Drinking Coffee All the Time

It’s fall and in fall, people like to get crafty. Craft fairs are a standard-bearer of community tradition, in communities across the world---and coffee is the lubricant that keeps people shopping, buzzing around and having a chance to interact with others. Just because something is expensive or ‘gourmet’ or deemed ‘high-end’ doesn’t mean it’s good---and even if it is good, sometimes it’s just not necessary. Sometimes all you want and need is a good cup of steeping hot brew and access to whatever it is you like to add to it (milk, sugar, etc.)  Such was the attitude at the Anderson Park Craft Fair in Montclair, NJ last Sunday. The coffee was provided by CTX Jorges ICE Xpress, LLC, a national food vendor.  It was served by George, who greeted everyone with a smile. People would breathlessly approach him and say, “Are you the one with the coffee?” He would nod, point them to the Styrofoam cups and let them get a nice cup of coffee for $2.00. Then they would meander over to th

"Water ,water everywhere and not a drop to drink." ---From the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge Taylor The global coffee industry is worth more than $100 billion. So it’s no surprise that there is a full line-up of industry trade shows and conventions scheduled over the next few months in the U.S. Brazil, Hungary, Turkey, China, Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. However, although there are a lot of trade shows for folks involved in the coffee industry, such as growers and coffee farm owners, sometimes the role of the consumer is underappreciated. Not so with the NY Coffee Festival , which starts today and runs through Sunday late afternoon at NYC’s 69 th Regent Amory, located at 68 Lexington Ave. (between 25 th and 26 th St). This year’s festival---the second ever ---promises to be stimulating, with over 70 coffee, food and equipment suppliers, interactive workshops, barista demonstrations and competitions, lots of nosh

It’s fascinating to consider how coffee is de-caffeinated. The general idea is that the coffee beans are steamed and then rinsed repeatedly with a solvent to extract the caffeine, while leaving the other components intact. What happens to the caffeine? It turns out that when coffee companies extract caffeine from coffee beans, they send the caffeine to pharmaceutical companies. Pharma companies then take the caffeine and use it as part of analgesic medications, such as Excedrin and other OTC medications. The magic of caffeine Coffee contains lots of things besides caffeine, which is just one of the hundreds of bioactive ingredients found in coffee, in addition to antioxidants, chlorogenic acids, melonoidins and other components. All of the components of coffee combined confer numerous benefits to those who consume it, such as a decreased risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, certain types of cancer and depression, among other things. However, as the world’s most consu