testament. She pointed to the top of the pages and showed him that indeed it said, “Hebrews. “

So coffee lovers, as long as you drink your coffee in moderation, it doesn’t seem like it will hurt you. It’s apparent that it could benefit you. Studies have shown that coffee has amazing antioxidants, helps persons with bronchial asthma, increases the speed of rapid information, counteracts driver sleepiness, reduces the risk of stone formation and colon cancer, and is even a great source of potassium. Again the key word is moderation, like with everything. Too much of anything is not good.

So java junkies go ahead and drink up! Your coffee fits right in with its cousins tea and cocoa.

Louanne Baelde
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/good-news-for-coffee-lovers-onecup-drinkers-less-likely-to-get-heart-disease-135590.html

In order to make a really good espresso coffee, it is important that the coffee beans are ground in the correct manner. How finely they need to be ground depends on the brewing method used; if these two aspects are not properly matched, the full aromatic flavour will not be extracted and the cup of coffee produced will be substandard – coffee beans that are too finely ground will produce coffee that tastes overly bitter, whilst too-coarse beans will produce weak, bland and insipid coffee.

Buying your own coffee grinder, therefore, can be a fantastic investment: you have full control over the grinding process, and have the distinct advantage that you can grind the beans yourself just before they are to be brewed (this is recommended in order to achieve the best cup of coffee possible. If beans are ground more than a couple of minutes immediately before brewing, they can become stale and the flavour will be impaired).

When you buy a coffee grinder online, make sure that you do enough research to understand what you are buying. The range of grinders offered by different web sites can vary immensely from company to company, and of course the price will fluctuate too. The two main varieties of coffee grinder are burr grinders and blade grinders: burr grinders grind the coffee using a mill-like action, and tend to grind very evenly and cleanly, whilst blade grinders actually chop the bean into pieces at a much faster speed than burr grinders, resulting in coffee grinds of varying evenness, and producing a dust that can clog up espresso machines.

Whichever machine you opt for, ensure you choose a web site that allows you to shop securely, and make sure you take into account the shipping charge when making your purchase. It can also be useful to buy a machine that offers a warranty, just in case anything goes wrong.

Jin Ee
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/the-ins-and-outs-of-coffee-grinders-your-guide-to-buying-online-88906.html

Many distinct types of coffee makers exist-percolators, automatic drip-brew, etc.-but, because of the basic notion of water passing through coffee grounds or beans to create coffee, the coffee maker parts are very similar with each type.

In terms of coffee maker parts, the basic coffee maker is composed of a base, called a heat pad, on which sites a glass or ceramic pot. Along the back of the heat pad a sometimes wide rectangular-shaped cylinder for water stock rises to a long slip with a track underneath to support a filter cup.

This slip mostly has an opening with a flap at the top for decanting the water into the cylinder. Most machines, those fluctuating faintly from brand to brand or make to make, are comprised with these five coffee maker parts: heat pad, water-stock cylinder, a slip with open flap and track, a filter cup, and a coffee pot.

Clearly, a list of the coffee maker parts wouldnt be thorough without mentioning the filter itself. This white pocket of paper-like interwoven fiber is sometimes zigzag-creased and sometimes smooth, but it is always thick and heavy enough to support the weight of coffee grounds.

One creative convenience of the filter is that it is only used once. After use, both soggy filter and coffee grounds are discarded, so cleaning the filter for reuse is unnecessary. As demonstrated by the convenience of the filter, the coffee maker parts in general work together to make that great rich cup of smoldering coffee – the best ever inhaled!

The method of brewing coffee, in the theme of the relationship between the coffee maker parts, is a simple and easy course: Cold water is decanted through the flap on the top of the slip and stored in the back cylinder until the machine is heated up.

When the water is at the right temperature and the pad at the bottom of the machine is hot, the water in the cylinder is siphoned through the slip and down into the coffee grounds within the filter. Coffee then fills the or else empty pot below.

These coffee maker parts work like a snap-one, two, three! Only a few parts need to start this process efficiently, and when each part is working properly, the process is good-to-go!

John Thompson
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/coffee-maker-parts-get-to-the-basics-56420.html

Coffee is the second most imported commodity in todays market, right behind petroleum. This beverage has become so widely used that many coffee-derivative drinks have been produced and consumed for years. Below are a few prevalent coffee drink recipes.

