Cup of Joe

Cup of Joe
Black coffee, light coffee, light roast, medium roast, dark roast. Ever find yourself confused when you go to a coffee shop and you have to pick the type of roast… What’s the difference?

Well the coffee making process starts out as a seed. The seed turns into a coffee tree with fruit on it, similar to a cherry fruit structure. The fruit is picked off the tree, processed and dried immediately to prevent the fruit from going bad. About 100-200 pounds of coffee cherries are picked everyday. Then the beans from the fruits are milled and this product is now called green coffee. This is what is packaged and shipped. The next step is roasting. Roasting gives the beans the flavor and smell of coffee that we enjoy, and this is where the light, medium,dark, and dark roast come into play. Interestingly enough, the lighter roast have more caffeine content than the darker roast. This is because as the beans roast, they become less dense resulting in less caffeine. Generally the darker the roast, the stronger the coffee flavor.
So now let’s look at the grinding of coffee. The proper grind of coffee is determined by how fine or coarse you need the coffee for brewing. The finer the grind the more quickly the coffee can be prepared. The final step of making coffee is brewing and this is done with water to give us that hot cup of coffee.
There are some suggested health benefits of drinking a cup of coffee. Caffeine is a naturally occurring stimulant found in coffee beans. Research has shown that moderate coffee consumption has an positive effect on liver disease prevention, sharper memory, improved cognitive function, increased athletic endurance, reduce risk of type 2 diabetes. Now we are not saying that the more caffeine the better, what we are saying is that one or two cups of coffee may not be harmful to us.

According to the 2015-2020 US dietary guidelines, moderate coffee consumption can be included in a healthy lifestyle. Instead of having spoonfuls of sugar and cream, spice up your coffee with cinnamon or vanilla powder instead to decreases the sugar and fat content!