Saturday, May 2, 2009

Don't Buy Coffee Beans Until You Read This!

By Christine Pinkston

When someone doesn't know the many benefits of using coffee beans they often don't understand why someone would buy coffee beans when they could just purchase a bag of regular coffee. Regular coffee is just as good, they say. But is it just as good?

The fact of the matter is that there are over twenty different types of coffee beans. However, they are primarily divided into two broad types. Regular coffee drinkers might already be familiar with the various types of coffee beans available and their various flavors.

60%-70% of the world's consumption of coffee comes from the Coffea Arabica coffee bean. It is also the type of coffee bean that most people enjoy drinking the most. The Caffea Arabica coffee bean is also a very expensive bean due to the strict growing conditions that are required when growing this coffee variety.

Coffee Arabica plants need a certain altitude in which they can thrive which should be at least a few thousand feet above sea level. These plants should also be grown in a temperature between 65- 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

The less popular type of coffee beans make up around thirty-forty percent of the world's coffee consumption. Scientists call this type of coffee 'Coffea Canephora' and is commonly called Robusta. This type of coffee bean is considered inferior quality as compared to the much loved coffea Arabica and is hardly sold separately. This type of coffee bean can be grown at temperatures of around 85 degrees Fahrenheit and almost anywhere. However this type of coffee bean is a bit bitter and most people don't like the bitter taste associated with this type of bean.

The two types of beans are often blended together. They do this because coffea Arabica is expensive and in order to bring the price down to a lower range they use the caffea canephora as a filler. So the majority of the time when you buy coffee beans it will be a mixture of the two.

Regardless of which you prefer, the Arabica based coffees or if you prefer the Robusta varieties, the freshest and best tasting coffee is always going to be achieved by grinding up fresh coffee beans. When you buy coffee at the supermarket you can either buy ground coffee by the can or bag or more times then not you can buy coffee beans and grind them right there in the store. However, even when you buy coffee beans that you ground up in the store they will start to taste stale within the first week.

The best way to get a fresh cup of coffee is to purchase coffee beans in small quantities and grind them up at home as you go. Coffee grinders are available just about anywhere and they are for the most part inexpensive, so it is worth the money to be able to buy coffee beans and grind them yourself.

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