Coffee: Good to you Bad For You?

So a guy comes up to me while I'm selling coffee and says...."you have any tea"? I tell him no and he tells me that I should, because there is a seismic shift towards tea drinking, large enough to create entire continents and I need to get with it.  I was waiting for him to tell me 'all the cool kids are doing it'.  But he went one better (or worse).  He said  "People are switching to tea because it has less caffeine". It was time to dispel the tea myth.  Here it goes: Tea contains more caffeine than coffee by dry weight.  A typical serving contains much less caffeine than coffee because tea is normally brewed much weaker.   His muttered response - as he walked away - was the 'adult' equivalent of 'so what'. To me that's what you say when you have nothing to say but - you want the last word.  Whatever.

Caffeine in general is so ninja, the average person doesn't realize that it's in a lot of stuff  - coffee, tea, many cola drinks and over the counter medication.  Yet coffee always  gets accused of being villain because caffeine is most commonly ingested through coffee.

If you are one of those people who drink several cups of coffee daily, you probably wonder what all that coffee is doing to you. ROFL!  Yeah right! If you're one of THOSE people you  probably don't care!  But seriously, is coffee really bad for you, or is drinking coffee just a harmless vice?  Can it be possible that coffee is actually good for us?  Look at the results of some recent research:  .

• There are nutritional advisers who claim that coffee makes us age faster, wears out our adrenal glands, and wreaks unspeakable damage to our cells.

• In some older people, coffee or tea can improve memory and alertness enough to partly offset the effects of aging. 

• Other researchers claim that coffee, especially if it's freshly roasted and ground, is full of antioxidants, and therefore good for us.  Most doctors say that drinking one or two cups of coffee a day is probably not harmful.  And of course there are others who say we ought to avoid caffeine altogether.

•  Caffeine gives brain cells a temporary boost .  But the amount required to improve mental performance is not very high.  Even half a cup of coffee will be enough to give your brain a boost that lasts several hours.  Which is precisely why many of us drink coffee, especially the first thing in the morning.

For those that are wondering where I'm going with this, here it it is, the definitive response to the raging coffee vs. tea question: Drink the d@%n coffee!

Avoid excessive consumption of coffee ( or anything else for that matter). What's excessive? Depends on the individual.  If  four cups of coffee a day makes you  jittery, nauseous, suffer insomnia, kick the dog, cuss out your boss and walk of your job or demonstrate and other extreme behaviors, you should probably cut back on the caffeine. Seriously. You really should.

If you don't suffer from any of the above by your fourth cup....carry on!

 

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Coffee Rehab

Recently a friend called me to say her co-worker really liked my coffee. “She’s decided she can use it for her rehab”. Naturally I wanted to know what she was talking about. She explained how her co-worker loves her coffee drinks…she visits her local cafe twice-a-day. Alas, her money’s getting funny and her change is getting strange so she’s looking to save a few bucks. She figured she could save $60 a month by cutting back to one café visit a day. She chose to eliminate her morning visit and brew her first cup of the day at home, using good, fresh roasted coffee to ease the pain of ‘withdrawal ‘. “So that makes DreamCoast Roast ...well, like methadone, right"?  Wow. 

Well if you’re trying to kick the café habit, brewing premium fresh roasted coffee at home is a start but don’t stop there! You can create tasty café style coffee drinks at home. Here are a few things you can do:

• First use premium fresh roasted coffee from your local café, specialty grocery stores or online. Check for a roast date on the bag (a good roaster will have one on theirs). Since coffee starts getting stale immediately after roasting try not to purchase any whole beans more than two weeks old and any ground that’s more than a week.

• Brewing at home opens up a world of possibilities! One of the first ‘gourmet’ coffees I tried was from the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia. It was the Harar and it changed my life (well that may be an overstatement but you get my drift). I expanded my palette's  repertoire to include other African coffees like Yirgacheffee and Kenya.  If you only like coffees from certain regions try different estates and area's of the region for variety.  Variables like altitude, rainfall and farming methods can provide variety while staying with the familiar.

• Substitute sugar with flavored syrups (vanilla, hazelnut, coconut and raspberry are good ones). Or use pure maple syrup, turbinado sugar, or agave sweetener, an all natural sweetener low on the glycemic sugar index. You can find them at the grocery store. You may have to go to a health food store for the agave sweetener.

• Grind up a little whole cinnamon or nutmeg with your coffee beans or add ground spices to coffee before or after brewing for a little extra ‘kick".  Someone told me the other day they put habanero peppers in their coffee!

• If you add milk, heat it before adding it to your coffee. Scald it if possible. It just tastes better!

