As I get older, I realize that not only do I want a cup of coffee every morning, I crave it.
Interesting because when I was a younger girl, early twenties, there was no way I could tolerate the stuff without having the twitches for the rest of day.
I started working the insurance business when I was 22 years old. I didn’t smoke (a biggie for insurance professionals back then) and I didn’t go to the break room for coffee. However, I soon learned that this "breaking" as a group was some sort of rite of passage and you were somebody if the group turned to you and said, “Hey we’re going down for coffee. Wanna come?” So I went and quickly realize that these little breaks came with tons of juicy office gossip. So, while my peers poured their coffee, I lovingly thought of as watered down cigarette ashes, I poured my hot cocoa packet and stirred. That was cool, right? Kind of like coffee, only different?
Over time I gradually shifted over to “the coffee” but for me, coffee couldn’t taste coffee. Yuk, so I loaded it with a lot of cream and a lot of sugar. In essence my coffee was technically coffee but tasted more along the lines of hot cocoa. I was okay with that, my co workers laughed at that. “LaNora, do you want any coffee with that cream and sugar?” Whatever. The only reason I went down to the break room with them for “coffee” was so that I could get away from my desk for a few more minutes and sense I was down there, might as well do something.
On one of my coffee breaks, I noticed a group of men actually sitting in the break room drinking coffee and talking. Wait a minute. You mean that we can actually sit and stay a while, talk and drink coffee and not this quick dash, fill and run? As I added my fourth pack of sugar, and my sixth cup of cream, I noticed that one of those guys was kind of cute. He drank his coffee, black. The hard way. A real man!
Insurance is a hard job to handle. There’s never a feel good moment, there’s never a happy client, claimant or supervisor so I understood why insurance employees drank a lot of coffee, besides it was offered free, it was a way to break away from their desk and have a quick chat with other people also living the hell.
Over time, coffee began to represent the beginning of may day. The twitches actually worked to keep me working at a fast clip. I’m done to one spenda and a little cream per cup, but I’m up to like 5 cups a day. I’m to a point that once I start drinking it, I can’t get enough. It’s become a sense of comfort for me, which can’t possibly be good. Yeah, sure, now it is, but I’ll give you two years before scientist discovers that it causes cancer or something. It would be kind of similar to the whole theory of eggs. “Eggs are really bad for you. High cholesterol.” and a couple years later, “Eggs are the greatest things you can eat.”
That good looking man in the break room, drinking his coffee black? I married him and now he tells people he likes his coffee like he likes his women.
“Cold and Bitter.”
Yeah, we’re still married after a comment like that because I know the truth, he likes his coffee Hot and black.
But since my blog is about coffee, why don’t I talk about the actual product.
Did you know that:
· The coffee bean grows on small trees which produce unripe and ripe fruit at the same time, and thus they must be harvested by hand.
· While there are hundreds of coffee species, the most available commercially are robusta and arabica. The former grows at lower elevations, is cheaper to harvest and has less flavor; the latter is exactly the opposite in every dimension.
· The beans are picked green and then roasted for different lengths of time to create an American, French, Italian, European or Vienese roast. Instant coffee is actually dried brewed coffee, and freeze-dried coffee is frozen brewed coffee, then dried.
· Coffee, whether ground or whole bean, loses flavor rapidly. To get the best flavor, buy whole beans and ground just before brewing.
· The enemies of coffee are oxygen, light, heat, and moisture. Store whole beans in an airtight, opaque container in a cool, dry place for up to 2 weeks. Storing coffee in the refrigerator or freezer for daily use can damage the coffee as warm, moist air condenses to the beans whenever the container is opened.
· You may freeze coffee for up to 3 months, but you should bring the coffee to room temperature before brewing.
· For the most flavorful cup of coffee, use two tablespoons of ground coffee (10 grams) for each six fluid ounces (180 milliliters) of water. Different brewing methods have different grind requirements, so grind your coffee for the brewing method you use -- the shorter the brewing process, the finer the grind.
· Use fresh, cold water heated to just off the boil A cup of coffee is 98 percent water. Therefore, the water you use to make coffee should taste clean, fresh, and free of impurities.
Those wonderful tips came from http://www.food.com/library/coffee-228
So enjoy a cup of coffee today. I will!
