Payne’s Coffee Tips and Store

Starbucks Closing 600 Stores - Full Store List

Starbucks is closing 600 stores throughout the United States. The full list is located on the Starbucks website at the following address: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/USStoreClosureInfo.pdf

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Happy New Years!

The staff and management of Payne’s Coffee Tips and Store would like to wish our readers and valued customers a happy and prosperous 2008.

May your first cup of coffee for the new year be fresh, robust, and enjoyable!

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The Perfect Cup of Espresso — Only Found in Italy

Marco Lion, the head of Italy’s agriculture commission, says that numerous coffee cafes do not have a clue on how to make a good cup of espresso. Lion believes that the “true identity of Italian coffee” may be lost. To combat this, the Italian cafes will have their espressos tested for quality and if the espresso meet’s the commission’s standards, a “certificate of authenticity” will be awarded to the café.A proper espresso is considered to have a hazelnut colored tone, with “ornate flourishes of red and a smokiness that creates a uniform tiger-stripe pattern.” The crema (which is the richest part of the espresso and is the foamy like texture that resides on the top of espresso) must be between a height of two and four millimeters. In addition, the crema must be like a “tight sweater, with very fine bubbles, if at all.” The crema should remain on the surface of the espresso for “a long time” without “breaking and without holes opening in its center.” The final note of the visual criteria is that there should be a crown formed around the rim of the cup of the coffee.

For taste testing, Mr. Lion says that the taste of espresso must be “aristocratic, elegant, noble, sensual, tasty, rigorous, clean, and sincere. It must be It must also be large, rich, vivid, valuable, fragrant, and progressive in the way that various flavors evolve in succession which delight those in search of new thrills and emotions.”

This is certainly a lot to ask for in a cup of espresso — Can your coffee shop pass the test?

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Homemade Starbucks Iced Coffee and Starbucks Frappuccino Recipe

We’ve received a lot of feedback lately asking us to write another article on iced coffee. In our previous article, How to Make Iced Coffee, we covered the three basic methods of making homemade iced coffee. But given our reader’s demand for a Starbucks recipe, we bring to you…

How to Make Starbucks Iced Coffee or a Starbucks Frappuccino at Home
Let’s first begin with an important key note for making any iced coffee beverage. Because you will use ice in your iced coffee, this dilutes the coffee brew, thus making the coffee weaker. To combat this, it is necessary that you use more coffee grounds than you typically do. If you do not make your coffee stronger, the finished iced coffee beverage will be weak tasting.

Ingredients:

• 2 shots (roughly 3oz) of Espresso — Use a dark roast for the espresso, typically an Italian blend or an Espresso blend
• 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 cups of cold low fat milk
• 1 tablespoon of pectin OR 1 teaspoon of pectin with 1 teaspoon of arrowroot
• Ice

Directions:

1. Brew your espresso
2. Stir the sugar into the espresso and let the mixture cool
3. Add the milk and mix in the pectin. Stir until dissolved.
4. Fill a glass with ice and pour the coffee mixture over the ice and serve. For a blended iced coffee beverage, blend the coffee and ice for about 30 seconds.
5. Enjoy your homemade Starbucks iced coffee

Looking to make the

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How strong do you brew?

Figuring out the amount of coffee to use when brewing up your own coffee can make a cup of Joe either relaxing or frustrating. Typically, you are supposed to use two teaspoons of ground coffee per 6 oz of water (or one cup of water). With that said, the amount of coffee grounds to use still varies.

Why do the ground coffee amounts vary?

The first thing that will affect how much coffee to use is — go figure, the type of coffee you use. Darker roasts, such as an Italian roast, a French roast, or even a Colombian roast, will cause the flavor of the coffee to be much stronger and perhaps much bitter (if you are not familiar with the taste of such dark blends).

 Second, as easy as it sounds, most people just miscalculate the amount of “dosage” to use.  Ensure that your are measuring both your coffee grounds and your water correctly.  Your drip coffee machine may have the levels misaligned, causing you to add more water than necessary.  Always use a measuring device as a gauge — not your coffee brewing device.

My coffee is still too strong or too weak.  What should I do?

