KHALDI AND HIS GOATS

The coffee tree is indigenous to only one small African country:  Ethiopia. So how did coffee become so popular around the world?

According to a popular legend, it all began with a young Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi (or Khaldi or Q’ahldi).  Many centuries ago, Kaldi found his goats bounding about the hillsides in a joyous frenzy. They were having a ball! Even the old and tired goats were prancing around and acting young again. They didn’t even sleep at night.

Kaldi felt confused. Tired and worn out from trying to manage the rambunctious goats, he watched them carefully to discover their secret. After finding them eating bright red fruit from a nearby tree, he tried some of the fruit himself. Suddenly, he felt invigorated.

Kaldi’s discovery might have remained his secret, but one day a monk from a nearby monastery came upon the herder and his goats and asked how they got all their energy. The monk ate from the plant and he, too, felt revitalized. He brought some coffee cherries back to the monastery to help the monks stay awake during long religious services. Soon all the monasteries used coffee as a part of their services.

During the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., Ethiopians invaded the part of the Arabian Peninsula now occupied by Yemen and brought some of their magical seeds.  Enraptured by the fruit’s invigorating and stimulating properties, the Arabs became the first people to cultivate coffee plants. In fact, the first recorded word for coffee is in Arabic. It is qahwah (KAH wah), meaning “Arab’s wine.”

The Arabs also were the first to trade in coffee. By the sixteenth century it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. By the next century, coffee had made its way to Europe and was becoming popular across the continent. Less than 100 years after that, coffee had become a major trade crop. Today, it is the world’s most valuable commodity after oil.

Ethiopia still produces some of the world’s finest coffees. Many are organically grown and hand-processed according to centuries-old tradition. Our Cowboy Action Coffee…the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society…is a blend of Ethiopian and Indonesian in a medium-dark roast.  Just think, African coffee and Pacific coffee blended for the full bodied taste of the Old West.

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at upcoming Western shows, and asks for it, will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when your taste buds are so numb you could drink your lava lamp.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT COFFEE?

In an article entitled “What is it about coffee?” the editors of Harvard Health Publications, discuss some of the known benefits and drawbacks of drinking coffee.  The article on coffee is found in Harvard Healthbeat, a blog and e-newsletter published by Harvard Health Publications of Harvard Medical School.

The Harvard authors observe that “It is one thing to say that coffee may be good for you; it’s another to say it’s so good for you that drinking it should be recommended. And we’re not there yet.”  However, the authors do ease concerns of coffee drinkers, concluding that “All of the favorable studies and all of the seemingly healthful ingredients in coffee are good news for coffee drinkers. They can relax and enjoy their habit.”

We’ll cover various aspects of the Harvard medical School musings about our favorite beverage in upcoming ruminations.

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at upcoming Western shows, and asks for it, will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when Starbucks owns the mortgage on your house.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

DRINKING COFFEE MAY TURN HARD WORKERS INTO SLACKERS

Many people reach for a cup of coffee when they are tired, but depending on what type of worker you are, that may not be such a good idea. Drinking coffee may turn hard workers into slackers, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed the effects stimulants such as caffeine and amphetamine had on rats and found that "worker" rats, rats that typically favored high-difficulty/high-reward tasks, became slackers when given stimulants. But natural "slacker" rats, rats that went for low-difficulty/low-reward tasks, became hard workers when given amphetamines.

"Every day, millions of people use stimulants to wake up, stay alert and increase their productivity -- from truckers driving all night to students cramming for exams," Jay Hosking, lead researcher and a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, said in a statement. "These findings suggest that some stimulants may actually have an opposite effect for people who naturally favor the difficult tasks of life that come with greater rewards."

Researchers presented 20 rats with five food dispensers that rewarded them with either one or two sugar pellets based on how hard they concentrated. Some rats naturally concentrated harder to get the second pellet, while others were content with just the one, according to the study. When given a stimulant, the roles reversed.

"I think this is already somewhat understood in everyday life; for some of us, coffee really does the trick for those long hours in the middle of the day, but for other people it makes them too jittery or aroused to concentrate on their work," Hosking told Fox News.

Researchers hope that this finding will pave the way for more personalized treatment of conditions such as ADHD, which is treated with amphetamines. By understanding patients underlying behavior, doctors could better tailor a treatment plan, according to the study.

"We need to look at individual differences when we design therapies, rather than just looking at the main effect of a drug on an entire group," Hosking told the Vancouver Sun. "If these results extend to humans, then maybe a cure isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of thing."

Researchers said the most important thing to take away from the study is that everybody does not make decisions the same way.

"Some of us are happy to put in the extra effort in hopes of a promotion, while others may be satisfied to earn their wages and do the bare minimum at work," Hosking told Fox News. 