Interesting because when I was a younger girl, early twenties, there was no way I could tolerate the stuff without having the twitches for the rest of day.
I started working the insurance business when I was 22 years old. I didn’t smoke (a biggie for insurance professionals back then) and I didn’t go to the break room for coffee. However, I soon learned that this "breaking" as a group was some sort of rite of passage and you were somebody if the group turned to you and said, “Hey we’re going down for coffee. Wanna come?” So I went and quickly realize that these little breaks came with tons of juicy office gossip. So, while my peers poured their coffee, I lovingly thought of as watered down cigarette ashes, I poured my hot cocoa packet and stirred. That was cool, right? Kind of like coffee, only different?
Over time I gradually shifted over to “the coffee” but for me, coffee couldn’t taste coffee. Yuk, so I loaded it with a lot of cream and a lot of sugar. In essence my coffee was technically coffee but tasted more along the lines of hot cocoa. I was okay with that, my co workers laughed at that. “LaNora, do you want any coffee with that cream and sugar?” Whatever. The only reason I went down to the break room with them for “coffee” was so that I could get away from my desk for a few more minutes and sense I was down there, might as well do something.
On one of my coffee breaks, I noticed a group of men actually sitting in the break room drinking coffee and talking. Wait a minute. You mean that we can actually sit and stay a while, talk and drink coffee and not this quick dash, fill and run? As I added my fourth pack of sugar, and my sixth cup of cream, I noticed that one of those guys was kind of cute. He drank his coffee, black. The hard way. A real man!
Insurance is a hard job to handle. There’s never a feel good moment, there’s never a happy client, claimant or supervisor so I understood why insurance employees drank a lot of coffee, besides it was offered free, it was a way to break away from their desk and have a quick chat with other people also living the hell.
Over time, coffee began to represent the beginning of may day. The twitches actually worked to keep me working at a fast clip. I’m done to one spenda and a little cream per cup, but I’m up to like 5 cups a day. I’m to a point that once I start drinking it, I can’t get enough. It’s become a sense of comfort for me, which can’t possibly be good. Yeah, sure, now it is, but I’ll give you two years before scientist discovers that it causes cancer or something. It would be kind of similar to the whole theory of eggs. “Eggs are really bad for you. High cholesterol.” and a couple years later, “Eggs are the greatest things you can eat.”
That good looking man in the break room, drinking his coffee black? I married him and now he tells people he likes his coffee like he likes his women.
“Cold and Bitter.”
Yeah, we’re still married after a comment like that because I know the truth, he likes his coffee Hot and black.
But since my blog is about coffee, why don’t I talk about the actual product.
Did you know that:
· The coffee bean grows on small trees which produce unripe and ripe fruit at the same time, and thus they must be harvested by hand.
· While there are hundreds of coffee species, the most available commercially are robusta and arabica. The former grows at lower elevations, is cheaper to harvest and has less flavor; the latter is exactly the opposite in every dimension.
· The beans are picked green and then roasted for different lengths of time to create an American, French, Italian, European or Vienese roast. Instant coffee is actually dried brewed coffee, and freeze-dried coffee is frozen brewed coffee, then dried.
· Coffee, whether ground or whole bean, loses flavor rapidly. To get the best flavor, buy whole beans and ground just before brewing.
· The enemies of coffee are oxygen, light, heat, and moisture. Store whole beans in an airtight, opaque container in a cool, dry place for up to 2 weeks. Storing coffee in the refrigerator or freezer for daily use can damage the coffee as warm, moist air condenses to the beans whenever the container is opened.
· You may freeze coffee for up to 3 months, but you should bring the coffee to room temperature before brewing.
· For the most flavorful cup of coffee, use two tablespoons of ground coffee (10 grams) for each six fluid ounces (180 milliliters) of water. Different brewing methods have different grind requirements, so grind your coffee for the brewing method you use -- the shorter the brewing process, the finer the grind.
· Use fresh, cold water heated to just off the boil A cup of coffee is 98 percent water. Therefore, the water you use to make coffee should taste clean, fresh, and free of impurities.
Those wonderful tips came from http://www.food.com/library/coffee-228
So enjoy a cup of coffee today. I will!