This is the rather easy part.  Personally, I enjoy around 2.5 to 3 teaspoons of coffee grounds to my 6oz of water.  The easiest way to solve this mystery is to not get frustrated.  We all like a good cup of coffee in the morning, but don’t let the fact that you are experimenting with coffee recipes get you upset.  Therefore, with that said, simply change the amount of coffee grounds you use.  If your coffee is too strong, either reduce the amount of grounds you use, or use a coffee with a lighter profile, such as a breakfast blend.  I personally recommend that you use only a couple cups of water, simply because if the coffee is too strong or too weak, you will not have to drink too much of the poorly made coffee.

While experimenting, remember — some mornings you will have a bad cup of coffee and some mornings you will be wishing you made more of that brew!

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Random Coffee Facts, Coffee Tidbits, and Coffee Factoids

Good morning all. Today we have some very interesting coffee facts, about coffee, coffee trees, the history of coffee, and general coffee factoids. A lot of time has passed since the last update was made here at Payne’s Coffee Tips and Store, however, we with a new staff on hand that will be changing! With a Starbucks on the first floor of our building and a local coffee shop across the street, we will be bringing you caffeinated weekly blog posts from the world’s premier coffee resource - Payne’s Coffee!

Here are some fun little coffee facts and statistics:

• 27% of US coffee drinkers add a sweetener or sugar to their coffee
• Over 7 million tons of green (unroasted) coffee beans are produced worldwide. Most of these beans are hand picked by workers in the fields.
• Hawaii is the only state in the United States that produces coffee. If you count the US territory of Puerto Rico as a state, then the United States of America has two coffee producing states.
• Germans consume about 16 pounds of coffee per person yearly. This makes Germany not only a large consumer of beer - but the second largest consumer of coffee in the world!
• More than 50 countries produce and grow coffee worldwide. However, not one of these countries the coffee boundary, which encompasses the regions between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn (including the Equator)
• Previously, until about the 1900’s, coffee was roasted in a frying pan over a charcoal or wood fire. Batch or large scale roasting, done by companies such as Starbucks, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and others, has only become popular in recent years.
• The drip coffee methods used today (by using a filter and dripping water through the ground coffee beans) produce a much better tasting coffee than what our ancestors drank. The original percolators, invented in France in 1827 over boiled the coffee, giving the coffee brew a very bitter taste.
• With over 4,000 million coffee trees, Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer. Columbia holds the title as the world’s second largest producer of coffee, with around 3,000 million coffee bean trees.
• If you purchase hard bean coffee, the coffee was grown at an altitude surpassing 5,000 feet!
• Coffee Day is an official holiday in Japan. Let your bosses know this so that you may enjoy an extended coffee break on October 1.
• Most coffee is transported using ships and boats. Over 2,000 coffee transporting boats ship coffee worldwide, giving you and me some great tasting coffee.
• One acre of coffee trees can produce an astounding 5 tons of coffee cherries. Each coffee cherry contains a coffee bean. After milling and hulling, two tons of coffee beans are left for us to eventually enjoy!
• Flavored coffee, such as chocolate swiss almond, hazelnut, French vanilla, were invented and originated in the United States during the 1970s.
• Both Arabica and Robusta trees can produce coffee beans and cherries for 20 to 30 years, provided they are under proper conditions and given proper care.Arabica beans are the beans found in gourmet coffee blends, such as Starbucks, It’s a Grind, and The Coffee Beanery’s beans.Robusta beans are found in regular coffee blends such as Maxwell House and Folgers.
• The first coffee tree to be brought into the Western Hemisphere was brought to the French Island of Martinique.The French brought the coffee tree to Martinique during the 1720s.

Well, I hope that you all found these bits of coffee history to be interesting.
Until next time, take care.

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The Best Espresso Coffee Grinders

Nearly all coffee connoisseurs will agree that the best way to ensure that you get a great cup of coffee each time is to use an espresso coffee grinder. Certainly when it comes to making a great cup of espresso coffee the only way to ensure that you get the best and most intense flavor from the beans you are using is to use one of the many different types of espresso coffee grinders prior to you making it.

Using a grinder helps to prevent the loss of some of the oil that provides the coffee with their flavor. If you were to drink ground coffee that has been open for sometime the intense flavor would be lost as the grounds have begun to the lose the oil. But using an espresso coffee grinder prevents this from happening.

