The Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf

If you want an exceptional cup of coffee I recommend The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The company was founded by Herbert Hyman in 1963. It is a Los Angeles based company with more than 750 branches in 22 countries.                                                               

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf go all over the world to get the finest coffee beans.

We had a delicious espressso and a cake each in Canion Arim, Kfar Saba.

Coffee Body Scrub

If you love the aroma of coffee and are looking for a natural way to beat cellulite at home  - ground coffee. Coffee is a wonderful, natural anti-oxidant which is why it is ideal to use for beauty treatments. It will offer you the benefit of neutralizing free radicals under the surface of your skin to prevent damage to your cells. This will reduce the appearance of age and also prevent disease.

Using ground coffee to remove or reduce cellulite has been around for a while. Many women claim success from using this well known remedy.

Expensive cellulite creams have one think in common - caffeine, rather than spending a fortune on expensive anti-cellulite products you can make your own treatment with caffeinated coffee grounds that actually works a treat. Ground coffee can also be used as a exfoliant. The course nature of the substance helps to remove the dead skin and will firm and tone your skin.

Coffee Body Scrub

2 cups of coursely ground coffee

1/2 cups of raw sugar or sea salt

2-3 teaspoons of olive oil

Put some plastic sheeting on the floor of your bathroom.

Take a hot shower to moisten your skin and open your pours.

Stand on the sheeting and apply coffee mixture to you cellulite areas using your hands or a loofah mitt.

Using wide cicular motions rub the coffee exfoliate onto your skin with strong pressure.

Shower off, skin dry and apply body lotion.

After giving yourself a treatment relax with a delicious cup of coffee!

Espresso

  

Espresso is a concentrated coffee brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely grounded coffee. Espresso has a thicker consistency and a higher concentration of dissolved solids, and crema than other coffee bewing methods.

All the flavours and chemicals in an espresso coffee are very concentrated which is why espresso is the base for other drinks like cappuccino, macchiato, mochas and lattes.

The first espresso machines were introduced at the beginning of the 20th Century, the first patent being filed by Luigi Bezzera of Milan, Italy in 1901. Until the mid 1940s, when the piston lever espresso machine was  introduced, it was produced only with steam pressure

                                                                                  

Preparation of espresso required an espresso machine. The act of producing a shot of espresso is called 'pulling a shot' which required pulling down a handle attached to a spring-loaded piston, forcing hot water through the coffee at high pressure. Today it is more common for the pressure to be produced by steam or pump. This process produces an almost syrupy beverage by extracting and emulsifying the oils in the ground coffee.

             

Espresso is the main type of coffee in many parts of the world. In addition to the Italian style of coffee, coffee chains offer many variations by adding syrups, whipped cream, flavour extracts, soy milk and various spices to their drinks.

Variations include, Affogato, Americano, Antoccino, Black eye, Bom bon, Breve, Carajillo, Cappuccino, Corretto, Cortado, Cubano, Espresso con Panne, Flat white, Guillermo and Iced coffee.

Good Morning..........coffeeeeeeeeeeeee

It is winter, quite dull and grey outside so to cheer myself up I am having a delicious cup of coffee to blast away the winter blues.

Now I have the energy to get on with all my work!

Read about the health benefits of coffee

http://www.naturalnews.com/028036_coffee_antioxidants.html

The Roasting Process

In their raw state coffee beans are green. During the roasting process the beans pass through different stages. Firstly the water contained in the beans evaporates and then the bean swells to twice its original volume. The colour of the bean changes from light green to yellow, to yellow-brown, to light brown and then to dark brown. The aroma develops from a series of chemical reactions as the bean is roasted.

There are many different roasts of beans which are available, the following guide lists the main categories and their common names.

                                                                                                                    

Dark Roasts (14 minutes)                                                                                                                     

The darkest roasts such as "Italian Roast", the beans are roasted to almost jet black giving a smoky well roasted taste which makes the natural flavours of the coffee beans

Medium Dark Roasts (12-13 minutes)                                                                   

Medium dark roast is when the beans are roasted for a long time at a high enough temperature to bring the natural oil of the coffee to the surface.

                                                                                                    

 French Roast - which is also known as dark roast. French roast beans are often used to make espresso. 

Continental Roast -which is slightly lighter than French Roast but with a spicy body.                              

Viennese Roast - which is roasted a little longer than American roast and has a rich chocolaty body.      

Full City Roast - which is even darker than City roast.

   

Medium roasts (9-11 minutes)

Medium roasts balance body with flavour.

                                                                                     

Breakfast Roast - which is a bit sweeter than a light roast.                                                                    

American Roast - which is not as dark as any of the European roasts but has a good aroma.                 

City Roast - which is darker than standard American roast.

                                                                                             

Light Roasts (7 minutes)                                                                                                               

A light roast gives a very subtle bodied flavour. Some examples are:                                                       

New England Roast.                                                                                                                           

Half City Roast.    

