Coffee Accessories A.K.A. Coffee Gear

If you’ve been reading this site at all you’ve realized what a great experience coffee can be. From the green coffee beans to the home coffee roaster, what could be more fun. I really know a good time when I see one. One of my cats, The Ancient Cat, says I am the most fun person she has ever met. Another one of my cats, Alo says I party down! Bring on the coffee, I say.

However, if you have coffee and nothing to hold it in you may be burned severely from holding the coffee in your hand clasped cup. If you don’t like being burned then you need some coffee accessories also known as coffee gear.

Coffee gear means coffee mugs. Your coffee mugs really tell a lot about you.

* On my last date 5 years ago, holong had a mug with a koala bear on it. Trust me, the man was slow as molasses and always had a vacant stare.
* Another time, I was at Aunt Shappies for dinner and she had an amazing, pristine sterling silver coffee service. That woman was loaded and she left me her favorite cat, charlie. charlie's a real delight when he’s not ripping his claws into my skin. Aunt Shappie brought the coffee service out on a coffee cart. The coffee cart was squeaky, but it sure was handy.
* Cousin Ferelyth is a barrel of fun. Sometimes, when we play lawn darts she brings out the coffee carafe, so the coffee stays warm, when we are in a drawn out neck and neck battle.
* Tap dancing Traci sometimes has her tap buddies over after the big tap-out. She serves her coffee in a coffee urn. It is pretty, stays warm and pours out from the bottom spout. Sometimes it is messy, because people let it drip on the floor. Traci doesn’t have a cat, so it just stays there till the next time. I tell her to get a cat so the little darling would lick it up.
* Coffee spoons are cool too. I have the coolest, which I picked up in KL, Malaysia. They actually have Bishops on them. Cool eh?
* Then there’s the cute little espresso cups. My cats drink out of them. My guests always like it when I serve them espresso in the tiny espresso cups and no one has found a cat hair in the crema yet. Plus, there’s the tiny espresso spoons, which double as… nah…can’t tell you.

There are all kinds of other coffee accessories, I have lots and borrow others from friends. Sometimes you can find a real gem at the flea market. I don’t like the coffee tins they have there, but like I said, sometimes you can get really cool coffee gear there.

Coffee Pods

Coffee pods sound and look like something right out of Star Trek or The Jetsons. It's a pre-measured coffee packet, similar to a tea bag, for use in a coffee pod machine. Coffee pod machines provide pressurized technology to bring an infused taste to coffee.

There are many types of coffee pods to choose from, depending on your coffee pod machine, your personal coffee taste and of course your coffee budget.

Senseo partnered with Douwe Egberts and it provides these 72 single serving packages:

* Dark Roast
* Medium Roast
* Light Roast coffee pods in packages of 72 single servings

Melitta coffee pods provide 18 single serve packages:

* Love at First Sip Light Roast
* Cafe Kind of Day - 100 percent Columbian blend
* Buzzworthy Dark Roast
* French Kisses - French Vanilla
* Go Hazelnuts - Hazelnut
* Skip the Buzz - Decaf

Home Cafe coffee pods, compatible with Senseo and Black & Decker, provide 18 single serve packages:

* Folgers Classic Roast
* Millstone Columbian Supremo Blend

Kona-Pods, compatible with Senseo, Melitta, Home Café and Bunn My Café, provide 12- 48 single serve or double cup packages.

* Intro Sampler
* Dark Roast
* Medium Roast
* Espresso Roast
* Decaf

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for the Keurig Coffee pod machines provide 25 single serve packages. Some Green Mountain coffee varieties packaged in pods are Fair Trade Certified, which guarantees the small-scale farmers who grew this coffee a fair price for their crop.

