Coffee lowers stroke risk in women

Consuming more than a cup of coffee a day is linked to a 22 per cent to 25 per cent lower risk of stroke, says a new study. Low or no coffee consumption is associated with an increased risk of stroke, according to the study of 34,670 women (ages 49 to 83) followed for an average 10.4 years. It’s too soon to change coffee-drinking habits, but the study should ease the concerns of some women, researchers noted. Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world.

“Therefore, even small health effects of substances in coffee may have large public health consequences,” said Susanna Larsson, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, National Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. The study has been reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

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Dropping The Drip: How To Get Started With Better Coffee Making

Like computers, coffee is complex, easy to sink money into, and attracts a vast swath of opinions. And like computers, there is a wise middle path you can walk to get top-notch coffee at home without spending MacBook-like money on brewing gear.Image via Mat Honan.

What will you get out of this treatise on slightly snob-ish coffee? A better understanding of why the standard means of buying, storing and making coffee leaves much to be desired, followed by a rundown of some of the better, and less expensive, coffee-making methods — what I call hand-crafted coffee — and how it’s sometimes faster, and usually more fun, than making a pot of the classic drip stuff or just sticking with instant.

There are two things you should know up front. First: I’m not a coffee expert. In fact, as of a month ago, my coffee came primarily from baristas, a Keurig single-serve machine (photographic evidence here, a standard drip machine, or, on leisurely weekends, a French press that I knew two-thirds of the instructions for. To rectify this, I spent a month experimenting with at-home coffee methods, foisting blind taste tests on friends and co-workers, and researching what I call the Taste-to-Fuss Ratio. I also betrayed everything I once held dear about caffeine dependency.

Second: Your taste in coffee is different to mine. You might be looking for a smooth, gentle cup to accompany your drive to work, while I’m hoping my next cup tastes like pure Arabic gold. You get the freshest, single-source beans you can find from a local source, while I’m okay with the occasional cup of Eight O’ Clock.

What You Get by Leaving Automatic Drip Behind

Standard drip coffee makers have their uses. Automatic timers can be mighty helpful, especially the night before you fly out. If you’re making coffee for ten people after dinner, it’s easy to just load up, hit a button, and meet standard expectations. In my blind tests, too, some drinkers, given the right beans, ranked certain cups of drip above the hand-crafted competition.

But there are means of making coffee at home that can take less time than a drip maker. And you’re making a few sacrifices for set-and-forget:

• You usually use twice as much coffee: Water drains through ground coffee in an automatic machine at a relatively rapid pace, getting less direct exposure to the stuff than with most other means. That’s why most bags of good coffee suggest using two tablespoons per six-ounce serving. It’s a tablespoon here and there, but it adds up quickly if you actually drink the stuff.

• You can’t adjust two of three key elements: The key variables in coffee making are water temperature, the amount of coffee used in relation to the water, and the amount of time the coffee is brewed with the water. With a drip coffee maker, you can only control one of those three elements, and not that precisely.

• Lingering, hard-to-clean tastes: It’s relatively easy to clean out a glass carafe or metal container after you make coffee with it—you kind of have to, actually. Unless you’re meticulous about cleaning your drip maker after each use, its tubes and crevices accumulate residues, and the carafe itself usually smells faintly of whatever was last inside it.
The Tools of the Better Coffee Trade

To get better coffee, you need to to expose hot water to more high-quality coffee. That means doing a few things differently than you’re told by mass coffee merchants. Buy freshly roasted coffee:
Hopefully, somewhere near you, there’s a coffee merchant that roasts beans on-site and stamps their coffee with the date they roasted it. If you can’t find that merchant, find one in the area that sells to a nearby store. If that’s out of the realm, and you’re really game for committing to better coffee, consider buying your own green beans and roasting them yourself. It’s probably not as hard as you might think, and you’ll actually have some real coffee nerd bragging points. Image via B*2.

