How to pour the perfect cup of coffee

The Guardian reports on years of research that have resulted in the discovery of the definitive way to pour the perfect second cup of coffee.

Drinking coffee doesn't make you more alert

Drinking coffee doesn't make you more alert, a caffeine study reveals.

A partner for your coffee

Like to partner an authentic Italian snack with your coffee? The first Cafédirect recipe this year is for a delicious Coffee & Almond Biscotti. They are easy and quick to make so try them out, share with friends over a morning coffee or after dinner espresso and tell Cafédirect what you think! Get the recipe!

Portable espresso machine

If espresso is the ideal beverage for a recession, then a portable espresso machine is possibly one of the best gadgets ever.

You prime it up like a bicycle pump then add hot water to the coffee and....hey presto! No self respecting student or traveller should be without one.

World's Biggest Coffee Morning

Be part of Macmillan Cancer Support's World's Biggest Coffee Morning. Have fun with your family and friends and join thousands of others in changing the lives of people affected by cancer. To take part, simply register to hold a coffee morning and Macmillan will send you everything you need to make your coffee morning a success. Choose a date: the official day is Friday 25 September, but you can hold it whenever you want really.

Last year, more than 45,000 people held coffee mornings and, together with their family, friends and colleagues, raised over £7.5 million. If you need some inspiration and ideas for snacks and drinks at your coffee morning, here are a few to get you started.

Making the perfect cup of coffee

In Who needs an espresso machine?, coffee obsessive Tim Hayward describes his journey of discovery after his prized espresso machine broke down. In his search for alternatives he learned that there are good cups of coffee to be had without the huge investment of a temperamental, steam-spitting appliance. He discusses the use of the Cafetiere, Moka pot (caffetiera), Syphon pots, and the Handpresso.

See also: Espresso: the ideal beverage for a recession

Coffee taster's tongue worth £10m

The BBC reported that Costa Coffee have insured the tongue of their chief coffee taster for £10m. Gennaro Pelliccia personally tastes a sample of each batch of raw coffee beans at Costa Coffee's London plant before they are roasted and shipped to its stores.

The insurance policy was taken out with Lloyds of London. "The taste buds of a Master of Coffee are as important as the vocal cords of a singer or the legs of a top model, and this is one of the biggest single insurance policies taken out for one person," said a spokesman for the insurance brokers.

Espresso: the ideal beverage for a recession

The espresso is Italy's gift to the world and the ideal stimulant for the creative mind, writes Graham Farmelo in the Times Higher. I learned a number of new facts in this essay on the joys of espresso including the fact that the word "coffee" derives from the ancient Arabic "qahwat", meaning "wine of the bean".

I stand by my conviction that the espresso is, when well prepared, one modern culinary component that is impossible to better. Come to think of it, at around £1.30 a cup, it is probably the cheapest of all uplifting gastronomic treats, making it the ideal beverage for a recession.

Last year, Britons spent about £750 million on coffee, but only a small fraction of this on espressos. Think of the huge amount of money that would be saved if the majority of coffee-bar patrons switched to espressos from cappuccinos. The country's milk bill would fall and its carbon footprint would shrink too. Better yet, millions would appreciate the joy of savouring in a single shot Italy's greatest gift to the modern world.

Hallucinations more common in heavy coffee drinkers

A study from Durham University reveals that people who drink more than seven cups of instant coffee a day are three times more likely to hallucinate than those who just drink one. Read the article 'Visions link' to coffee intake for the full story. Don't forget you can check out how much caffeine is in your cup.

Film showing: Black Gold

Remember the blog posts about the Black Gold film last year? Black Gold is a film about fighting the injustice that coffee growers in Ethiopia face day-to-day, which traces one man's fight for a fair price.