* Rain Forest Nut - Fair Trade Coffee Pod
* Organic House - Fair Trade Coffee Pod
* Sumatran Reserve - Fair Trade Coffee Pod
* Flavored Coffee Pods: French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Belgian Chocolate Nut, Southern Pecan, Irish Cream, Fair Trade Gingerbread
* Rainforest Nut
* Breakfast Blend
* Vermont Country Blend
* French Roast
* Limited Edition Coffee Pods
* Decaffeinated Coffee Pods

Many, many more coffee pods to choose from.

Liquid Coffee

Liquid coffee is coffee that is liquid in consistency. I know that may be hard for some to believe, but it’s true. But why? Why does coffee need to be liquid and what are its uses?

Well, believe it or not, coffee is just plain great. Even when it’s bad, it’s better than nothing. So, here we go… basically, liquid coffee is blended with hot water to make an on-demand cup of coffee or even a full pot of coffee. It is best used in the workplace. Liquid coffee prevents wastage since there is no burnt gloppage to throw out or to smell intensely; suffocating the whole office and reminding you of old man.

There are many different varieties of liquid coffee. Some liquid coffees don’t have preservatives and should only be bought in small batches, so it won’t expire and taste like “ttttthhhhh.” Other liquid coffees may have preservatives and do not need to be refrigerated. In addition, others may have some preservatives and still need to be kept frozen or at least refrigerated. Frozen coffee in blocks may need 24 to 48 hours to thaw, so ensure you are ahead of the game. If you’re not, office staff will get that vacant stare reminiscent of a sad looking mime. And clowns and mimes are scary.

Liquid coffee or coffee concentrate, are generally encased in boxes. These boxes sometimes hold a thick plastic bag inside with what resembles an udder sticking out. You open the tears on the box, withdraw the “udder” and attach it to the liquid coffee machine. Generally, the coffee machine compresses the bag and a percentage of coffee seeps-out through the udder and it is mixed with the hot water. The process is simple.

A bonus feature of the liquid coffee dispenser is…ready? You can sometimes get liquid coffee makers with added features that produce hot water or a combination of hot chocolate or specialty coffees. Bunn makes some fantastic liquid coffee machines. The other great thing about liquid coffee is the price. Generally, it ends-up costing less than 10 cents a cup. One gallon of liquid coffee makes about 70 gallons; which is about 1200 cups of individual coffee. Liquid coffee can come in all different sizes, so ensure you know what you’re ordering - ½ gallon to 6 ½ gallons and everything in between (except that sweet Oreo filling). The costs for liquid coffee can range from about $15 to $100 and if you sign a contract with a vendor, the vendor may give you a liquid coffee machine and a free maintenance program (not for your coffee addiction, just for the liquid coffee machine!).
Coffee Forums

Pre Roasted Whole Bean Coffee

people buy a lot of pre roasted whole bean coffee from coffee houses and online. In the summer I home roast my own beans, but in the winter I hibernate and let the roasters do what they do best. I have to admit I love Canada's Planet Bean and also the 454 Horsepower Coffee from Kicking Horse. I like to try just about everything except cat crap coffee or weasel coffee, for that matter.

The main thing to remember when buying pre roasted whole bean coffee is to only buy a weeks worth at a time. If you are buying pre roasted whole bean coffee from the super market ensure it has been vacuum packed and check the date.

We have info of many of the popular (and my favorite) whole bean coffee brands on this site.

* Seattle's Best
* Gevalia
* Gloria Jeans
* Green Mountain
* Kicking Horse Coffee
* Kona Coffee
* Peets
* Starbucks
* Planet Bean

If you are new to the world of coffees you should try to get your hands on everything. The best way to do this is to look online for pre roasted ground coffee or join a Coffee of the Month club. There are pagse on this site about coffee tastes, coffee faults and coffee roasts. It's always a good idea to read about what you are supposed to taste before you start. Once you start tasting the good stuff you will never ever go back to regular supermarket coffee or God forbid, instant coffee.

If there's more than one person who drinks coffee in your home my advice is to just think of yourself. Make it the way you like it and the others can either make their own or buy their own coffee maker.

