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Get the most from your coffee experience: know the facts! 1. What is Air Roast? 2. What does "richer flavor"mean? 3. What is Premium Grade Coffee? 4. What does "fully develops" mean? 5. What does acidity mean? 6. What is the best way to brew coffee? 7. What is commodity coffee? 8. Why do you sometimes say "coffee" and other times say "coffees"? 1. What is Air Roast? Air Roast is an innovative system for roasting high quality coffee beans. The real advantage of this system is that it produces a superb cup of coffee time after time after time. It was invented and developed by coffee experts who have a dedication to roasting the very best coffee. One important element in this technique is a state of the art roasting machine, which performs a controlled roasting process. This controlled process ensures that there are no bitter tastes on the cup. The heat in this system is evenly distributed throughout the entire batch of coffee beans producing a very uniform roast. When the desired roast level is reached, the digital controls cut off the heat source and trigger a rapid cooling process. This ensures uniformity and consistency of roasts. One other important factor in this process has to do with scorching of bean surface, which is responsible for bitter coffee tastes. The temperatures on the internal walls of the roasting chamber are much lower than in traditional roasting systems. This ensures that there is no scorching or burning of the bean surface and avoids bitter tastes. You will notice that GranCoffee makes a very smooth cup of coffee. It has a delicious flavor that produces a "melting" and encompassing sensation in the palate. Just like when you savor a bite of milk chocolate and you let it "melt" away in your palate. GranCoffee gives that same enjoyable sensation. It covers your palate with a distinguished and rich mantle of flavor. 2. What does "richer flavor"mean? In coffee, richer flavor means a more enjoyable feel throughout the entirety of our taste buds and palate. There are hundreds of components in coffee beans that together give us the sensation of taste, aroma and body. These sensations are obviously perceived by our senses of smell and taste. Our perception of flavor is complex. Different flavors are perceived at different points of the tongue, palate, nasal cavity and a region at the back of the mouth where tastes and aromas are felt somewhat together. Low grade coffees have components that produce undesirable mouth feel or have components that don't produce much of a feel of any sort. For example even a mildly bitter coffee is going to give us an undesirable sensation to our taste buds. This bitterness feel will be more prominent at the back of our tongue. Staleness is another factor that greatly diminishes the coffee experience. Old or stale coffee produces a sensation of flatness in the mouth, the aroma is weak and there is just not any flavor to be felt. Premium freshly roasted coffees by contrast, have a large amount of flavor components that are more pleasing to the senses throughout all the different parts of our mouth and nasal cavity. A sip of freshly roasted and brewed Premium coffee fills our senses with a pleasing and enjoyable feel producing a desirable experience. 3. What is Premium Grade Coffee? Premium Grade Coffee is a general term that describes high quality coffee. Premium grade or premium coffee is also referred to as specialty or gourmet coffee. These terms underscore quality, which is easily perceived on our palate. High quality coffee beans generally produce a richer and more flavorful cup of coffee than most generic or store bought coffees. The Specialty Coffee Association of America reports that less than 8% of the world's production of coffee qualifies as specialty or premium. Typically these beans come from higher altitudes where ripening is slow and uniform. High grown beans are dense and take the rigors of roasting very well. When roasted to a medium dark level these beans produce a smooth and flavorful drink with intense aroma and rich flavor. Coffee drinkers who experience a superb cup of coffee seldom go back to drinking generic coffee. Savoring a cup of freshly roasted specialty coffee is an experience of its own and an affordable luxury. 4. What does "fully develops" mean? This is a term that is used by coffee roasters. A roaster puts his green coffee beans in a coffee roasting machine (which is somewhat like an oven) and fires it up to roast his or her coffee. It takes just a few minutes for coffee to be roasted. But as the roasting process runs its course there are myriad changes that take place inside coffee beans. Chemical components inside the beans are changed and new components are formed. The resulting product, i.e., roasted coffee is then experienced by roaster's senses. If he/she is pleased with the end result, he/she may say that the flavor is well developed, meaning that the coffee reached the flavor that he/she was hoping to get for that particular type of coffee. Different roasting machines develop coffee flavors differently. Likewise different roasters may choose to roast their coffee differently reaching different flavor development. A fully developed flavor indicates that the overall taste and aroma of a particular coffee reached its maximum possible level and is very pleasing to the palate. 5. What does acidity mean? Coffees are described using a wide array of terms, but the most important are flavor, acidity and body. Flavor refers to the overall experience of drinking a particular coffee, which includes both taste and aroma. Specific flavor attributes can be found in certain coffees, such as a chocolate-like taste or a nut-like aroma. Acidity is another important, though often misunderstood, term. In coffee, acidity is a very desirable, refreshing, mouth-cleansing quality, a sparkling, lively taste that makes the ideal morning wake-up. This "taste" acidity doesn't mean coffee is highly acidic. In fact, when measured on an objective pH scale, coffee is one of the least acidic beverages found in the typical household. Body refers to the perceived oiliness and thickness of brewed coffee on the tongue, and can range from light to very heavy depending on coffee origin and choice of brewing method. 6. What is the best way to brew coffee? There's no one "best" way to brew, but there are a few simple guidelines, which hold true for all brewing methods other than espresso. 1. Use freshly roasted beans ground just before brewing. 2. Use the correct grind for your brewer. Too fine a grind causes a bitter brew, while too coarse causes watery coffee. 3. Start with one standard coffee measure (2 tablespoons) of grounds for each 6 ounces of water; adjust this amount to taste with experience. 4. Use fresh water free of taints and odors. Filtered or bottled water may be needed in some areas, but avoid distilled or softened water. 5. Bring the water to just below boiling (200 degrees Fahrenheit.). For drip brewers, the brew cycle should be completed in 4-6 minutes. Another good method is the French Press, which brews in about 4 minutes. Avoid percolators and electrics with brew cycles longer than 6 minutes; these over-extract the coffee and cause bitterness. 7. What is commodity coffee? A commodity is commonly defined as a mass-produced product. Coffee, next to oil, is the second most widely traded commodity in the world. For the most part, agricultural and natural products are mass-produced and traded under their general commodity name (as opposed to a brand name). Coffee, traded as a commodity, is distinguished primarily by its price. Little or no value is given to cup quality characteristics. Generally speaking "commodity coffee" is a redundancy because coffee IS a commodity regardless of how you look at it. However with the coming into the market of higher quality coffees referred to as "specialty coffee", the term "commodity coffee" loosely defines any coffee that is not "specialty". This terminology is more often found in marketing materials and magazine articles than in technical documents. The term does however underscore the importance of differentiating generic (or commodity) coffee from high quality or specialty coffee. 8. Why do you sometimes say "coffee" and other times say "coffees"? Again that is a terminology that underscores once more the importance of specialty coffee. You may say for example, "I had two coffees this morning". What you really mean is that you had two cups of coffee this morning. In coffee literature when we use the word coffee in the plural, i.e. "coffees" we generally mean different types of coffee such as Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, etc. | ||