The film will be shown at Loughborough University on Wednesday 22nd Oct in the EHB atrium. Fairtrade stalls and refreshments from 6.30pm. Film Screening @ 7.30pm. The film is supported by imago, ethics and enviro society, people and planet society and CAFF (Charnwood Action For Fairtrade)

Café No-bucks

As I write, I am drinking a cup of home made coffee. And it hasn't cost me anything, except for the electricity to heat the water. A combination of the credit crunch, being a skinflint and a desire to escape the clutches of the over-powerful Tescos has led me to start to explore the world of foraging. More on that is very likely in future blogs, but for now, back to the coffee.

During WWII the nation's coffee supplies were cut off, and you can only imagine what that would have done to the nation's morale! A coffee substitute was made from acorns instead by chopping them up and roasting them (I don't know who discovered that worked, but I'm guessing it was very old knowledge that had fallen into general disuse).

So I got curious and had a go. You need to remove the outer acorn shells with a sharp, serrated knife, then chop the nut into small pieces. You're meant to roast the pieces twice, chopping smaller after the first roast. I roasted mine once, as I left them in the top of the oven for a bit longer than intended - around 15 mins, probably. The result was a charred-looking mess which both smelled and tasted a lot like coffee. The bits ground down well enough in the pestle and mortar & looked something like instant.

So far so good. What about when you make it into a mug of 'coffee'? It tastes very good actually. I may even prefer it to the real version, as there is not the same sharpness to the taste. I have no idea about the caffeine content though or other side effects but I'd rate the experiment as a success. The only downside appears to be - apologies squirrels - it takes about 5 acorns to make a spoonful of the coffee powder, so I will have to work quite hard to make a useful supply.

Post scripts: I have found articles afterwards saying that you are supposed to leach the tannin out of the acorns by soaking or boiling them, because they contain too much - my recipe didn't say anything about that! I also found some recipes for coffee alternatives from the American Civil War, which may be of interest to some readers.

Coffee and Teacakes

A couple of stories that caught my eye this week - expensive coffee and cheaper chocolate teacakes:

• Animal dung coffee at £50 a cup: Fancy a cup of an exclusive coffee? What if it is a gourmet coffee blended from animal droppings and currently being sold at a London department store for £50 per cup. Two rare coffee beans (Jamaican Blue Mountain and the Kopi Luwak bean) are used to create Caffe Raro which is thought to be the most expensive cup of coffee in the world. What makes it unique is that the Kopi Luwak beans - which sell for £324 a kilogram - are eaten, then passed, by the Asian palm civet (a cat-like mammal).

• Teacake set to cost taxman £3.5m: Chocolate teacakes have been wrongly classified as a biscuit for two decades and the European Court of Justice has ruled that the UK Treasury must pay out £3.5m as a result. Customers paid VAT on Marks and Spencer teacakes for 20 years before the authorities accepted the product was a cake, which does not command VAT.

Cafédirect coffee rated higher than non-Fairtrade

Cafédirect has outshone the competition in an independent coffee taste test conducted by Which? magazine (March 2008). Cafédirect's Medium Roast fresh ground coffee was rated higher than the non-Fairtrade coffee, for both taste and value for money. More info in the press release.

UK retailers trading fairer

UK estimated retail sales of Fairtrade products reach half a billion pounds as the Fairtrade Foundation calls on business and the public to step up pace of change. Ethical retailers received a boost with the announcement that sales of Fairtrade products have gone up by 81% in the last 12 months. Released to coincide with the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, the figures also revealed that sales have increased to nearly half a billion pounds in 2007 (up from from £273m in 2006).

• Fairtrade bananas are the best selling Fairtrade product with sales topping £150m, an increase of 130%. 1 in 4 bananas sold are now Fairtrade and we eat 3m Fairtrade bananas a day
• Fairtrade coffee sales rose 24% to over £117m
• Items made with Fairtrade certified cotton increased from over half a million to just under 9.5m units
• Fairtrade tea rose 24% to just over £30m. And recent commercial developments mean Fairtrade tea should account for a tenth of tea sold in the UK by the end of 2008

Harriet Lamb, the foundation’s executive director, said that with three in five adults in the UK now able to recognise the Fairtrade mark, knowing how goods are sourced is becoming an essential part of many people’s shopping habits: “The public have a huge and growing appetite for Fairtrade, and increasing numbers of people are buying Fairtrade goods as a practical action to help tackle poverty in the developing world. That’s good news for the seven million people around the world who benefit from the Fairtrade system, as well as those who have been campaigning since the early 1990s to make trade fairer".