Instant Coffee

Chances are if you are reading this coffee site you really don't care about instant coffee. To me, it feels like an abomination of the real stuff; almost a swear word. However, there are people who drink instant coffee and in my experience it's mostly the English. Sure, it's a quick way to make a single cup of coffee, but now there are the coffee pod machines, which will give you a great single cup of coffee in less time than it takes to boil the kettle. That said, if you are reading this section you want to know what instant coffee really is…

Instant coffee is a dehydrated coffee. It is either made into granules, liquid form or powder through many different manufacturing processes. Re-hydration occurs when the instant coffee mixes with boiling water.

Instant coffee was invented in the early 1900s by a Japanese scientist living in Chicago, Sartori Kato. It began to be marketed commercially in the 1930s by Nescafe. Its simplicity, cost and long shelf life made it a popular product in WWII.

After the conventional roasting and grinding of the coffee bean the coffee is then “extracted”. The extraction method is basically coffee mixed with water making a concentrate.

Then there are 2 drying methods for the extracted concentrate. Freeze drying and spray drying.

Freeze drying is the removal of water by sublimation. The coffee is frozen, is put on a metal drying rack and a vacuum is created in the chamber of the drying rack. The coffee is then warmed using radiation or conduction. Condensation occurs and the frozen granules expand and the water vapor is removed. Finally, the granules are packaged.

Spray Drying is a cheaper method for instant coffee producers. However, the coffee particles may be too small for the general consumer. Nozzle atomizers spray water and high speed rotating wheels are used to process the beans.

A benefit to using instant coffee is that you can regulate the strength of the coffee.

Ground Coffee

To get a perfect cup of coffee you should buy good quality Arabica coffee beans, in their green bean form, home roast them 12 hours before use and grind the whole beans immediately before use.failing that, you can always buy ground coffee. Many companies provide home ground supermarket coffee, but you can also buy ground coffee from roasters. If you are planning to purchase the latter, your best bet is to only buy pre ground coffee one week at a time and ensure you store it in an air tight container, preferably not glass.

Supermarket ground coffee is ok to use if you are not a coffee cupper, but there is a difference. Most use robusta coffee beans and are mass produced. However, there are some which use Arabica coffee beans or a blend of both. Personally, I have a huge can into which I put unfavorable coffee and I use it in case of a coffee crisis; like when I'm too lazy to go to the coffee house.

Things to look for when purchasing ground coffee from a coffee house:

* Tell the grinder what coffee machine you have. Whether you use a French Press, a vacuum pot or an automatic drip machine.
* Only ever buy one week at a time.
* Ask when the coffee was roasted.
* Find out if the coffee beans are Arabica or robusta.
* Find out what country the beans are from.
* Write down what you bought and if you like it what grind you had.
* Choose the coffee roast you like.

Things to look for when purchasing ground coffee from the supermarket

* Look for something that is vacuum packed.
* Try to buy 100 percent Arabica ground coffee.
* Look for packaging which reports the roast type, many don't.
* Once you open it ensure you transfer it to an air-tight container.
* The coffee should have a code-date (expiry date), definitely check it. Groundt coffee last a long time, because of the vacuum sealing, but you should try to get the freshest possible.
* Don't buy a book by its cover. Some of the best coffee packages aren't written in English and look out of date. try these, if a major supermarket carries something that looks lack luster it is bound to be a good product.
* Never buy ground coffee that is under $5.
* Try to buy Fair Trade Coffee because some of the mass producers may use child labor or have non-environmentally conscious growing or production methods.
* Look for coffee with the Organic Coffee certification.

Coffee Brands

Besides the Cat Crap Coffee page, this section of the Coffee Bean Queen website is my favorite. Coffee Brands. If I'm not home roasting I really like to try roasts from all different countries and many of the coffee brands listed here have so many varieties.

