CoffeeNate.com Episode #6 : What is Coffee?

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Welcome back to CoffeeNate.com, I am truly happy to have such great members of this site! Thank you all for the great emails and questions that I have received during the week, you guys are the best   There is an exciting enhancement to CoffeeNate.com this week, you can now leave your comments via VIDEO!  Look below in the comment section and simply click ‘Leave video comment’  You will then be given the option to sign into your seesmic account, or simply choose to leave an anonymous comment.  It’s really simple to do.  Just like voicemail, you will have the option to scrap your video for a do-over if you mess up.

This week I wanted to touch a little bit on where coffee comes from, not geographically, but physically. What is that little brown bean derived from anyway? Hmmmm. Well, coffee is actually a

bush that produces berries (or cherries) and inside of this berry is a pea-bean, or seed.  These beans are separated from the fruit portion of the berry in one of two ways, wet (or washed) method and the dry method.  The washed method uses, you guessed it, water to separate the ripe from unwanted berries.  The beans are then separated from the fruit before the fruit dries and effects the flavor of the bean.  This method is especially desired with robusta beans as the wahed varieties are used in some espresso blends to aid in the production of crema and add a new layer to the taste profile.  The dry method consists of washing the fruit and allowing the berry to simply dry itself out, thus separating itself from the bean.  This has more of an influence on the flavor of the bean in lighter roasts.   When dried and roasted this seed becomes what we know as coffee!

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because, starting next week, I am going to do a series on home roasting. Yep, you can get that fresh roasted taste from home and spend far less money on buying coffee! So better coffee at a lower price…who’s in? I thought we could cover this together and share our experiences here! I purchased my green coffee from Cafe Campésino . They offer all sorts of varieties of green coffee beans that just so happen to be Fair Trade / Organic. This supplier is only available to my American members, but there is a link to a world wide supplier on the "Home Roasting Methods" page.  Get your orders in for some green beans and purchase an air popper to join in the fun for next week’s show!  Beware…if you choose to utilize your current air popper, it probably won’t be good for popcorn ever again so choose wisely. It is recommended that you use an air popper with the vents rather than the screen bottom inside of the chamber.

After the next show I will be drawing the winner of the free coffee.  If you want to be included in the draw, be sure to get  your questions in before Friday.  You can ask a question by clicking "Ask CoffeeNate" or via Twitter.  If you choose the Twitter method, be sure to include @CoffeeNate in your tweet.  I’m excited about doing some roasting together so get ready and play along at home…at your own risk of course   See you then!

Young LA, here are a couple of great options for a grinder for you!