• Are you in love with the froth on your cappuccino or espresso?  You can froth at home too! Check out this link. It covers everything you want and need to know about milk frothing. Frothing milk

• Do you usually get pastries with your coffee at the café? Stop by your local bakery at closing time.  They often discount items and get something for them versus throwing them out and getting nothing.  Warm it up for a few seconds the next morning in the microwave to freshen it up….just like most cafes do!

Decent coffee drinks can be made at home without totally sacrificing quality and taste. No it's not exactly like the cafe. Write your name on your cup.  Maybe that will make your experience more authentic.

Darlene
DreamCoast Roast
www.dreamcoastroast.com

Burgers, Diet Drinks and Lattes

Recently, I had lunch with a fellow Weight Watcher friend--not as in the organization but as in quite literally watching our weight.  These days, we mostly watch the weight climb.  At any rate, over a thankless feast of broiled lemon chicken with brown rice, salad and low cal dressing, etc., my calorie-counting buddy begins once again to lament nonstop about her failure to lose more weight. "I am doing EVERYTHING.  No midnight snacks, following the diet plan, eating only the recommended meals, no substituting ingredients, aerobics, yoga and strength training 5 times a week," she droned on. At this point I had tuned her out to focus my attention on the New York Style cheesecake covered in a mountain of cherries in front of the lady at the table next to mine. I fantasized about snatching it and running, wondering if I could make it to the front door.  I decided that the door was too far away to reach before somebody stopped me.  I tuned back in to my weight watching friend’s woes just in time for her to suggest that we get coffee at the cafe down the street.  We paid our check and left.  The cheesecake stayed behind.
We arrived to the café and approached the counter.  ‘The usual?” suggested the cashier.  As my friend nodded, I noticed that the barista (a term I use loosely) has already started the order.  Curious, I asked her what the usual was, which happened to be a large latte with whole milk, a double shot of vanilla syrup, and whole milk foam. "I love their lattes. I come here twice a day.”  Yikes.  "Dude", I say slowly.  "Do you know how many calories are in that latte you just ordered"?   "What? What are you talking about?” she cried, visibly alarmed.  "It's milk and coffee". So I broke it down for her just like this:
Between the foam and the milk in the latte you’ve got about a cup of milk.  That’s 150 calories.  Two tablespoons of vanilla syrup is 80 calories, which accounts for at least one shot.
"So what you're saying is that I'm drinking almost over  500 calories of coffee a day???” she screamed.  "Yep,” I replied.

I’d like to take this opportunity to raise one of my pet peeves: people who go to drive-thru burger joints, order the works and then PROUDLY order a diet coke. Really??? Why mind the calories now? The damage is done.  Just go ahead and get the regular coke.

Fortunately, all is not lost. You can shave calories off your favorite café and preserve the taste by substituting fat free milk and sugar free syrup, which comes in a large variety of flavors.  If you are watching your weight, be mindful of watching your favorite coffee drinks too.  They may be the very thing that sabotages you—even more so than New York Style Cherry Cheesecake.

DreamCoast Roast Custom Roasted Coffee  

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Stale Coffee?? It Happens!!

You can tell when bread is stale because it gets hard, smells old, turns green . Cheese with mold is done for. But what about your coffee? Well, it gets stale too. Here's the short version on why and how: Roasted coffee that comes into contact with oxygen begins to deteriorate. Period. There are other factors like how dark it's roasted and how it's packaged but the primary culprit is oxygen.

How do you avoid exposing your coffee to oxygen, which is, uhmm...everywhere and keep it from getting stale as long as possible? It's easier than you think.

1. Buy fresh coffee. Get your coffee from a local roaster. You can check local directories to see who's roasting in your area. Check with a small independent (not chain) coffee shops and cafés to see if they sell what they're brewing. Or check with your local (once again not chain) grocery or specialty foods stores who usually carry local coffee roasters' products.
2. Buy on line. Order from roasters that advertise "custom roasts" or "roast to order". This usually means that they're not roasting until they get orders and your coffee should be less than a week old by the time it reaches your door. Look for a roaster who will include the roast date. If that's not standard ask them to do it...just for you! If they are truly roasting fresh it shouldn't be a problem.
3. Buy small and grind. Buy what you drink in a week or no more than two weeks at a time and buy whole bean coffee. Grinding coffee accelerates the deterioration process. Simply put the more of the bean that is exposed to air the quicker it goes stale. Only grind the amount of beans you plan to drink. Also store your beans in an airtight container and keep in a cool, dark place. Coffee isn't a big fan of the light either. I've found that an old fashion Mason jar works great.

There's nothing you can do to prevent your coffee from getting stale,only slow down the process. And for the lovely liquid paradise that is a good cup of coffee..it's well worth it.