Drinking Fairtrade more important than ever

Cafédirect, the UK's largest and longest running Fairtrade hot drinks company, is in Uganda this week meeting with its 17 African tea and coffee growing partners, who represent 162,000 farmers. The farmers are shareholders in the company, and are meeting to discuss the company's strategic direction and actions to be taken following the consequences of Kenyan unrest. Cafédirect has issued a press release asking Fairtrade drinkers not to turn your back on Africa's smallholder growers.

Cafédirect also announce their newest product, Teadirect Gold (see above), the first premium Fairtrade tea available in major retailers. This high grade tea demonstrates Cafédirect 's commitment to product innovation and improving quality: the luxurious, rich flavour of this delicious, aromatic blend of teas comes from expert grower partners in Kenya, Rwanda, and India.

24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break

A cuppa can make a world of difference! ActionAid are inviting you to participate in a 24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break on Friday 29 February 2008 and help give poor farmers a break – by taking one yourself! By holding a fair trade tea or coffee morning you can support ActionAid’s work with small-scale farmers in the developing world and take action against the global injustices that keep them poor.

Taking part in the 24 Hour Tea and Coffee Break couldn’t be easier - all you need is a kettle and someone to share a cuppa with you are almost there. There are plenty of fundraising ideas on the ActionAid website to help get started, including a fundraising pack with everything you’ll need to hold an event, and a free starter pack of fair trade tea and coffee courtesy of Cafe Direct and fair trade chocolate courtesy of Divine.

You can also check out the ActionAid Extreme Cuppa blog: photos of people having a cuppa in extreme and unlikely situations.

Not-so-virtuous foods

In a week that may see many of us reaching for extra calories - whether to cheer us up on Blue Monday or simply to enjoy Farmhouse Breakfast Week or a Burns Supper - the Guardian reports on the foods that pack a surprisingly high calorific punch, including the coffee with 628 calories. Perhaps we need The Dieter's Prayer Book after all!

Coffee made with UK-grown beans

Coffee beans grown at the UK's Eden Project have been turned into enough coffee for just 20 cups! This week Eden Coffee, carefully nurtured in the giant greenhouse biomes at the Eden Project in Cornwall, was revealed to the world at Fifteen Cornwall, part of the chain of restaurants launched by Jamie Oliver to help disadvantaged youngsters. While Fifteen tries to source as much of its menu locally as possible, locally grown coffee is certainly going a step further, and this was probably the first cup professionally made out of beans produced in the UK. However, the Eden coffee crop only produced a handful of Arabica cherries - 200g (7oz) worth, which turned into only about 150g of beans - enough for about 20 cups.

It is perhaps not surprising that coffee has been produced in this part of the world. An increasing number of products normally associated with warmer climates are already being grown in the south-west, and tea has been grown at Tregothnan, an estate near Truro, for some time. Tregothnan Tea is stocked at some of London's most prestigious food halls.

Climate change is threatening your daily cuppa

As the world leaders gathered in Indonesia for the United Nations’ climate negotiations earlier this month, Cafédirect (the UK’s largest 100% Fairtrade hot drinks company) issued a warning that international tea and coffee production is threatened by climate change. Putting the challenges growers face in the media spotlight, nationally and internationally, Cafédirect used the negotiations as an opportunity to issue a press release to raise awareness of the effect a rapidly changing climate has on international tea and coffee production. The website has further information on the Cafédirect and GTZ climate change project.

Match your coffees with festive foods

Cafédirect offer advice on the appropriate festive food to partner your Fairtrade coffee.