What You Should Know About Gourmet Coffees
Fine food and drink may be considered gourmet; however, this can also be applied to coffee too, as in gourmet coffees. These types of coffee have been made from coffee beans picked at the precisely the right time, roasted to perfection and then ground into a variety of flavors and blends. This is not something that you would normally find in your neighborhood grocery store, but perhaps in that Starbucks coffee bar downtown.
After being picked, the beans are normally processed in one of two ways; they can either be soaked or washed to remove all of the chaff from each bean or a more natural drying method may be employed. Both methods have their own advantages and will produce great coffee if done correctly.
Coffee beans get roasted at very high temperatures, after the washing and processing is complete, then they are cooled off quickly, according to the methods used by specific companies. You can find quite a bit of good information on the internet, but as a general rule the darker the ground coffee looks, the longer the roasting process took to get that strong, full-bodied flavor of gourmet coffees. It is a good idea to choose darker beans to start with.
Generally, there are two ways to get your morning fix of java. You can be one of those morning commuters that rush to get in line at their local coffee house for that cup of regular or gourmet coffee, latte or espresso, or you can brew your own cup at home with your own coffee machine where you can leisurely drink it, read the paper and then get ready to leave for work. Of course, another added bonus of brewing your own is that wonderful aroma that just seems to say that it is going to be a great day.
Perhaps the secret to a perfect cup of coffee begins with the coffee beans; there are two major types of beans, the Arabica and the Robusta. The Arabica produces a very fine quality coffee that is usually sold to the retailers that carry gourmet coffees. The Robusta is hardier, more resistant to diseases and produces more coffee cherries; however, it is normally used by retailers that use commercial blends rather than the more elite gourmet retailers.