I have to admit that I generally judge a book by its cover and therefore initially choose coffee brands sometimes based on packaging and usually by its name. I love the name of Starbucks' Komodo Dragon Coffee and Green Mountain Coffee Roaster's, Lake and Lodge Roast Coffee. It's like nail polish . if there are two similar red's and one is called Rage Red and the other is just called Red I would definitely choose the Rage Red. It's all in the adjectives! That said, there are some fantastic coffee beans out there with very unexciting names and extremely blasé packaging worth giving a try.

I don't always order coffee beans online from the US. Canada has some great coffee roasters as well. Planet Bean Coffee located in Guelph, Ontario and Kicking Horse Coffee grown in Invermere, British Columbia are two of my absolute favorites.

If you buy coffee beans online ensure you read the coffee cupping section. It will tell you the correct coffee tasting terminology and the coffee tasting faults. It will also provide you with a printable coffee cupper record sheet. As the Starsky & Hutch movie says, “Just Do it, DO IT!”

If you have a favorite coffee brand please email me or even write a guest article on the coffee roaster. I would be happy to include it along with any bad experiences you've had from coffee roasters

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee is like the really cool coffee, it jumps up and down to entertain you, similar to Mexican Jumping Beans, without the bug. Just joking. Specialty coffee is coffee which has superiority to it. The cream of the crop. The bean every bean wants to be. It can incorporate flavors, social causes and even feces. Yes, I said feces. It is the technical term, would you prefer it if I had said poo-poo or doo-doo? Ok, so carrying on.

Specialty coffee by definition is basically coffee beans that are well prepared, freshly roasted, and properly brewed. The SCAA describes specialty coffee as "special geographic microclimates producing coffee beans with unique flavor profiles."

There are many specialty coffees and The Coffee Bean Queen site exposés the following types of specialty coffee:

Cat Crap Coffee: coffee made from .well you can guess (blush). Read the page and read it all, wait until you get to the weasel coffee part.

Organic Coffee: coffee made without unnatural chemicals.

Gourmet Coffee Beans: high end, ooh-la-la coffee.

Flavored Coffee: coffee with additional flavors baked in.

Coffee Flavorings: read about chicory and other coffee flavorings (just don't try the chicory. Can you say ummm, ewww?).

Fair Trade Coffee: socially responsible coffee.

Basically, the specialty coffee designation starts with the farm's growing conditions (including its climate, whether it is shade or sun grown, whether it uses chemicals etc.), whether it is processed correctly, roasted impeccably and finally and the most important factor.whether it is free from defects.

To be honest, I don't care if coffee beans have a specialty coffee designation. I just care that the coffee tastes good and I will try just about any coffee. There is a difference in coffee if the beans aren't consistent though. Always look for beans which have uniformity. It means the growing conditions were consistent. It results in an even grind and an even roast and eventually that warm taste which wakes you up in the morning. It's all good.specialty coffee or not.

Decaf Coffee

The health studies say coffee is good for you, coffee is bad for you, so no wonder 10 percent of Americans only drink decaf coffee; we're all confused. I usually drink decaffeinated coffee at night to chase the pot of full caffeine I drink during the day. Some say I'm a coffee addict, but just because my eyes are bugging out of my head and my heart races doesn't really mean I'm a coffee addict. I'd like to think I'm just out of shape and ok, lazy.

Caffeine is a natural stimulant to the central nervous system. If you have “issues' with caffeine I would stay away from it completely. Did you know that a cup of brewed decaf coffee has 1mg - 5mg of caffeine? An average regular coffee cup contains about 75mg of caffeine. In order to qualify as decaffeinated, coffee beans have to be 97.5 % caffeine free. Kicking Horse Coffee has great decaf, tastes like the real stuff and has minimal caffeine.

To make decaf coffee the producers use specific solvents like:

* Carbon Dioxide - high pressure CO2 is used to decaffeinate green coffee beans. Basically, the green beans get a facial; its pores open using steam. Liquid CO2 forces the caffeine molecules out and the beans are dried.

