Coffee or Tea

Coffee is my favorite beverage and I am sure many of you would like to say the same. There are various interesting facts about this wonderful drink which I have come to know recently. I want to share these facts with my readers, as I find them really exciting and these must be known by a true coffee enthusiast.

There are more or less 65 nations across the globe which are involved in cultivating coffee plants. The amazing thing is, most of these nations are located in the equatorial regions, a few bordering the tropics. Te United States of America, the largest consumer of coffee, has no cultivation plots for this beverage, except a few tracts in the islands of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Another fact can be logically deduced from this fact – the US is the largest importer of coffee. At this context, there is information that is roughly 30% American coffee drinkers prefer to have some sort of sweetener with their coffee.
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Lots of things are written and discussed about tea. Some talk about the aroma and flavor of different types of tea leaves. Many folks discuss about the health benefits of tea. Some of us also talk regarding the ill effects of consuming too much tea on a regular basis. A lot is said about the various ways of preparing tea too. In this article, I personally aim to mention some of the essential and interesting points about this wonderful beverage that I hope will be a treat to read. Having tea and going through these points can be a nice experience! (more…)

How many of you are ardent fans of pure green tea? I am certainly one, and I really love to spend my weekend evenings sipping through nice liquors of quality green tea. I often like to experiment with different sorts of green tea leaves. For example, I really love the Genmaicha green tea the most which has got a Japanese origin. It is actually a mixture of the green tea leaves with specific amounts of brown rice in roasted form. Many folks love to term it colloquially as the ‘popcorn tea. Such a name can be attributed to the fact that the tea constitutes an amount of ‘popped’ rice.

The bancha tea leaves are processed to make this Genmaicha tea. I was not aware of this fact but came to know about this after doing a bit of research on the internet. The rice grains that have been roasted are known as Genmai in Japanese language, hence the name Genmaicha tea. The proportion of mixing the tea leaves with the rice grains is very important as that determines its aroma. The more the amount of popped rice grains, the more the aroma is. But excess roasted brown rice can damage the taste of the tea. The roasted rice gives a peculiar flavor to the tea, like that of nuts. The method of preparation is the conventional one that I always prefer. I use hot water to make the tea, not the boiling water as it damages the flavor. It also goes well in reviving the digestive processes. It contains less amount of caffeine when compared to the other varieties. (more…)

I want to share few methods of coffee brewing with you. It is a known fact that coffee is perhaps the most liked beverage. Most of us have one or two cups of coffee at least on a daily basis. It would be interesting if I tell my readers about certain common processes that are used to brew coffee and turn it into a delicious beverage that we all love to consume.

The first method is the drip filtration. It can be said the most practiced method, arguably. A stream of hot water is sprayed on the coffee that is being held in a conically shaped filter. The water gradually, after moving through the coffee grains, percolates in the container that is kept under the filter. I have personally tried it few times with the help of a conical filter that is made of paper. But there are costly filters used in this process that are made of stainless steel. In this process, the fineness of the coffee grains also does matter and you need to account for it. (more…)