The first drink would, of course, be coffee. Grown all around the planet but particularly in Ethiopia, the Middle East, Columbia and Brazil, coffee seeds are extracted, dried, and then roasted. The method in preparation is complex, but the coffee drink recipe for coffee is simple: Coffee beans, consisting of caffeine and a variety of oils indigenous to the particular environment in which the beans are harvested.

One coffee drink, called Ca Phe Sua, beloved in Vietnam comes in two variations Ca Phe Sua Da (coffee, milk, and ice) and Ca Phe Sua Nong (coffee and milk hot). The coffee drink recipe for the first consists of the simple process of blending dark French Roast with a quarter to half percent of condensed milk and then pouring, through a small drip filter, over ice. The coffee drink recipe for the second is similar, but ice is withheld, leaving only hot Ca Phe Sua.

The well-known and widely consumed Espresso, invented and produced in Italy and widely used all over Europe, has a wide array of coffee drink recipes. Only a couple of them are described here.

A formal Italian Espresso is created by forcing moderately hot water through high pressure (nine to ten atmospheres, or bars) into extremely fine-ground coffee to create a drink thicker in consistency than regular coffee and composed of a variety of vegetable oils, proteins, sugars, and reddish-brown foam called Crema.

Espresso has very little water. The coffee drink recipe for Caffe Americano (American Coffee), an American version of Espresso, has a higher degree of water and is made similar to the drip-brew fashion.

The coffee drink recipe for Latte (Italian for milk) is a simple one: Caf a Latte, meaning Coffee and Milk, is composed of one-third Espresso and two-thirds steamed milk, poured together simultaneously into either side of the drinking cup. Caf Lattes typically have foam floating on top.

The Frappaccino is a widely known drink sold by the Starbucks coffee chain. This coffee drink recipe is as follows: one-part soluble coffee is blended with water, which in turn is mixed with an one-part proprietary liquid comprised of milk, sugar substances, and caramel flavoring and then eventually with ice. A Frappaccino has a milkshake consistency, an intense coffee flavor, and is chilled before drinking.

All of these and many other coffee drink recipes are available on the Web or in various recipe books. For those who love coffee, these coffee drink recipes will leave mouths watering!

Mmm, coffee! That oughta get your fire burnin!

John Thompson
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/coffee-drink-recipes-from-around-the-world-58418.html

If you are like most people, and coffee is an integral part of your routine, you probably cannot imagine going a whole day without a cup or two or three or four of coffee. Let’s say now, however, that you have just moved into a new apartment with very little space in the kitchen. Your roommate says there is no way that big coffee machine will fit in. You sure can’t afford to spend $3-4 a cup at the coffee shop; you wouldn’t have moved into a small apartment and taken a roommate if you could! The perfect solution is a space saver coffee machine, as long as you know the right one to purchase.

There are a lot of space saver coffee machines on the market today. You can still get the old standby, the drip machine, which doesn’t take up much room anyway. This is an easy machine for anyone to use. The best way to use them is to get one of the gold, silver or another type of permanent filter. They make a better cup of coffee because no other flavors but the coffee get into the carafe below, plus you don’t have to remember coffee filters all the time.
For the connoisseur, French press or hand press varieties of space saver coffee makers also exist. For those of you who insist this is the only true coffee, you will be happy to learn you can get it in a space savor model.

The new pod type machines can be space saver models. These work by shooting hot water through the pod filled with coffee grinds. It is the closest you can get to European style coffee house coffee without a really specialized machine that takes a lot of space. The grounds in the coffee house machines are fresh, of course, but what a mess to clean up. What about a space saver espresso machine, if that’s your thing? If you have to have your old fashioned pressurized coffee, you can get an espresso machine.

You can have your (coffee) cake and eat it too. Have your perfect coffee maker in your small space with a space saver coffee maker.

Clinton Maxwell
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/the-right-coffee-machine-to-fit-your-space-98438.html

WNY SOUTHTOWNS COFFEE BEANS
2510 Hamburg Turnpike Lackawanna NY 14218 Phn: 716-828-1800 Fax: 716-828-1801

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In good detail we watch the Clover coffee machine make an outstanding cup of coffee.

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Making art out of coffee

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