The journal Neuropsychopharmacology published the study.

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at Buffalo Stampede at SASS Founders Ranch in Edgewood, NM, Tuesday, April 17 through Sunday, April 22, and asks for it will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when people get dizzy just watching you.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

CAFFEINATED BABIES

Mothers of new babies might be forgiven for turning to caffeine to get through those sleep-deprived months. And they might worry that drinking coffee interferes with the sleep of breast-fed babies — the Web is full of such questions. But a new study says it's not so.

Instead, researchers in Brazil found that the babies of heavy coffee drinkers were no more likely to wake up than were babies whose moms didn't have a serious espresso habit.

Crying and colic at 3 months old, as well as frequent night waking at 12 months, were not affected by a mom's caffeine intake.

"When we planned the study, we worked with the hypothesis of association between heavy maternal consumption of caffeine and higher infant awakenings at night," Marlos Rodrigues Domingues, a researcher at Brazil's Universidade Federal de Pelotas and co-author of the study, tells Shots in an email.

It's not clear why the infants' sleep wasn't affected. The babies might have developed a tolerance to caffeine while in the womb, Rodrigues says. But other studies have found no caffeine metabolites in the urine of babies whose mothers drink coffee, suggesting that the babies don't absorb caffeine the way older children and adults do. The results were published in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers tracked 885 babies born in 2004. All but one of the mothers consumed caffeine, either in coffee or in the herbal drink mate, which is popular in South America. And 20 percent of those women drank a lot of coffee — more than 300 mg a day of caffeine, or about six espressos.

About 14 percent of the babies awoke more than three times a night, and 41 percent woke up at least once a night. Caffeine or no, it seems likely that babies will wake up when they want to. "Night waking is common throughout the first year of life," Rodrigues says.

So moms, drink that coffee if it helps, because it doesn't seem to be harming the baby at naptime.

That leaves the question of what helps get a baby to sleep in the first place. The Web is awash with questions and advice on that, too.

How often a child wakes is partly controlled by age, with older babies waking less often. But as any parent can tell you, a maddening number of factors seem to be involved, including daytime napping, breastfeeding, bed-sharing, being nursed to sleep, how responsive the parents are to a child's stirrings, and parents' own sleep habits.

Caffeine use by older children is much more controversial, given teenagers' interest in energy drinks and products such as the inhalable caffeine we blogged about on March 6.

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at Buffalo Stampede at SASS Founders Ranch in Edgewood, NM, Tuesday, April 17 through Sunday, April 22, and asks for it will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you’ve built a miniature city out of little coffee stirrers.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

COFFEE PODS PILING UP IN LANDFILLS

We never tire of complaining about single serve coffee pods that are claimed to be "recyclable" but are just a waste of aluminum and plastic, and, according to a blog at Treehugger,  are piling up in landfills across America. That is the environmental cost, but Smart Planet notes that there is a real financial cost too.   As I mentioned in a previous blog, the price of convenience of the pod coffee is as much as fifty dollars a pound.

The New York Times did the math:  For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound. That’s even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.

Cheap coffee can be found for about eight bucks a pound.  Our Café Pinon, a very special gourmet fusion coffee is about $21 a pound, the Official SASS coffee: Cowboy Action Coffee, a special proprietary blend is about $25 a pound and our Paniola 100% Kona, the finest coffee in the world, is about $32 a pound.  Paying $50 a pound for Folgers is just ridiculous. But apparently people under 40 don't notice because they think about coffee pricing differently than their parents; from Oliver Strand's article in the Times:  “Americans under the age of 40 are thinking about coffee pricing in cups,” said Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. “If you asked my mother how much coffee cost, she would have told you that the red can was $5.25 a pound and the blue can was $4.25. If you ask people in their 20s and 30s, they’ll say coffee is $1.75 to $3.75 a cup.”

Next to Tasmanian ice cubes, coffee pods are about the most wasteful product I can think of, costing many times as much to make lousy coffee. Yet their sales are growing like mad, almost doubling in the last year to 7% of all the coffee made in America.

Go figure.

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at Buffalo Stampede at SASS Founders Ranch in Edgewood, NM, Tuesday, April 17 through Sunday, April 22, and asks for it will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at twitter.com/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in. So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

WHO DRINKS THE MOST COFFEE?

Aloha kakahiaka!  (Good morning in Hawai’ian)  Here in Ruidoso, New Mexico we just say “howdy.”  Happy Tuesday morning and greetings to all you coffee fiends.   That’s fiends not friends.  I know how you really feel about coffee!  The purpose of this blog is to unite coffee lovers, especially lovers of Kona coffee, and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  ) Athletes beware! Caffeine is on the International Olympic Committee list of prohibited substances. Athletes who test positive for more than 12 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of urine may be banned from the Olympic Games. This level may be reached after drinking about five cups of coffee.

