‘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.
The benefits of Coffee
If you love coffee, here’s some of the latest good news.
• A study of 90,000 Japanese by the National Cancer Center in Tokyo found that people who drank one to four cups of coffee daily had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank coffee. Researchers aren’t sure why, but they speculate that antioxidants may play a role.
• A study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health that followed more than 125,000 men and women for more than a decade found that regular coffee drinkers had a significantly lower risk of developing type 2 (or late-onset) diabetes. Studies in Sweden and Finland also concluded that coffee consumption offers protection from type 2 diabetes. Again, researchers aren’t sure why.
• A half-dozen recent international studies showed a positive relationship between drinking caffeinated beverages — including coffee — and lower rates of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Other research links coffee consumption with reduced risk of cirrhosis of the liver, colon cancer and asthma.
• A cup or two of coffee can improve endurance in activities such as running, cycling and swimming, according to other research. Coffee has a strong ergogenic effect, meaning it helps people work harder and longer, explains Lawrence Spriet, an exercise physiologist at the University of Guelph who has researched the effects of caffeine on athletic performance for more than a decade. “Even small amounts of caffeine can be quite powerful,” he says.
Coffee Jargon A to W
Let’s start with the ‘A’s
ACIDITY: Not a defect , acidity is one if the reasons the best high grown Arabica coffee beans fetch the highest prices. As a roast gets going, flavourful acids form, giving coffee life and sparkle. The lighter the roast, the more the acids are highlighted; very dark roasts destroy most acids. Not be confused with bitterness.
ADENOSINE: One of the chemicals, or neurotransmitters, the body makes to control neural activity; adenosine triggers a series of slowing effects in the body. Researchers think caffeine acts as an adenosine imposter, locking into special receptors on brain cells and fooling the body into thinking that adenosine is circulating when it is not. Caffeine thus speeds up by not slowing you down.
AGED COFFEE: Green coffee beans that have been stored in the climate, typically hot and humid ,on which they were grown, for a year or two ore even three before being shipped similar to monsooning , which takes less time, aging bean is expensive, because stocks are tied up. Aged coffee has a soft roundness many connoisseurs seek, especially for blends.
AIR QUENCHING: The cooling of roasted beans with blown air rather than with sprayed water. (see water-quenching)
ARABICA: One of the two main coffee species. Coffee Arabica is named for its original popularizes, the Arabs, who bought it to native East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula in the fifteenth century. All the delicate, prized flavours possible in coffee are found in Arabica and not robust, the other main species , although not every Arabica is fine. Arabica beans, which produce the best flavors when grown at high altitudes in semitropical climates near the equator, naturally contain about half the caffeine (an average of 1.1 percent) of robusta beans (which have an average of 2.2 percent).
Effects and Consumption Caffeine
What is Caffeine? It is an alkaloid found naturally in such foods as coffee beans, tea, kola nuts, Yerba maté, guarana, and (in small amounts) cacao beans. Caffeine is created in plants as a form of pesticide, to kill of insects feeding on them. In its true form caffeine is a whitish-yellow powder substance, bitter in taste.
Caffeine’s main drug producing effects are: a stimulant that affect the central nervous system, effect the supply of oxygen to cells, the heart rate, and is a mild diuretic. Some studies show that small amounts of caffeine may increase our cognitive functioning and improve our mood.
One common source of caffeine is the coffee plant, the beans from which are used to produce coffee. Caffeine content varies substantially between Arabica and Robusta species and to a lesser degree between varieties of each species. A single serving (6 to 8 fl oz) cup of drip coffee contains around 100 to 125 mg of caffeine. However the world over coffee varies considerably in caffeine content per serving, and range from 75 mg to 250 mg.
Tea is another common source of caffeine in many cultures. In general tea contains half the amount of caffeine per serving than coffee, though certain types of tea, such as Lapsang sou chong smoked teas, and oolong contain less caffeine.
Just how much is a safe amount of caffeine, it is generally agreed that consuming up to 300 mg of caffeine per day is safe. That is the equivalence of drinking three cups of coffee or six cups of tea a day.
Drink It For Health
Go ahead: That cup of joe won’t hurt you, the latest research says. It might even help you.
Coffee drinkers, rejoice! The heavenly brew, once deemed harmful to health, is turning out to be, if not quite a health food, at least a low-risk drink, and in many ways a beneficial one. It could protect against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis and Parkinson’s disease.
What happened? Lots of new research, and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.
“Coffee was seen as very unhealthy,” said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Now we have a more balanced view. We’re not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice.”
As you digest the news on coffee, keep in mind that coffee and caffeine are not the same thing. In fact, “they are vastly different,” said coffee researcher Terry Graham, chairman of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. One can be good for you; the other, less so.
“Coffee is a complex beverage with hundreds, if not thousands, of bioactive ingredients,” he said. “A cup of coffee is 2% caffeine, 98% other stuff.”