What You Should Know About Gourmet Coffees
When you hear the word gourmet, you probably think of fine food and drink or a 5 course meal. Yet it can also be used to describe coffee, as in gourmet coffees. These coffees do not normally come from your neighborhood grocery store, as the beans are harvested at the precise time, roasted to perfection, made into a variety of flavors and blends and then shipped to coffee houses across the country.
After being picked, the beans are normally processed in one of two ways; they can either be soaked or washed to remove all of the chaff from each bean or a more natural drying method may be employed. Both methods have their own advantages and will produce great coffee if done correctly.
After the beans have been washed and processed, they usually get roasted at a very high temperature and then cooled rapidly according to individual practices. Generally, darker beans will produce the more full bodied and stronger gourmet coffees. As well, the darker that the ground coffee looks the longer the original roasting process took, which usually means a better taste. If you need more information on how to choose the beans, then you can go online where there is quite a bit of information available.
Generally, there are two ways to get your morning fix of java. You can be one of those morning commuters that rush to get in line at their local coffee house for that cup of regular or gourmet coffee, latte or espresso, or you can brew your own cup at home with your own coffee machine where you can leisurely drink it, read the paper and then get ready to leave for work. Of course, another added bonus of brewing your own is that wonderful aroma that just seems to say that it is going to be a great day.
Since coffee is one of the most consumed beverages, many ways of preparing it have been developed for the discerning consumer. It is important to know that there are two basic types of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta. The Arabica normally produces a very fine quality coffee and usually the highest grades are sold primarily as gourmet coffees to gourmet retailers. These beans are flavorful and delicate and are normally higher priced and have a more limited availability. The Robusta usually bears more coffee cherries, is hardier and more resistant to disease; however, they are rarely found in gourmet shops and are often used in commercial blends.