                                                                                                                              

Cinnamon Roast - the surface of the bean is dry with no oils present and flavour is light-bodied.            

                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                        

Relax And Enjoy A Delicious Coffee

It is always nice to go out and sit in a cafe, have a delicious cup of coffee and watch everyone around having a good time time.

Lunch time at Bleecker Bakery in Kfar Saba

Bleeker's serve tasty sandwiches, salads, delicious cakes
and the coffee is great!

A Little Of What You Fancy

.............does you good.

Coffee contains caffeine, a mild stimulent to the nervous system, caffeine is the world's most popular mood altering substance and has been for more than 300 years.

Caffeine promotes wakefulness because it interferes with adenosine, a natural chemical in the body that helps the body sleep - in moderate amounts coffee can enhance mood and increase alertness.

Several studies comparing moderate coffee drinkers (2 cups) with light coffee drinkers (less than one cup) found those who drank more coffee were significantly less likely to develop Alzheimer"s Disease later in life. Moderate coffee drinkers 3-5 cups a day had reduced risk of developing dementia in addition to Alzheimer's Disease.

Drinking coffee can lower the incidence of gallstones and gall bladder disease in both men and women.

A study comparing heavy coffee drinkers 5 cups a day with non coffee drinkers found that coffee drinkers were significantly less likely to contract Parkinson's Disease later in life.

Drinking coffee gives one the ablility to increase short-term recall and increase IQ and perform better in tests.

Coffee can reduce the incidence of cirrhosis of the liver and has been linked to a reduced risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, a primary liver cancer that usually arises in patients with pre-existing cirrhosis.

Coffee consumption can also reduce the risk of oral, esophageal and pharyngeal cancer, although no benefit in ovarian cancer, a moderate reduction in breast cancer was observed in postmenopausal women only.

According to a study led by Esther Lopez-Garcia of Universidad Autonoma de Madrid coffee reduces the incidence of dying from heart disease.

Coffee in considered to prevent constipation.

Coffee consumption decreases risk of gout in men over the age of 40. In a large study of over 45,000 men over a 12-year period, the risk of developing gout in men over 40 was inversely proportional with the amount of coffee consumed.

Coffee can increase LDL in humans this indicates that coffee can raise cholestrol.

Last year research at the Harvard School of Public Health found that drinking coffee cut the risk of developing the most common form of diabetes.

Recent studies do show that coffee may share the same healthy attributes as green tea. Coffee has been shown to help boost out immune system and help us fight disease. Coffee contains anti-oxidants such as tocopherols.

So go ahead and treat yourself to a cup of coffee................and enjoy!

http://www.naturalnews.com/028033_coffee_diabetes.html

Types Of Coffee

There are two main species of coffee been, arabica and robusta. they both grow well in equatorial regions.

Robusta is grown at lower altitudes 0-700 meters, and its plant is high yielding and high caffein content (1.7-4.0%). It accounts for about 30% of the world production. Robusta has a stronger flavour than arabica with a full body, woody aftertaste. This is useful when creating blends and especially useful in instant coffee.

Robusta is grown in the following regions:

Western and Central Africa (Ivory Coast, Uganda, Cameroon and Angolia)
Malaysia (Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java)
Brazil
India

Arabica grows at high altitudes 1000-2000 meters and while is has a lower yield and less caffein (0.8-1.4%) it is widely recognized to be superior to robusta. Arabica accounts to about 70% of the world production, it has a delicate acidic flavour, a refined aroma and a caramel aftertaste.

Arabica is mainly grown in the following regions:                                  

Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costs Rica and Panama)
South America (Venezuela, Columbia, Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina)
India
Eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique)
Papua New Guinea

Most cheaper blends have a higher proportion of robusta compared to arabica. Some high quality blends use small quantity of the very best robusta beans to give body and character to the blends particularly espresso blends.

                                                                            

A Short History Of Coffee

Coffee was first discovered around the 9th century in Ethiopia by a young goatherd, who noticed his goats grazing upon berries which seemed to have interesting side effects. The goats jumped around and were full of energy. The goatherd believed the berries had some magical properties so he took some back to the village elders. They boiled them with some water and soon realized the stimulating potential of the brew. From this point on coffee plants were cultivated by man purely for their precious crop.

The Ethiopians traded with the Arabs and coffee spread towards the east. The Arabs guarded the coffee plant and although they traded across the Islamic world all beans for export were boiled to prevent any chance of transplantation, however the Dutch managed to transplant some to Indonesia in the late 1600s and this was the beginning of worldwide growth of coffee cultivation. In the late 17th century coffee came to the masses in Europe and the first coffee house opened in Italy, Austria and England. Lloyds of London and the London Stock Exchange are just two key institutions whose roots can be traced back to a 17th century coffee house.

By the 18th century the French introduced coffee cultivation to Martingue and by the end of the century Central America and South America had somewhere between 18 and 19 million bushes and were firmly established coffee producers.

Today coffee is grown on five continents and consumed worldwide. It is the most important commodities traded on the world markets.