Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Year: 2015 (Page 13 of 13)

What is Green Coffee?- Raw Coffee Beans Explained

Enjoying a cup of coffee with it’s intricate flavors and comforting aromas seldom leads the average consumer down the road to wondering what all went into making such a delicious brew.

The fact of the matter is, with a misnomer like coffee bean floating around, most people don’t even know what they are drinking let alone all the delicate steps it took to process the coffee before it even arrived from origin to be roasted.

Not only is learning about what coffee is and it’s processing at origin interesting, it can shed some light on the semi-cryptic coffee lexicon and help you better understand the flavors you are tasting in your coffee and why those flavors are there in the first place.

What is coffee exactly?

Raw coffee is a small green seed that comes from a coffee tree.

The Coffea Arabica plant is a tree that grows primarily between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The coffee tree produces a cherry-like fruit that is most often called the coffee cherry. Inside of the fruit are two flat bottomed seeds that sit back to back in the center of the cherry. When the cherries are ripe they are harvested, the fruit is discarded, and the coffee seed is processed, dried, and bagged up for shipment.

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How to Make Coffee With a French Press- Tips for the Best Results

Using a French press is a very popular manual coffee brewing method. Most people are at least vaguely familiar with it. Although French press brewing is a relatively straight forward method you may have a few questions. Below you will find my coffee to water ratio for French press, grind for French press (plus recommendations on a French press grinder) and a recipe for French press coffee.

French Press vs. Pour Over

While drip brewing is in the pour over brewing category, French press brewing is an immersion brew method. Immersion brewing methods generally utilize a larger grind size and longer brewing times. The result is typically a cup of coffee with a lot more body, but less brightness in the cup flavors.

Here are the main differences in French Press vs. Pour Over brewing:

  • The equipment- Unlike pour over brewing, a gooseneck kettle isn’t necessary for achieving consistent results. If you have a French press, coffee and hot water, you can brew.
  • The taste- French press will generally produced a cup of coffee with a lot more body than a pour over, especially if you are using paper filters for your pour over. The French Press allows a lot more of the fats and oils from the ground coffee to end up in the final cup of brewed coffee.
  • The difficulty-The French press is considered to be a little more simple of a brewing method. It is a little easier than most pour over techniques to control your variables and get a consistent cup of coffee. There are also far less variations and techniques associated with brewing with a French press.

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