Kona Cowboy Coffee: September 2013

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

SCIENTIFIC COFFEE

We’ve been reading a number of blogs about the science of brewing coffee so here are some hints:

Buy good coffee beans: They should be whole beans, sustainably farmed, and roasted within the past few weeks. PANIOLA 100% Kona Coffee is available in whole bean. It comes in a regular roast. A lot of aficionados think that with darker roasts, you're missing out. We know of some writers who use the weird analogy that dark roast is just like taking a nice steak and charring it beyond recognition. We don’t agree. It’s up to you. But, for espresso at home, we have PANIOLA in a dark, espresso roast. Ask for the “Ruidoso Roast” when you order.

Grind your coffee just before brewing: Roasted coffee is very delicate and perishable. Coffee has many more flavor compounds than wine, but those compounds deteriorate quickly when exposed to oxygen. Grinding your coffee just before you brew it keeps those compounds intact, and it's the number one thing you can do to improve your coffee at home. Our PANIOLA 100% Kona is whole bean. Our other gourmet coffees are roasted in small batches and packed in half-pound bags so they won’t sit around and go stale.

Store your coffee properly: Beans which you aren't using immediately should be kept in an airtight container and away from sunlight. A major point of debate in the coffee world is whether to freeze or not freeze your coffee. We fall somewhere in between. If it's going to be more than two weeks before brewing, we freeze our coffee. Otherwise, we avoid it. Freezing allows for condensation when you take it out of the freezer and you want to keep your coffee dry!

Use the right proportion of coffee to water: A major error people make is not using enough coffee. We empathize—it almost seems wasteful to add that extra scoop. But a simple ratio of one tablespoon for each cup is a great starting point and the simplest way to get into that perfect zone by adding or subtracting to taste.

Focus on technique: It's beyond the scope of this guide to go through step-by-step instructions for every method, but underlying all of them is the fact that brewing great coffee is about precision and consistency. Each brewing method has its own particular techniques, but by doing the same thing over and over you fix your mistakes and improve incrementally.

We’ll talk about things like quality tools, the grind size of your coffee beans, water temperature, agitating your coffee beans and the ratio of water to coffee next time. Pretty scientific, huh?

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest coffee available for you to brew scientifically. You’ll get a great cup of Joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut Spiced Chai and Mango Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu. The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has updated our website with new prices, new products and more! Go to www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com and look at the coffees. Go to the “Chocolates” page and find our new Cowboy Coffee Choco-Drops, a coffee caramel smothered in milk chocolate and dusted in cocoa powder! We have new Mescalero Morning Cowboy Coffee Candles on our “Bath Products” page, too.

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 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!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

ONLY 2 OR 3 CUPS A DAY?

That morning cup of Joe is a daily, practically sacred ritual for many of us. A large body of research has confirmed that a coffee habit is perfectly fine for most people, and may even have some health benefits – from fighting depression in women to lowering the risk of stroke and prostate cancer.

But is there too much of a good thing?

A study published recently in Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests that when it comes to coffee, too much appears to be more than 28 cups per week, at least if you are under 55.

The researchers found that younger men who passed the 28-cup weekly threshold – which works out to about four cups per day – had a 56 percent increased risk of death from all causes. Younger women who were heavy coffee drinkers had a greater than two-fold increased mortality risk. A cup was defined as eight ounces of coffee.

"The older people, over 55, were not affected by these high amounts of coffee," study co-author Dr. Chip Lavie, a cardiologist at the John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans, said in a video statement.

Now, these findings left us scratching our heads here at The Salt, where we've reported in the past on many of the health benefits linked with coffee drinking. Turns out, we are not alone.

"This result is surprising," Rob van Dam, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, told me via email, "because results from other cohort studies in U.S. men and women suggest that coffee consumption is associated with a slightly lower risk of premature mortality."

In fact, van Dam's own research has found no increased risk of death from any cause in people who drank up to six eight-ounce cups of coffee per day. And last year, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that people with a daily coffee habit had a lower risk of dying during the 14-year study period than those who abstained.

