Things You Should Know About Coffee
Coffee, probably one of the most oldest consumer products in the world enjoyed tremendous growth and acceptance throughout the years. Unlike other consumer goods, coffee traveled thru time and has a long story to tell. One of my goal in this blog is to share facts that are rarely published. The importance might not be that big but like anything we love, we try to know things to understand better.
Here are some of those things that you might not know.
- Satori Kato
1901 was the year that Satori Kato invented the first instant coffee. He was a Japanese American chemist from Chicago. Melitta Bentz, from Dresden, Germany,invented the first coffee filter, which was patented on June 20, 1908. Dr. Ernest Illy is credited with creating the first automatic espresso machine back in 1933. Achilles Gaggia, from Italy, invented a high pressure espresso machine in 1946. (source: about.com)
- Advantages of Instant Coffee
Instant coffee is a lot faster to prepare than the conventional ways of brewing coffee. Because instant coffee is dehydrated, it weighs less and has less volume than coffee beans and ground coffee when preparing the same amount. Coffee beans and ground coffee both lose some flavor because their essential oils evaporate after some time, whereas instant coffee maintains its flavor. (source: wikipedia)
- Roasting Coffee Beans
When first picked, the coffee bean has no pleasant taste to it at all. It has to be roasted in order to bring out its aroma and its flavor. Roasting is essential for both instant and regular coffee. The beans are put into large cylinders that rotate while hot combustion gases are used. The bean temperature has to reach and exceed 165 degrees Celsius for the roasting to begin, sounding somewhat like popping corn popping. It takes between eight and fifteen minutes to complete the roasting process. (source: wikipedia)
- After roasting coffee beans for instant coffee, what’s next?
Once roasting the coffee beans is complete, the next step is grinding. In the process of grinding the beans are reduced to anywhere between 0.5 and 1.1 mm, so they may be put into solution with water for the drying stage. Specially designed rollers are actually used in order to cut the beans rather than crush them. When the beans have been roasted and ground up then they are put into a solution with water into 5 to 10 percolation columns. The temperatures are between 155 and 180 degrees Celsius, which then concentrates the coffee. The next step is the drying process either by freeze drying or spray drying. Freeze drying produces a higher quality tasting instant coffee than spray drying. (source: Wikipedia)
- Largest producer of coffee in the world
Brazil produces close to one third of the world’s coffee, in both Robusto and Arabica beans. The best coffee is known as Santos, named after the port it comes from. The highest quality coffee is called the Bourbon Santos. Flat bean Santos is a lesser quality but still a good coffee. Colombia produces about twelve percent of the world’s coffee, Venezuela produces about one percent of the world’s coffee and Ecuador’s coffee is consumed mostly in Ecuador alone. (source: About.com)
- Is Decaf really caffeine free?
Decaffeination is the process by which caffeine is removed from coffee beans, cocoa and other caffeine-containing items such as tea leaves, etc. A process is done on unroasted coffee beans by steaming them, to begin with, then the beans are rinsed in a solvent. The process is repeated several times until the international standard of 97% of the caffeine is removed or until the EU (European Union) standard of 99.9% of the caffeine is removed. Therefore, the caffeine is never actually 100% removed. (source: wikipedia)
- Coffee heiress murdered by the Manson Family
On August 9, 1969, coffee heiress, Abigail Anne Folger was murdered by the Manson Family. “Gibby”, as they called her, was the great-granddaughter of J. A. Folger, the founder of Folgers Coffee. In 1969, Abigail moved into the Polanski home to stay while Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate were away. Sharon Tate returned while director Roman Polanski remained away to work on a film. On the morning of August 9th, 1969, the Manson followers had broken into the home and murdered Abigail Folger, along with Steven Parent, eight month pregnant Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and Wojciech Frykowski. (source: Wikipedia)
These are some of the not so popular coffee facts and I’ll try to research more for future posts. If you have some, please share them here. Everyday is a good day to learn new things about coffee.
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