Impbrewssive

Brewing coffee with aeropress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two seasons ago, I bought a porcelain to-go coffee sipper. But in cold weather the coffee loses its steam by the time I get the car warmed up. During a recent visit, my brother's vacuum mug sipper kept the coffee warm for 2 hours of the drive, put me on the right track for the perfect temperature sustainer.

As often happens, you ask search one thing, and you stumble into the bottomless pit of search engine results. One has favorably engaged my attention.

Impress Coffee Brewer is like drinking coffee directly out of the percolator. Aeropress, also a minimalist coffee brewer, comes a tad behind Impress. In their own words

A one-cup-at-a-time coffee maker & to-go cup that brews delicious full-bodied coffee and stays hot forever without getting bitter.

Forever? I'm sold!


Impress Coffee Brewer is still a Kickstarter project, although I do see the product will be on sale for $40, once its scaled for mass production.

Java Jive

I love the Java Jive and it loves me! Enjoy this lyrical ode to a cup, a cup, a cup of bean.

Coffee Cupping

Coffee is the new wine. To appreciate the subtle flavors, texture and body of the coffee brew, coffee cupping is newest fad on the block.

Tasters use spoons to slurp the brew, noting their impressions of taste, acidity, aftertaste, and body. The Northwest region of United States - Portland and Seattle - has various coffee cupping venues where you can learn 'How to taste coffee'.



When I first started drinking coffee, the only difference was that it did not taste like masala tea, drinking chocolate or a malt drink. Nescafe or Bru, regular or premium, they all tasted 'well' with enough sugar and frothed milk. Barista, back them a premium chain was no better than Cafe Coffee Day, except it meant we were acting classy in the former rather than hanging with the gang.

One of the daily coffee cuppings at the Stumptown Coffee Annex in Southeast Portland, Oregon. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That first filter coffee from my aunt opened a door to coffee which has over the years made me appreciate (not snooty) what coffee should taste like. I no more drink 2-3 cups of espresso each day, or even every week, which means each cup is savored that much more. After a long walk in Downtown Portland, I picked a glass of iced latte from Peets on my way to the bus stop. It was brown sugared cold water, with not even a hint of coffee; it wasn't even decaf! With Starbucks long left behind in the race for 'enjoying a cuppa', Dutch Bros and Black Rock are the only steadfast options I can count on each time.

National Coffee Week

(Photo credit: Rudy A. Girón)

A whole week dedicated to coffee aficionados - September 24th to September 29th. 
mmm...

Beating Diabetes, one joe at a time

The sweltering summer has kept me off espresso's. Baking in 38C with no air-conditioning or fan for respite, begged for ice-laden glasses of water, and OJ. Heavy eyelids, droning radio static, scorching laptop. The thought of coffee has me reaching for an ice-pack to cool the forehead.
Surfs up this infograph which wants to drink not one, but four cups of coffee a day, with promise of keeping diabetes at bay. At no given day am I going to consume a lethal dose of ten grams of caffeine, yay to one more win for my mocha.

 

Buzz Masters

Have you tested positive for crystalline xanthine alkaloid

This bitter white stimulant sneaks up into all nearly all our beverages. While in nature it acts as a natural pesticide to paralyze and kill insects, we humans glug copious amounts of it via soft drinks, beverages or energy shots.

Caffeine, you sneaky bugger.

Caffeine Attack (Photo credit: serafini)

The jolt from caffeine keeps us going until the crash which
follows, in my case that is a numbing headache which even sleep can't eliminate.

So, someone created decaf.

For all those hypersensitive to caffeine, wouldn't you like to know if the Americana is legit amount of caffeine?

So, someone else invented a caffeine test strip. D+caf Test Strips help you fine caffeine concentration of coffee and tea with 98% accuracy for detecting “NON-DECAFFEINATED” beverages. The test strips are so high in demand that I could not find a single live link to the product-buy page.

Caribou Coffee Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I will continue to take my chances with that dark roast Caribou Coffee. Drinking two pounds of that coffee hasn't frazzled me, so the remainder half pound should be equally relaxing.

A Fresh Brew

Because I am no longer getting my system wired with copious amounts of caffeine, my body (mainly the part above the neck) has been on "Pause" mode for a month.

The first week after I stopped drinking coffee I had a pounding headache, which diminished  only with a continuous knock on the forehead with my cordless phone. It is now held together with a goey remnant of Neosporin & Mickey Mouse Band-Aid. What didn't work for the bruised temple, is sure working well for the eroded earpiece.

A failed rendezvous with hot cocoa, on flash-snow days like today, I grudgingly sought refuge in the warm comfort of steeped tea leaves.

Whether you know how to roll perfectly round chappatis which fluff up like balloons, not knowing how to brew a good cup of tea has been my saddling curse. Weak as a kitten, my tea is usually drained in the gullet of the In-Sink-Erator. If I recollect and take out the tea bag half an hour later, the tea is only fit for soaking Parle-G biscuits or tea rusks till they sink at the bottom of the cup and I end up 'eating' the bitter-sweet mush with a spoon.

