Tips
for Brewing Great Coffee at Home
Tip #1: -
Always start with a high quality Arabica coffee
bean. There are two main species of coffee plant
grown around the world – the robustus and
the Arabica. The robustus is a robust plant that
grows quickly and is easy to mass produce. The
Arabica plant matures more slowly, in higher
altitudes, and develops better flavours. The
Arabica bean also contains less caffeine and is
less harsh on the body. People who have stomach
upset and other problems when drinking cheaper,
robustus bean coffees usually find they can drink
Arabica bean coffees with no problems.
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Tip #2: -
Always match the grind of your coffee to the type
of coffee maker you have. Why is this important?
Because the shape and style of the coffee maker
determines how long the coffee and the water
spend together, and therefore what flavours are
extracted. If, for example, you have a cone
shaped basket, the water will feed through
quickly and your grind has to be fine for the
water to pick up all the flavours as it passes
through. If you have a flat basket, the water
spends more time with the coffee, so your grind
needs to be a little coarser, or the water will
have time to pick up bitter flavours. Cone
filters should use a fine grind, flat baskets
should use a ‘drip’ grind, percolators
use a coarser ‘perc’ grind, and French
presses uses the ‘coarse’ grind.
Join CJ’s Coffee Club
CJ’s Café in Bronte sells 12 different
Arabica coffee beans, ground fresh for your
needs.
For every 9 pounds you, buy you get the tenth
pound FREE.
Refer a friend to our coffee club and you also
get a credit towards your free pound – just
tell them ‘say my name’ when they
purchase their first pound.
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Tip #3: -
Do you want to brew coffee for home that is
better for your health, the planet, and the
people who produce coffee? This tip and the next
will tell you what you need to know about Fair
Trade & Organic Coffees.
First of all, the Fair Trade bit – what does
this mean? As defined by a recent CBC In Depth
report, it is a way of making sure that producers
in developing countries are paid a fair price for
the goods we consume - a strategy for poverty
alleviation and sustainable development, as
opposed to exploiting desperately poor people.
Canadians consume more than 40 million cups of
coffee a day, and almost two-thirds of the coffee
Canadians drink is consumed at home.
The vast majority of the coffee we buy comes from
producers who are paid about 11 cents for every
dollar spent by the coffee-consuming public.
Under fair trade arrangements, less money goes to
"middlemen" and more goes to the coffee
grower. They receive about 28 cents for every
dollar spent by the coffee-consuming public.
There are also mechanisms in place that divert
some of the money earmarked for producers to the
wider community. So some of the money goes to
building schools and improving infrastructure.
Some other benefits of Fair Trade Coffee include
that children are not to be exploited as cheap
labourers; women's work is properly valued and
rewarded; and better environmental practices and
responsible methods of production are encouraged.
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