Coffee Cup News recently blogged an interesting question, “Who drinks the most coffee?”  I might change that to, “Which country consumes the most coffee?” The answer to that, of course, is the United States but perhaps the more pertinent question is, “Who drinks the most coffee per person?”  The list below reveals which country is the most in love with coffee based on who drinks the most coffee, on average, per person.  Here’s the top five and they’re all in northern Europe.

5th Place for Coffee Drinking is The Netherlands 

Holland is 5th place for coffee drinking weighing in at 8.4 kilograms or 296 ounces of coffee per person per year. That is an average of about 5 cups of coffee per month per person. I know I for one, and probably you, drink a lot more than that each day.

Coming in 4th for Coffee Drinking is Denmark

The Dansk are in 4th place for coffee drinking with 8.7 kilograms or 306 ounces of coffee per capita per year. That is an average of just over 5 cups of coffee per month per person.

In 3rd position for Coffee Drinking is Iceland

Iceland (brrrr) is in 3rd place for coffee drinking with 9 kilograms or 317 ounces of coffee per capita per year. That is an average of 5.2 cups of coffee per month per person.

Norway takes the 2nd spot for Coffee Drinking

Norge is in 2nd place for drinking coffee at 9.9 kilograms or 349 ounces of coffee drank per capita per year. That is an average of almost 6 cups at 5.7 per month per person.

And Numero Uno, 1st for Coffee Drinking is Finland

Congratulations to Finland who is 1st place for coffee drinking weighing in at a whopping 12 kilograms per capita. That is almost 50 percent more than the 5th place country in drinking coffee and an average of 7 cups per person per month! Yumpin’ Yimminy, it sounds like most of us would fit in really well in Finland.

Now I drink, on average 60 good sized cups of coffee per month or about two cups every morning.  If you measure it out to those 5 or 6 ounce cups it comes to at least 180 cups!  The “6” on my coffee maker makes two of my mugs of coffee.  And I don’t drink coffee after 2pm because I won’t sleep well at night.  How much coffee do you drink in a month? Would you beat these countries?  I’m sure you would.  You probably beat me!

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at Wild West Days at Old Tucson Studios, March 30-April 1, and asks for it will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at twitter.com/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

A COFFEE MYTH BUSTED!

Aloha kakahiaka!  (Good morning in Hawai’ian)  Here in Ruidoso, New Mexico we just say “howdy.”  Happy Tuesday morning and greetings to all you coffee fiends.   That’s fiends not friends.  I know how you really feel about coffee!  The purpose of this blog is to unite coffee lovers, especially lovers of Kona coffee, and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  A coffee tree lives for 60 to 70 years and can grow 30 feet tall. But they are pruned to a 10-foot height for the convenience of coffee-berry collectors.

There are a lot of outlandish myths and old wives’ tales surrounding coffee.  I found some on a Mythbusters blog.  These include:  Coffee will stunt a child’s growth and ground coffee is just as good as whole bean coffee.   This has inspired us to look into coffee myths and report back to you from time to time.  We’ll let you know which tales are true and which myths couldn’t be further from the truth.

Probably the biggest myth that I hear at trade shows is: The best way to store your coffee is in the freezer or refrigerator.

Years and years ago, before I got involved in the coffee trade and didn’t know better, this myth made a lot of sense to me.  I stored fish in the freezer to keep it fresh, therefore it made sense that using the freezer would work for coffee too.  However, I learned that coffee beans are porous so they easily absorb moisture and aromas.  That means if you store your coffee in the freezer, not only will it end up smelling like the fish you put it next to, but it’ll also absorb all sorts of moisture that will cause the bean to deteriorate and lose all of its aromas and flavors.

The best place to keep your coffee is in an air tight, light tight container that will keep the coffee cool, dry and out of the light. And keep it in the cupboard.  In fact, they now make vacuum sealed containers specifically for coffee storage.

One last thing to think about:  Coffee goes stale over time, so avoid buying it in bulk at the grocery store. Instead buy it directly from the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company because you know that we sell fresh coffee vacuum sealed in air and light proof bags.

Myth: The best way to store your coffee is in the freezer or refrigerator.  Result: Busted!

Do you want FREE coffee?  The very first cowpoke who saunters up to the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at Wild West Days at Old Tucson Studios, March 30-April 1, and asks for it will get a free, that’s FREE bag of CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico…our newest fusion coffee made with a proprietary blend of central American coffees and real New Mexico pinon nuts!

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at twitter.com/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you've worn out the handle on your favorite mug.  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!