During a trip to Iraq with my mom a decade ago, we'd spend the afternoons  walking through the ruins of the freshly bombed town square, following our noses to seek the sweet enticing aroma of freshly brewed tea (she was a tea aficionado). Served in delicate cups the size of a shot glass, their sweet and minty black tea is not scorching hot; you find yourself sipping a warm dessert, sitting in the desert (see what I did there ;-))

On a rain-drenched spring evening of Portland, I savored a similar brew at Dar Essalam a Mediterranean restaurant which serves Indian-like spicy meats accompanied with Moroccan Hot Mint Tea served in a filagreed silver pot and matching cups.

Recollecting the notes of flavor, I gathered the raw materials:

- Loose tea leaves
- Orange Blossom Water
- Fresh Mint Leaves from my potted plant (they are floating in the water)
- IngenuiTEA which I have used until recently for Cold Brewing Coffee
- 2 sachets of sugar (American sugar is less sweet than Indian sugar)
- Nuked water

Everything went in the IngenuiTEA and poured out 5 minutes later.

Verdict? I finished drinking it all even before I finished typing the words 'tea leaves' the first time in this post, and I finished typing the entire post in one-sitting, which usually takes me 2-3 days to complete.

Got any tips to improve my tea nirvana?

Coffee Break

After a failing association with Allopathy medication, I have turned to my favorite alternative - Homeopathy. It never fails to surprise me that two tiny sweet pellets can have such dramatic results which popping large bitter and gullet-chocking tablets fail to achieve.

Image via Wikipedia

The only drawback is that I will be unable to freshen my afternoons with a steaming cup of mocha. Tuesday was my first day without coffee. Most times I skip a cup when I'm too busy. But since it is a mandate now, my body decided to retaliate with a full-blown withdrawal and launched a pounding headache which only an unadulterated shot of espresso can cure. Mind though conquered over matter, and I lolled the remainder of the evening in a haze.
The mist rolling across the hills aka my parking lot urges me to froth up a cappuccino. Reckoned to steep a cup of tea with the remains of a one-year old sachet I'd bought for my father when he was visiting. I settled for a warm glass of water. After yesterday's swim class though, I needed something to stir me up from the adrenaline crash. I made a pit stop at my local coffee shop Coffee Time and just stood for half a minute treating my olfactory senses to the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee.
The guy behind the counter had cocked his head up from the Nintendo he was playing to get my order started. So there was a question mark on his face as I scanned the chalkboard to find a comfort drink. Then it struck me. Hot cocoa!
I asked him if he could whip me up a cup of cocoa, asking twice if there was any coffee involved in the process. He gave a boring sideways glanced and said "No coffee." I felt the vexing urge to explain myself. "I am trying to kick the coffee habit, so just want to make sure there's no coffee whatsoever in my drink."
He nodded, and suggested that I take a medium cup. I said "Sure!"
Coffee Time is half a mile from my apartment, with a single signal light. Trying to distill any kind of soothing effect which coffee fills the nerves with, I gulped down 3/4th of the cocoa before I'd reached home. On the plus side, I am now sleeping like a baby at the stroke of midnight.

Burr-ed

The beginnings of a perfectly smooth and delicious coffee are not under your control, but the variety in the market spoils us for choice. During my induction years of coffee brewing, I'd enjoy the experience of visiting the hole in the wall Philips Coffee at Grant Road station. They are a legend in coffee standards in Bombay, and would pick a month's supply of freshly ground coffee. It was an exhilarating experience to engulf in the heady aroma of freshly ground coffee beans.
Fast forward to the life on the opposite side of the globe, I discovered coffee fanatics who truly showed me the passion which drives the coffee addict. One of mu regular activities visiting grocery stores, is to sample the tiny cups of java they have steaming near the beans dispensers.

Image via Wikipedia

Mistakenly, I once picked up a bag of coffee beans instead of pre-crushed. The bag was of an exotic flavor, so I didn't want to let it go to waste. And that is when Coffee Grinder made entry into my then naïve exploration in the coffee world.
Since then I have better understood why my coffee in  Bombay would not entice the strong aroma I'd experince when sipping on a java at Barista or Cafe Coffee Day. My earliest assumtion was that my house in Bombay was non-stuffy, and so the aromas 'escaped'!  When the same cycle repeated in the stuffy closeted apartments iacross USA, I learnt that the fault was in my method of burring all the coffee beans at one go.
Equipped with the aforesaid coffee grinder, only a week's supply of coffee beans are grounded, for maximization of its olfactory and gustatory caffeination. Thereby, I was quite intrigued by a post of Lifehacker on 'Fresh coffee on a trek'. Personally, the overdose of purity in the air when camping negates any need for a jolt, because the purity and concentration of Oxygen levels in the air provide a sufficient enough kick. The only excuse I'd brew a coffee on a campsite would be to keep the cold at bay, or keeping myself awake, lest the coyote feasts on my Beef Jerky.
The Lifehacker tip suggests using a pepper mill, while some readers suggested customized camping products like Hario Slim Mill and REI camping coffee grinder. After spending the day scaling mountains and crossing rivers using ropes, who has the energy to crank a mill to ground coffee? Isn't it more sensible to simply grind the coffee portions at home, and Ziploc portions of it for use at the campsite. None of us are Bear Grylls of Man vs Wild after all.