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Perfect Coffees.Com Newsletter Issue #4

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May 1, 2004

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In This Issue
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=> Coffee Facts
=> Feature Article
=> Recipe Of The Month
=> How To Submit A Recipe
=> Coffee Trivia
=> New Items On The Web Site
=> Contact Us
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information

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Coffee Facts
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Coffees, like wine grapes, get much of their flavor from specific growing conditions and preparation methods of each producing region.

Ideal growing conditions include: volcanic rich soil, cool temperatures, tropical rains and a high altitude.

Coffee is grown at numerous elevations along mountains up to about 7000 feet. Midway up the mountains, 4500' plus, is where the best quality beans are grown. These are called "strictly hard beans".

Coffee grows on trees. Individual trees take approximately five years to mature. The average height of a coffee tree is kept trimmed from 4 - 6 feet. This eases picking and maintains quality.

Of course, as with fruit trees, the best quality fruit is found at the center of the tree.

Crops begin with the flowering of the trees, and approximately 5 to 6 months later the fruit is ripe for harvesting. It takes 5 years for a tree to bear its first crop.

Bright white flowers signal the beginning of the growing season. The fruit matures to a bright red cherry. These cherries are harvested by hand and sent to a processing facility where they are milled, washed, sorted and dried.

At this point, they are ready for exporting. Coffee beans are shipped to roasting facilities in burlap bags.

A coffee tree will yield, on average, one pound of coffee per year. Interestingly, about 3,500 coffee beans are needed to produce one pound of roasted coffee.

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Feature Article
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Caffeine Nation

America might be the melting pot, but it sure is the coffee pot.

One could really make the argument that coffee is the "American lubricant." It lubricates social situations and the workplace, says Bob Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University who teaches a whole course on Starbucks.

After oil, coffee is the second most valuable commodity in the world. More than 50 percent of Americans drink coffee everyday — three to fourcups each, more than 450 million cups a day and counting.

But for all the new flavors and varieties, it’s not the taste that drives coffee’s popularity.

"I can remember the first cup of coffee I did drink," says coffee drinker Nora Harvey. "I got a big buzz. I was like, 'This stuff is legal?'"

Bennet Weinberg has written two books on coffee. His latest is called "The Caffeine Advantage." Weinberg says caffeine is the world’s most popular drug.

"If coffee didn't contain any caffeine, would it be the popular beverage … the dominant beverage that it is in our culture?'" asks Weinberg. "Well there's no question it would not be. You know, it can't be a coincidence that all the most popular drinks on earth, which taste quite different from each other, all contain caffeine."

Caffeine is one of the fastest acting drugs known to man. When we drink it, almost every cell in the body, including the brain, absorbs it within minutes. There, caffeine works it’s magic by blocking something called adenosine, a chemical the body releases to tell the brain it’s tired. Caffeine intercepts the adenosine, turning the "I’m tired," message into "I’m wide awake." The result is an invigorating buzz coffee drinkers crave.

"It's the characteristic and hallmark drug of our time," says Weinberg.

And, it’s not just coffee. When you add in tea and caffeinated soft-drinks, more than 80 percent of Americans get their morning fix.

Coffee’s virtues have been sung to us for generations. Even so, it has never had quite as much cache as now. Remember, the nickel cup of coffee savored by the everyman at dreary diner counters? It’s gone forever — disappearing in the milky mist of a double shot, skinny, half-caf, venti, caramel moccachino. Bennet Weinberg is one of the loudest voices in a growing chorus singing the benefits of that coffee buzz.

"Instead of going to a bar, getting drunk and not even remembering what you did that night, you can go to a coffee house, have your mind sharpened, your mood elevated, your verbal fluency increased, even your friendliness factor go up because of caffeine and do this without any real harm to yourself," says Weinberg.

But the notion that caffeine is harmless is up for a long-brewing debate.

"We really want something that'll help us work harder, sharpen our minds, increase our sense of well-being, improve our performance," says Weinberg. "Caffeine is just that substance that can unlock our potential."

This new school of caffeine advocates isn’t shooting from the hip. University of Arizona researches have found caffeine improves memory in seniors. Others at UCLA take it a step further. Caffeine improves and repairs memory for elderly women. Other studies say caffeine is therapeutic for everything from depression, to addiction, to gallstones and even skin cancer.

"What we're finding is in fact coffee contains a lot of other compounds … A lot of interesting compounds that may actually modify the effects of caffeine. And what we think is that coffee … the coffee bean holds the secret to a number of very important illnesses that affect mankind."

This is an excerpt from an article posted on CBSNEWS.com on Jan. 5, 2004.

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Recipe Of
The Month
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Chocolate Coffee Snowballs

These takeoffs on bourbon balls are better the day after they're made.

Ingredients
1/3 cup coffee-flavored liqueur (we used Kahlúa and it was wonderful)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1 (9-ounce) package chocolate wafer cookies, finely crushed
2 3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
3/4 cup chopped almonds, toasted
Powdered sugar

Instructions.
Combine liqueur, corn syrup, and instant coffee granules; let mixture stand 5 minutes. Stir until granules dissolve. Combine cookie crumbs, 3/4 cup powdered sugar, and chopped almonds; stir well. Pour coffee mixture over crumb mixture, stirring well. Shape into 1-inch balls; roll in powdered sugar twice to coat well. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

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How To Submit
A Recipe
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If you have a favorite dessert recipe that you would like to submit to the Perfect Coffees.Com Newsletter we would love to have you email it to us at recipes@perfectcoffees.com for all of our readers to enjoy.

Many email programs are running blockers on attachments and it's been preventing some of our recipe emails from reaching us. We cannot open an attachment for security reasons so please put your recipe in the body of the email rather than sending it as an attachment. Be sure to put your name and what city you are from in the email so we can give you credit for sending it in. Thanks.

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Coffee Trivia
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Caffeine acts as a natural bug repellent for plants.

The average person who buys coffee outside the office to consume at work will spend the equivalent value of a round trip plane ticket to Florida every year.

We use the term "coffee beans" even though they come from berries. It's because each coffee berry has two beans.

Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.

The Civil War in the United States elevated the popularity of coffee to new heights. Soldiers went to war with coffee beans as a primary ration.

In the last three centuries, 90% of all people living in the Western world have switched from tea to coffee.

Until the late 1800's, people roasted their coffee at home. Popcorn poppers and stove-top frying pans were favored.

Frederick the great had his coffee made with champagne and a bit of mustard.

Our sense of smell, more than any of our other senses, makes our final judgement on coffee.

Lloyd's of London began as Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse.

Latte' is the Italian word for milk. So if you request a latte' in Italy, you'll be served a glass of milk.

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New Items On
Our Website
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We had a number of requests from people wanting to send personal or business gifts that were coffee related. So we went to work on it and now you can browse our coffee, tea and chocolate gift baskets page for the perfect solution to all of your corporate and personal gift giving needs for any budget size. You can view the new gift baskets page at: Coffee Gift Baskets

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Contact Us
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If you have comments or questions about our web sites or coffee newsletter we would love to hear from you. Your opinion is more than just important. To us it is everything.

Our contact email is Comments@perfectcoffees.com

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