I didn’t quite get the impact of fresh-roasted coffee until a recent trip to Los Angeles, during which I visited Intelligentsia in Silver Lake. The cappuccino was strong — not heavy, not bitter, but just muscular in its flavour. The single-origin beans on the shelf were so fragrant, I grabbed them more than once during stops in LA traffic for quick aromatic stress relief. It got ridiculous — I could convince myself that Intelligentsia was “on the way” if it only added 6km to a straight-shot trip. Ask Whitson.

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Six new zones to raise coffee output to 100,000 tonnes

The Tanzania Coffee Board (TCB) has identified six new areas that are potential for coffee production, making a total of 13 regions undertaking coffee cultivation countrywide. In an interview this week, TCB Director General eng. Adolph Kumburu, said the board will sensitise farmers to plant Tanzania Coffee Research Institute’s (Tacri) newly researched varieties in the areas.

The aim is to increase coffee production to 100,000 tonnes by the year 2020, according to the board DG. He said TCB Ffeld officers have been stationed in all coffee producing zones where offices had been established in 2009. Shedding more lights on the new strategy, Kumburu said it is a collaborative effort by industry stakeholders and has been developed as a result of new developments in the coffee industry.

They include amendment of the Crop Board Act and implementation of the new Crop Board reforms, he said. According to him, the strategy sets out a mission on how to increase coffee production from the present 50,000 metric tonnes to at least 80,000 tonnes by 2016 and reach 100,000 tonnes four years thereafter.

It is envisaged that the increase in production volumes will go hand in hand with the increase in quality from the present 35 per cent premium coffee to at least 70 per cent of total production. The move by the Board and stakeholders has comes at the right time when the price of coffee in world market has been soaring.

World coffee price in December last year reached the highest level since October 1994, according to the International Coffee Organization (ICO). The trend led to a sharp rise in the monthly average of the ICO composite indicator price from 173.90 US cent in November, to 184.26 US cents per pound in December.

According to ICO report, world coffee exports reached 7.6 million bags in November last year in contrast to 6.7 million bags over the same period in the previous year. The report says exports in the first two months of 2010 / 2011 (October and November) increased by 9.3 per cent to 15.6 million bags, compared to 14.2 million bags in the same period during the previous year.

During the past twelve months which ended in November last year, exports of Arabica coffee totalled 63.2 million bags compared to 61.1 million bags the previous year. On the other hand, Robusta exports amounted to 31.8 million bags compared to 36.2 million bags over the the period under review.

Tanzania is Africa’s largest coffee producer after Ethiopia, Uganda and Ivory Coast. Approximately seventy percent of coffee produced in Tanzania is Arabica, with most of it grown in the high altitude regions of Mount Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Mbeya.

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Walnut Crumble Coffee Cake

WALNUT CRUMBLE COFFEE CAKE

This is the classic - serve warm.

2/3 cup (150 ml) butter, softened

3/4 cup (175 ml) packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. (5 ml) vanilla

2 cups (500 ml) all-purpose flour

1 tsp. (5 ml) baking powder

1/2 tsp. (2 ml) baking soda

1/4 tsp. (1 ml) salt

1 cup (250 ml) sour cream

Crumble Topping:

1/2 cup (125 ml) packed brown sugar

1/2 cup (125 ml) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (50 ml) butter, softened

1 cup (250 ml) chopped walnut halves

2 tsp. (10 ml) vanilla

Grease 9-inch (2.5 L) square metal cake pan; set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Stir dry ingredients into butter mixture, alternating with sour cream, making 3 additions of dry and 2 of sour cream. Batter will be stiff. Spread in prepared pan.

Crumble Topping: In bowl, combine sugar and flour. With fork, work in butter until crumbly. Toss with walnuts and vanilla. Sprinkle over batter, pressing lightly. Bake in centre of 325F (160C) oven until skewer inserted into centre comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Let cool on rack. (Make-ahead: Cover and store for 1 day at room temperature.)

Makes 12 squares.

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AVI rise in earnings ‘aided by good fortune’ and coffee

STRONG consumer demand for fashion brand Spitz and a little assistance from the competition in the coffee and creamer categories boosted AVI’s revenue in the six months to December, the company said yesterday.

