Portal:Coffee

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Introduction

A cup of black coffee

Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It has the highest sales in the world market for hot drinks.

The seeds of the Coffea plant's fruits are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are roasted and then ground into fine particles typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, producing a cup of coffee. It is usually served hot, although chilled or iced coffee is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or already-brewed canned coffee). Sugar, sugar substitutes, milk, and cream are often added to mask the bitter taste or enhance the flavor.

Though coffee is now a global commodity, it has a long history tied closely to food traditions around the Red Sea. The earliest credible evidence of coffee drinking as the modern beverage appears in modern-day Yemen in southern Arabia in the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines, where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a manner similar to how it is now prepared for drinking. The coffee beans were procured by the Yemenis from the Ethiopian Highlands via coastal Somali intermediaries, and cultivated in Yemen. By the 16th century, the drink had reached the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, later spreading to Europe. (Full article...)

Roasting coffee beans in a wok on a kitchen stovetop

Home roasting is the process of roasting coffee from green coffee beans on a small scale for personal consumption. Home roasting of coffee has been practiced for centuries, using simple methods such as roasting in cast-iron skillets over a wood fire and hand-turning small steel drums on a kitchen stovetop.

Until the early 20th century, it was more common to roast coffee at home than to buy pre-roasted coffee. Following World War I, commercial coffee roasting became prevalent, and, combined with the distribution of instant coffee, home roasting decreased substantially.

In recent years, there has been a revival in home roasting. What was originally a necessity has now become a hobby. The attractions are four-fold: enjoying fresh, flavorful coffee; experimenting with various beans and roasting methods; perfecting the roasting process, and saving money. Other factors that have contributed to the renewed interest in home roasting coffee include coffee suppliers selling green coffee in small quantities and manufacturers making counter-top roasters. (Full article...)
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Water seeps through the ground coffee and the paper filter and is then collected in a container placed below a holder used for drip brewing.
Drip coffee is made by pouring hot water onto ground coffee beans, allowing it to brew. There are several methods for doing this, including using a filter. Terms used for the resulting coffee often reflect the method used, such as drip-brewed coffee, or, somewhat inaccurately, filtered coffee in general. Manually brewed drip coffee is typically referred to as pour-over coffee. Water seeps through the ground coffee, absorbing its constituent chemical compounds, and then passes through a filter. The used coffee grounds are retained in the filter, while the brewed coffee is collected in a vessel such as a carafe or pot. (Full article...)

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Robusta coffee beans after harvesting (right) and after being dried (left)

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Roasted coffee beans
Roasted coffee beans
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