What's more, van Dam notes that recent studies have suggested that coffee consumption does not increase the risk of dying from heart disease, stroke or cancers – all major causes of death. That body of research, he tells us, is "reassuring."

So what accounts for the increased mortality seen among heavy coffee drinkers in the new study? The data set used provides clues.

Lavie and his colleagues looked at data for more than 40,000 people, ages 20 to 87, who were enrolled as part of the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, a long-term study conducted between 1971 and 2002. The researchers followed up with the participants for 17 years on average. But they were only asked about their coffee consumption once – so, as Lavie himself notes, we don't know how their coffee habits changed over time.

Another limiting factor: smoking. Heavy coffee drinkers in the study were more likely to be smokers – which makes sense, since the data were collected beginning more than 40 years ago. Van Dam thinks the research didn't do enough to control for smoking. In fact, as we've previously reported, lots of studies in the 1980s failed to control for the link between coffee drinking and smoking, which is one big reason why early research appeared to give coffee a bad rep. Evidence suggesting health benefits from coffee began to emerge only as studies separated the two habits.

So, what's the bottom line for coffee drinkers?

Lavie says his findings suggest that sipping two to three cups per day is pretty safe, and possibly beneficial. But Van Dam notes that if you're generally healthy (and not pregnant or nursing), the "totality of the evidence" suggests that four cups of Joe per day shouldn't be harmful.

But of course, don't forget to listen to your body.

"If people think they experience detrimental symptoms related to too much caffeine, such as difficulty sleeping or nervousness," says van Dam, "they should try reducing their intake."

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest coffee available for you to limit to two or three cups a day. You’ll get a great cup of Joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu. The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has updated our website with new prices, new products and more! Go to www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com and look at the coffees. Go to the “Chocolates” page and find our new Cowboy Coffee Choco-Drops, a coffee caramel smothered in milk chocolate and dusted in cocoa powder! We have new Mescalero Morning Cowboy Coffee Candles on our “Bath Products” page, too.

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!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

MARINES WRITE COFFEE BOOK

Coffee is delicious and maybe even an integral part of your work day, but did you know that the tasty beverage has a rich history in the American military experience?

Since the Civil War, coffee has played a part in the life of the soldier. Civil War Captain Robert K. Beecham wrote in his book Gettysburg: The Pivotal Battle of the Civil War, that “The power of the soldiers to endure the fatigue of the march and keep their places in the ranks was greatly enhanced by an opportunity to brew a cup of coffee by the wayside.”

This tradition of coffee and the military particularly fascinated marines Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez. When Haft and Suarez joined the Marines they expected a tough journey, but they didn't anticipate an obsession with coffee. As their enthusiasm with the beverage grew, they began to realize that they had joined the ranks of many soldiers before them who relied on the drink as a way of life.

In The New York Times Haft and Suarez wrote of the importance of the ritual that drinking coffee provided. "We would often share with our platoon sergeants and squad leaders while we gathered around a map and discussed our plans for the day. Whether in the forests of North Carolina, the mountains of California, or the deserts of Afghanistan, the ritual provided a sense of continuity."

Haft and Suarez went on to write a book about their discovery of the link between coffee and American soldiers.

Perfect Coffee at Home is the definitive guide to coffee, told through the eyes of two Marines looking to make the most of their morning coffee ritual.

In this first-of-its-kind digital book, Michael Haft and Harrison Suarez will take you through the third wave coffee renaissance and teach you everything you need to know. Plus they'll use illustrations, interactive graphics, videos and a soundtrack to make the whole story an immersive experience.

From French press techniques for beginners, to microscopic views of coffee particles for experts, Haft and Suarez have created a fun, accessible, and fascinating window into how you can take part in the ongoing coffee renaissance.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest coffee available for you to write a book about. You’ll get a great cup of Joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu. The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has updated our website with new prices, new products and more! Go to www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com and look at the coffees. Go to the “Chocolates” page and find our new Cowboy Coffee Choco-Drops, a coffee caramel smothered in milk chocolate and dusted in cocoa powder! We have new Mescalero Morning Cowboy Coffee Candles on our “Bath Products” page, too.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you don't sweat, you percolate! 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!