AVI, which owns brands such as Five Roses, Bakers, Ellis Brown, Frisco and Willards, said coffee volumes were 14,3% higher, while creamer volumes were up 22,9% partly due to competitor supply problems. CEO Simon Crutchley said the company had been "aided by good fortune".

AVI attributed the higher revenue in the footwear and apparel category to the strong rand and an improved sales mix. "Footwear sales volumes increased 26% with the core Carvela, Lacoste, Kurt Geiger and Tosoni brands all performing well," the company said.

In the personal care category, Indigo’s revenue grew 12,3% to R470,3m the company said. SA Stock Brokers’ Ron Klipin said the top end of the market had been more resilient than the lower end. "Spitz being the aspirational brand has got the business model right, where it is all about brands, brands, brands.

"Consumer spending has not shot the lights out but the company has delivered a solid set of results. Both prices and volumes have been good," he said. The company said tea volumes were slightly lower than last year due to vigorous competition, but this was offset by higher prices realised. "Biscuit prices were increased in August which resulted in lower sales volumes in the first half," it said.

I&J’s revenue was hit hard by the stronger rand, but volumes were in line with the first half of last year, with an improved sales mix and slightly better export prices in foreign currencies, the company said. "The hake quota for the 2011 calendar year is up 10% which will give I&J extra volume opportunity in the second half of the financial year."

Mr Crutchley said the company had not seen a fundamental shift in consumer spending over the past two months. I&J’s results in the second half will remain depressed should weak prices for seafood products and the strong rand continue to prevail.

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Starbucks CEO eyes acquisition for consumer products: report

Looking for growth beyond its namesake cafes, the world's biggest coffee chain has made clear its intentions to strike deals in the fast-growing single-cup brewing segment. "We are building and investing in resources and people to build a significant consumer products business that over time will rival the size and scale of our retail company," Schultz told the Journal.

Schultz also told the daily that the company will not implement across-the-board price increases at this stage in spite of the volatility in coffee prices He said the company had locked in coffee prices for 2011 to offset high prices. Speaking about international expansion plans to the Journal, Schultz said there was "a large runway for growth and opportunity.

"We have an opportunity now to build thousands of stores in China. We're in a very good position to begin to look at India as the next market for Starbucks and we hope to get the first stores there open within 12 months," he told the paper.

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Brewing a fair deal from our coffee habit

Drinking fair trade coffee really does make a difference to the small producers who make up a major portion of the massive global coffee market, writes TOM HENNIGAN in Jinotega, Nicaragua

GIVEN THE amount consumed worldwide each day, there is a good chance you have a cup of coffee within reach as you read this article. After all, it is the world’s second most-consumed beverage – behind tea – and its caffeine hit is mankind’s legal stimulant of choice. If oil runs our machines, coffee increasingly runs us.

But while oil prices are a subject for the nightly news, the wild fluctuations in the coffee markets rarely grab our attention. However, ignorance about the economies of this bean is a rich-world privilege. In the developing world, the price of coffee is vital. There, only crude oil is a more important export commodity. But whereas oil is controlled by multinational and state oil companies, 70 per cent of global coffee production comes from small farmers, the highest share of any global commodity, making it a crop of crucial social importance.

Juan José Centeno Blandon, a 54-year-old smallholder in the verdant hill country around Nicaragua’s coffee capital of Jinotega, knows only too well the impact of coffee’s wild price swings. Asked what the record lows of a decade ago meant for his family and he is blunt: “Before, food was a problem.”

That collapse in prices was caused by a glut of coffee following Vietnam’s aggressive entry into the market. As a result, Nicaraguan coffee farmers let their beans – their only cash crop – rot in the field. It cost more to harvest than they could make at market. Families began to drift away from the land towards city slums where there were few jobs waiting for them.

But the crisis encouraged many who stayed to band together and find safety in the country’s burgeoning co-operative movement. Six years ago Blandon accepted the invitation of several compañeros and joined a co-op, one of 18 that make up a local co-op union.