* Swiss Water Decaf - beans are soaked in hot water, removing its chemical integrity and caffeine, then a charcoal filter streams the water, catches the caffeine and the remaining water is added back to the beans, to rehydrate with its flavors and chemical compounds. Basically, this method just kicks out the caffeine. Wouldn't that be nice if we could do that to people?

* Methol Chloride - this is the decaffeinated methods of choice by coffee aficionados for its flavor retention. The green beans also get a facial and then are rinsed repeatedly till the caffeine runs down the drain. The beans are resteamed to get rid of the Methol Chloride residue and then dried.

* Ethyl Acetate - reminds me of a squeaky Aunt. Green beans are soaked, treated with ethyl acetate. The caffeine “gloms on” onto the ethyl acetate and then the beans are steamed to lose the “glommage” and then rehydrated.

Green decaf coffee beans are brown. How's that for sentence structure! The process changes the chemistry of the green bean to change its structure to brown. Even with the chemical processes the beans are safe and FDA approved. Some decaf coffee even taste like the real thing, but you have to search high and low for a good one.

Kind of Coffee

First, there's the strong, dark and robust, then there's the teeth-tingling medium and finally the tasty lightweight! Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about coffee. There are all types of coffee, as you probably already know. I think there's two types of home coffee: the good stuff and the abysmal stuff. You know your coffee is terrible if your friends show up with their own Seattle's Best Coffee or perhaps, Starbucks coffee.

The first type of coffee is instant coffee. I don't know about you, but I usually drink tea if that is an option. I find instant coffee to taste like bark and some instant coffee is flavor blended with chicory.

Then there's the already ground coffee. Some of it is not bad, but you really need to know your coffee before purchasing it. Good ground coffee should be made from Arabica coffee beans, although some varietal blends are good too. If I had the choice I would definitely take ground coffee, otherwise known as supermarket coffee, over instant coffee provided it is packaged appropriately.

The next option is the coffee beans. Once you find one you like you will never go back to instant coffee or ground coffee. With coffee beans the versatility is fantastic. You can grind to your own preference and even blend your own coffee beans to your taste. There are often times when I mix decaf coffee beans and dark roast coffee beans to get that sleepy awake feel.

The newest coffee invention is the coffee pod machines. The manufacturers add pre-measured coffee to enclosed packaging. These are great if you want a single cup, but the downside is they are pre-measured, and although they come in many different coffee pod varieties and flavors, you cannot choose the strength.

The best option is to roast your own green beans. It does take a bit of time, but you can save money in the long run (and also lose money when you are learning to do it yourself). If you buy green coffee beans you may want to get an electronic home roaster or you can just use a popcorn popper.

The choice is completely up to you, just remember that the best type of home coffee is the one you like, everyone else is wrong!

Coffee Bean Acidity & Body

Coffee, like wine, has very different distinct flavors. In order to identify the taste you like, you must understand the coffee's body and the coffee's acidity. The acidity of coffee depends on the coffee bean, the dry processing or wet processing and the roast of the coffee bean.

Coffee Acidity: Coffee acidity can affect the aroma, flavor and strength of the coffee bean resulting in the coffee's ultimate taste. Coffee acidity can sometimes be measured by terms like bright, sharp, dry vibrant etc. Coffee acidity isn't usually akin to the undesirable taste of coffee sourness. As a rule of thumb, wet coffee bean processing is more acidic than dry coffee bean processing. Coffee roasting will decrease overall acidity. Higher acidity is usually attributed to higher altitudes and volcanic soil. Contrary to popular belief, the coffee's flavor acidity is not related to pH level.

Coffee Body: is the weight of the coffee and it is described as light, medium or dark and sometimes rich or heavy. The location where the coffee is grown, the coffee bean type and the coffee roast all contribute to the body of coffee. If you swirl the coffee around in your mouth, much like wine, you will get a better coffee body experience. The coffee body is akin to the coffee beans fat content. A light roast generally has lower fat and a full-bodied, or heavy bodied, coffee has slightly more fat.