Page 12 - All About Coffee by Café du Jour, the Coffee Expert

If you’re a true espresso lover, you’ll know that the choice of coffee beans is crucial. Not all beans are created equal, and finding the perfect bean can take your coffee drinking to a higher level. For many, Illy coffee beans are the ultimate choice for a delicious espresso. But what makes Illy coffee beans so special? In this blog post, we explore the main reasons why this Italian coffee bean stands out in the world of espresso.

1. Outstanding quality through generations of craftsmanship

Illy is no newcomer to the coffee world. The family business, founded in 1933, has built up decades of experience in selecting, roasting and packaging the best coffee beans. This rich history has given them the expertise to continuously strive for perfection. This craftsmanship is passed down from generation to generation, resulting in consistent, high-quality coffee beans.

2. Blend of 100% Arabica beans

What makes Illy unique is their focus on using only the best 100% Arabica coffee beans. Arabica beans

Brewing the tastiest coffee at home, who doesn’t want that? But how come there’s such a big difference between the coffee you make at home and the espresso or cappuccino from your favourite coffee bar? Although a lot of that has to do with the coffee machine and the skills of the barista, there are definitely things you can do at home to improve your coffee. Curious how? Read on with us.

These tips come from baristaworden.nl. A website for coffee lovers, by coffee lovers. There you’ll find plenty of tips and tricks to become a better home barista.

1. Buy freshly roasted coffee beans

It sounds logical, but plenty of people still don’t do it. Just like you buy fresh produce at the supermarket, coffee beans also taste best when they’re freshly roasted. But what exactly does that mean? Coffee beans are fresh for up to 6 - 8 weeks after roasting. That doesn’t mean you have to throw the beans straight away once 8 weeks have passed, but the flavour and aromas do start to slowly fade.

2. Grind

Here's how to make an iced coffee with ingredients everyone has at home. In under 10 minutes you'll have a delicious iced coffee ready to go. This recipe is for one large glass. Want to make iced coffee for a group? Simply multiply the recipe by the number of guests you'd like to treat to a tasty glass of iced coffee.

Ingredients for iced coffee

• 150 ml cold espresso (strong coffee)
• 100 ml milk or 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream
• Ground cinnamon
• Lightly or stiffly whipped cream
• Ice cubes

Coffee comes from the Latin name of the plant genus Coffea. The genus belongs to the Rubiaceae family and contains over 6,000 different types of plants and trees, which mostly grow in tropical regions.

The genus Coffea contains at least 25 different species, some of which can grow more than 10 metres tall. For us, there are 2 important species within the Coffea genus: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora.

Coffea Arabica vs. Coffea Canephora

• Coffea Arabica produces Arabica beans, which most quality coffee is made from. Arabica is the only coffee that can be drunk without the beans being mixed with other types of coffee beans (a mix is called a blend). Arabica coffee is generally fairly mild and comes from places such as Brazil.
• Coffea Canephora produces Robusta beans, which are often used in blends (mixed with Arabica beans). This coffee is considerably more bitter.

There are also the C. liberica and C. excelsa plants that produce liberica and excelsa beans. However, these are used much less

The Dutch drink on average around two cups of coffee a day, which equates to roughly seven kilos of coffee beans a year. That puts them in the top three of coffee drinkers in the world, after Norway and Finland. The popularity of coffee comes hand in hand with conflicting advice and findings, for example from health coaches. So today we’re busting three stubborn myths about coffee.

1. Drinking coffee dehydrates you = nonsense.

Caffeine is a diuretic, you need to pee a little more often as a result, and so it has a dehydrating effect. At least, it would, if the main ingredient of coffee weren’t water.

The amount of water in coffee counts towards the daily recommended water intake people should be drinking. A study on caffeine intake shows that a normal amount of caffeine doesn’t cause dehydration. The bottom line is that the water in coffee is enough to make up for the extra water leaving your body. Three cups of coffee a day hydrates as much as three glasses of water a day, according to

Italy and coffee: a combination you really can’t miss. In almost every country in the world where coffee is drunk, the flavours and habits are based on Italian coffee culture. Italians are the founders of this coffee culture; they start with it early in the morning and even after a late Italian meal, coffee is drunk. Time to take a closer look at Italian coffee culture. You’ll find everything about the customs and traditions here so you won’t look out of place when you order a coffee on your trip to Italy. Once you’re back from your well-earned holiday, you’ll naturally want to recreate those Italian vibes, which is why we’ve got the best Italian coffee beans for you.

The day begins with... cappuccino

The beginning of the day is the ideal moment to enjoy a delicious cappuccino. Preferably alongside a sweet croissant, which is sometimes filled with jam. But take note: after around 11 or 12 in the morning, it’s best not to order a cappuccino anymore — according to the Italians, it’s more

I didn’t really like coffee much when I was younger either. That changed when I was about 14 and started working in the washing-up kitchen of a restaurant. I’d said I didn’t need any coffee, but unasked, by the end of the day there were always five full, cold cups of coffee sitting next to me on the worktop. A waste, of course, so at some point I gave it a go anyway. And, well, after that I kept going..

Most children will pull a face when they take a sip of coffee, as if they’ve bitten into a lemon. Yet a few years down the line, a lot of those same youngsters are happily drinking coffee, so how does that actually happen?

Children have more taste buds than adults, and those taste buds are also spread more widely across the mouth. So different flavours come across differently for children than they do for adults. Coffee without milk and sugar has quite a strong flavour on its own, which is why even many adults only drink it with, say, a splash of milk. On top of that, you naturally get used

At Café du Jour we usually drink our coffee in the office at our desks or in the warehouse after packing up the orders. But not everyone can be as boring as us, of course, and luckily there are videos to prove it. Take this bloke, who goes sledging with a cup of coffee in his hands — totally normal stuff, right. But when you chuck your well-earned coffee over your shoulder (what a waste...) at -32 degrees, this is what happens...

The coffee seems to instantly ‘explode’ in mid-air. That’s because the hot coffee evaporates very rapidly in the cold, dry air. Either way, it makes for some pretty striking footage.

We’ve already told you that coffee is good for you. Coffee has plenty of mental and physical benefits. The University of Georgia has now added even more evidence to back that up. Research shows that a cup of coffee has a positive effect on your sporting performance. Simon Higgins studied 600 scientific articles on the effects of coffee. He focused on the links between caffeine consumption and athletes’ endurance. In nine follow-up experiments, in which participants had to cycle or run, he looked at the endurance levels of the test subjects. Higgins found that 3 to 7 milligrams of caffeine per kilo of body weight increased the participants’ endurance by no less than 24%. A cup of coffee contains roughly 75 to 150 milligrams of caffeine. According to Higgins, more research should be carried out into coffee as a source of caffeine. He says the effects of caffeine from coffee can be just as high as the effects of pure caffeine, while the general assumption is that they’re lower. Via DeMorgen