Called Soppexcca, the union has won fair trade certification for the coffee grown by its 650 producers. Fair trade works on the principle that there is a growing number of consumers in rich countries who do in fact care about the price of coffee, or at least the price small coffee farmers earn for their crop.

According to fair trade rules these consumers and the companies that supply them are willing to pay a social premium on top of market prices for certified fair trade products, as well as guaranteeing a minimum price to help insulate producers from market shocks. This extra money is then reinvested in the farmers’ communities.

Soppexcca has taken the social premium it gets for its members’ coffee and invested it in numerous social projects including the building of two new rural schools, scholarship programmes for farmers’ children, and providing basic healthcare in some of Latin America’s poorest communities where the state’s presence is often feeble.

“The co-op members now have a sense of belonging and developing their own plans and seeing a future for themselves compared to 10 years ago when it was a complete crisis,” says Al Cunningham of Christian Aid Ireland, the charity owned by Ireland’s main protestant churches and one of the founders of the fair trade movement. Over the past decade, the charity has partnered with Soppexcca on many of its social projects.

Such benefits mean Soppexcca’s general manager Fátima Ismael Espinoza gives short shrift to critics of fair trade who claim its benefits are opaque and oversold. “Here a coffee drinker from Ireland can see and feel the impact of their investment when they drink a cup of fair trade coffee,” she says. “They can see it in our children, our women, our families.”

As one of Soppexcca’s biggest customers is Bewley’s, much of this social premium does indeed come from Irish coffee drinkers. Soppexcca’s beans are sold in Ireland under Bewley’s Explore Nicaragua fair trade brand. Just this week Bewley’s signed a deal with convenience retailer Mace to sell Soppexcca coffee in Mace’s 120 locations around the country.

But as he tastes Soppexcca’s latest harvest ahead of confirming his order for the year, Bewley’s master roaster and chief buyer Paul O’Toole is quick to point out, “This is not about charity. I wouldn’t be here if the coffee was not right.”

Seeking out the quality fair trade coffee his customers want has allowed O’Toole to bypass the industry’s middlemen and build relations directly with coffee growers, important considering that much of the world’s crop comes from regions prone to natural disaster or civil unrest. “In my business I want to be close to my producers and fair trade has given me that introduction,” he says.

Soppexcca is also keen to cut out middlemen. With help from Christian Aid Ireland among other donors, it now owns its own processing mills.

This means it no longer has to sell freshly harvested beans to third parties to process into the more valuable green beans that European roasters buy.

With local banks quoting loans with interest rates of more than 100 per cent for small producer co-ops, Soppexcca still needed foreign aid in order to make this climb up the value chain. Now Espinoza is hopeful that, in years to come they will see the union turn itself into a self-standing business, able to generate its own investment capital.

“But,” she quickly adds, “Without ever losing our social or environmental rationale.”

A taste of Nicaragua

When Bewley’s master roaster Paul O’Toole started buying coffee 30 years ago the only product available from Central America was a contract for a basket of disparate beans sold in New York as Central American Standard 1.

“I didn’t know whether it was coming from Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras,” says O’Toole. “I wouldn’t have known then that Honduran coffee has a more tropical taste and Nicaraguan a sweeter one or that Guatemalan has a smoother quality. Up until recently all that was lobbed into a big commercial standard that they could trade in New York where they didn’t know what they were talking about.”

But, as with wine, Irish coffee drinkers have become increasingly sophisticated in recent decades and European roasters such as O’Toole are now seeking out distinctive local producers across the tropics who can offer new varieties to more demanding palates back home. Broad and bland regional categories are no longer in flavour.

For small coffee farmers such as those in the Soppexcca co-op, this raises the hope that their ever more knowledgeable customers will one day arrive as tourists to visit the regions which produce the world’s top coffee, much as wine lovers descend on famous wineries. For coffee drinkers, it raises the prospect of waking up in Nicaragua’s lush mountains and drinking your favourite cup on the small farm that produced it.

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