‘C’ in Coffee Part 2 of 3
CAFFEINE: The chief mood altering substance in coffee, with an average of 1.1 percent in Arabica and 2.2 percent in Robusta beans, the tow main coffee species. When extracted, as in the decaffeination process, caffeine is a pure white crystal, bitter to taste. Caffeine is the world’s most widely used psychoactive drug, appearing naurallin in tea leaves and, in very small quantities in cocoa beans.
CAFFEINE WITHDRAWL: Not yet an official diagnosis, but a syndrome currently under research for possible inclusion in psychiatric manuals . its symptoms include headache, sleepiness or drowsiness, impaired concentration, difficulty working, precession, anxiety, irritability, nausea and vomiting, and muscle aches or stiffness.
CAPPUCCINO: A espresso based drink classically made with one third espresso steamed milk and one third foamed milk. The king of Italian espresso drinks.
CARAMELIZATION: Beans are naturally high in carbohydrates, which must be heated to develop toasty, sweat flavours. Caramelized sugars give body and mouth-feel to darker roast: the darker the bean, the higher the degree of caramelization. When caramelization is taken to far, coffee tastes burnt.
CEZEV: More commonly called an ibrik, this is the correct term for the long handled brass or copper pot, tinned on the interior that lopes inward at the top and is used to make Middle Eastern coffee.
CHERRY: Coffee beans are seeds of a berry, called cherry for the shape and for the deep crimson color of the fully ripe fruit. The even, ovoid shape resembles a plump holly berry or cranberry.
What’s the ‘B’ in Coffee
BARISTA: The Italian name for the master of the espresso machine.
BITTERNESS: A catchall term used to express displeasure with the taste of coffee. Coffee is naturally bitter, but should not be unpleasantly so. When the natural bitterness of caffeine is removed in decaffeinated coffee, the flavour balance is thrown off, bitterness becomes unpleasant when coffee is under-roasted, highlighting its chlorogenic acid, or when it is overheated on a burner.
BLEND: A mixture of beans from different parts of the world and sometime at different roasts, as opposed to a straight coffee, which is coffee from one region. A roaster usually has secret recipes for signature house blends.
BODY: a tasting tem to describe the weight of coffee on the palate. Paper filtered coffee is typically light in body; coffee brewed through a metal screen, as in a plunger pot and in all espresso, typically has more viscous and at sometime syrupy body. Beans themselves have different degrees of body depending on where they are grown and on their species, Arabica beans have lower body than robusta beans.
BOILER: The small tank in an espresso machine used to heat water and steam milk. Room temperature water for espresso is drawn by pump directly from the reservoir through a copper pipe that travels through the boiler before delivering the hot water to the filter holder.
BOURBON: A hallowed variety of the Arabica species, named for the French island colony off Africa (today Reunion) where it once grew. Bourbon, the basis of the Latin American trade for hundreds of years, is an impractical choice for a farmer, today, because its yield is one-third to one-half that of many newer Arabica varieties. Because connoisseurs prize its flavours and willing to pay more for bourbon trees where they were torn out or abandoned.
BRICK PACK: Coffee beans or, more frequently, ground coffee that has , in effect, been shrink wrapped in thin plastic bags. Brick packs, which save both the price mental for cans and storage space, were developed in Germany the 1950’s but only decades later came into wide use in the United States. They are no better than a can for preserving flavour, because both storage methods require that the coffee first be degassed.