Monday, February 2, 2009

Want To Know More About Coffee

By John Purkis

Coffee originated on the plateaus of central Ethiopia. By A.D. 1000, Ethiopian Arabs were collecting the fruit of the tree, which grew wild, and preparing a beverage from its beans. During the fifteenth century traders Trans planted wild coffee trees from Africa to southern Arabia. The eastern Arabs, the first to cultivate coffee, soon adopted the Ethiopian Arabs' practice of making a hot beverage from its ground, roasted beans.

The ingredients in coffee are water and the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, Coffea Arabica. The chemical constituents of coffee would be those compounds in the roasted coffee seeds that are soluble in boiling water. The following soluble compounds: trimethylphenol, ethylphenol, methoxy, ethylphenol, methylenephenol, dicaffeoyl, quinic acid, ethylphenol, methoxy, vinylphenol, acetaldehyde, caffeine, caffeol, caffeoyl, quinic acid, caffetannic acid, chlorogenic acid, citric acid, daturic acid, guaiacol, hypoxanthine, isochlorogenic acid, putrescine, scopoletin, spermidine, spermine, sugars, tannic acid, tannin, theobromine, theophylline, thiamin, trigonelline and xanthine.

Coffee is commercially prepared through vigorous extraction of almost all soluble material from ground roasted coffee beans. This process naturally produces a different mix of components than does conventional brewing.USES OF COFFEE: Fresh your breath. What to do when you're all out of breathe mints? Just suck on a coffee bean for a while and your mouth will smell clean and fresh again. Remove foul odor from hands. If your hands smell of garlic, fish or other strong foods you've been handling, a few coffee beans may be all you need to get rid of the odor. Put the beans in your hands and rub them together. The oil released from the coffee beans will absorb the foul smell. When the odor is gone, wash your hands in warm, soapy water.

American attempts to create instant coffee began during the mid-1800s, when one of the earliest instant coffees was offered in cake form to Civil War troops. Although it and other early instant coffees tasted even worse than regular coffee of the epoch, the incentive of convenience proved strong, and efforts to manufacture a palatable instant brew continued. Finally, after using U.S. troops as testers during World War II, an American coffee manufacturer (Maxwell House) began marketing the first successful instant coffee in 1950.

Once roasted, coffee beans must be stored properly to preserve the fresh taste of the bean. Ideally, the container must be airtight and kept cool. In order of importance, air, moisture, heat, and light are the environmental factors responsible for deteriorating flavor in coffee beans. Folded-over bags, a common way consumers often purchase coffee, are generally not ideal for long-term storage because they allow air to enter. A better package contains a one-way valve, which prevents air from entering. - 15634

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