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"Coffee a Miracle Drink with many health benefits, experts say."
Just to give you something pleasant to think about, while you're considering the decades in which we've been told that everything we enjoy was, to paraphrase Alexander Woolcott, either illegal, immoral or fattening.
My current book narration is a look at the Rodale Press, publisher of Organic Gardening, Prevention and other magazines and books which were foundational to the organic gardening movement. In the context of the times, self-improvement was a trope. You looked for ways to improve yourself, whether it was creating rules to live by like George Washington, or sending off for the latest Charles Atlas muscle-building book. Some of it was counterproductive, or downright goofy, but I think the individualism represented in the self-improvement movement was something valuable. We are being pushed into socialist modes of thought by the drive toward diversity, tolerance, and conservation (all of which I would define much more specifically than most of its proponents do). When you're not trying to improve yourself, it's easier to get you angry and manipulate you.
And sneaking in the obligatory book plug, one of my favorite titles to record was "Coffee is Not Forever," which taught me a lot about coffee while looking at its history as a way of analyzing international trade patterns. I still have promo codes for free review copies if anyone would like to listen to it; drop me a message if it strikes your fancy. Lots of good information about how different varieties migrated to altitudes higher than coffee leaf rust would attack, and how politics affected what was available (your java doesn't come from Java anymore!). Recently a local roaster I like got a microlot batch of Geisha beans, and as I knew why the cultivar is so rare, I made sure to score a couple of bags. It's like being a booze snob without the guilt.
Discussion (13)
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I see a trend towards folks buying green coffee beans and roasting at home which produces about the sweetest scent one can imagine. By the way, the darker the roast the more caffeine is lost in the process but it is nearly impossible to find and/or buy a light/ blonde roast.
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Back in the day it was common to buy green beans and roast them yourself. I deal with a roastery in Rochester NY, Joe Bean, that is owned by friends. They travel to Central America and make deals for micro-lots, so you know the sourcing is honest. They have a subscription service where they roast a bag of the latest beans and send them out, so you have them within two days of roasting. Between that, and learning how to use a vacuum pot, I make good coffee.
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To paraphrase from the movie Deer Hunter, to say no to good coffee is to say no to life.
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I find it interesting that the caffeine is lost if the bean is roasted longer.
That makes sense, but it also has me wondering how it is that espresso coffee beans are as dark as french roast beans.
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