Today there are two different types of coffee grinders a person can purchase which come with either burr or steel blades. Although the burr grinders are more expensive, the resulting cup of coffee you get from using these is much better than those which have steel blades.

The other reason why you should choose a burr grinder over a steel bladed one is that during the grinding process less heat is produced which results in the grounds being more flavorsome. Also these types of grinders allow a person to decide just how fine or coarse they want their coffee grounds to be. In fact there are some espresso coffee machines which are ideally suited for ensuring that you can make fantastic cups of espresso coffee each time you use them.

However the steel bladed ones often contain an electric motor and the way you get the right kind of fineness to your coffee grounds will depend on just how long you leave the machine on for during the grinding process. Unfortunately with this particular type of machine more heat is produced during the grinding process and so the actual grounds once produced have lost a lot of their flavor and aroma. Because this particular type of coffee grinder is much less expensive then this is why you will most often finding them being used in homes.

So if you are someone who wants to ensure that when it comes to getting the most flavor and aroma out of their coffee grounds, then they should really be looking at purchasing a burr grinder. This is certainly the most suitable type of all the espresso coffee grinders a person can purchase today.

Source: Submit Articlesat ArticlesBase.com

<strong>About the Author:</strong>
Ricky highly recommend using Saeco espresso coffee machines. Visit his site today for a more detailed review of saeco espresso machines such as the Saeco Vienna Espresso Machine

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What To Look For In Automatic Coffee Makers

About The Author

Tracie M. Loewe provides readers with up-to-date commentaries, articles on http://www.the-good-shopping-guide.com and other helpful http://www.before-you-shop-guide.com.

Technorati Tags: Automatic, coffee, maker, espresso, latte, grinder, automatic coffee maker, cup

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An Introduction to Coffee Cupping

Coffee cupping is one of the tasting techniques used by cuppers to analyze coffee aroma and the flavor profile of a coffee. To know the trivial differences among coffee growing regions, it is significant to taste coffee from around the world side by side. Cupping is as well used to find out coffee defects or to make coffee blends.

Cupping Coffee

Table Preparation:

Normally, in coffee cupping session, the table is set up with 6 to 8 cups per coffee. These are set in a triangular way. At the top of this triangle you need to place a taster of a roasted coffee and a taster of the green coffee. In the center of the table place a cup of room warmth water and an unfilled cup containing the cupping spoons. Next you need to cover both the green sample and roasted taster until the cupping session is over and the coffee aroma, smell, and flavor profile have been completely documented. After this time, both coffee tasters can be uncovered and extra comments could be written based on appearance. This method normally helps reduce the common “eye coffee cupping” method.

Coffee Flavor Analysis:

After the coffee has cooled suitably take some coffee into the spoon and taste the coffee sturdily to aspirate it around the whole tongue. It is significant to aspirate sturdily as you are trying to cover the whole tongue consistently. Aspirating sturdily would as well cause tiny droplets of coffee to be dispersed into the throat and in the nasal passage. The nose could then act as another influential tasting tool. Most of the flavor experimental in a coffee is a consequence of aromatic compounds available in the coffee. This result could also be demonstrated by plugging your nose during drinking coffee. While the nasal passage is blocked, the coffee would probable taste same as to instant coffee as it lack aroma. When the nasal passage is opened, a full rainbow of flavors would then become evident.

Conclusions:

The key to cupping coffee is carry out and humility. The best cuppers known are self-effacing and always eager to learn more. The beauty is that we agree to disagree while respecting and trying to recognize the characteristics, which other people find.

Technorati Tags: Coffee cupping, coffee, aroma, flavor, cup, roasted

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Eight O’clock Coffee — $2.00 Off.

Hey everybody,

It’s been a busy time for me, but I’m still drinkin’ like crazy!

I know a lot of readers still like regular store coffee.  Or… they at least know someone that does.  :)  So, here’s a $2.00 off coupon for Eight O’Clock Coffee.  http://www2.eocoffer.com/.

Take care.

Technorati Tags: coffee, $2.00 off, coupon, Eight O’Clock Coffee

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