CoffeeWriter

With the hot summer approaching there’s nothing better to cool you down than some coffee, iced coffee that is. If you thought that this was just an excuse to use up your old coffee think again. You can create some wonderful taste sensations with some coffee, a little creativity and time. Making this wonderful treat isn’t complicated if you just follow these five simple steps. Continue reading “How To Make Iced Coffee Taste Good and Cost Less” »

Here’s an interesting tidbit from WECT about an Australian study that says too much coffee can make you hear things. Yes, researches from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, Australia claim that caffeine is a psychoactive drug. Since so many people drink coffee, that would make it the most common psychoactive drug as well. Apparently a combination of caffeine and stress combine to produce these effects. So I guess next time you have a cup of coffee you should relax while drinking. According to the article it only takes five cups a day to trigger the sensation. You can read the full article here.

Here’s an interesting article from the British Coffee Association that sheds some light on a recent report new about coffee consumption reducing the chance of conception for women. Although the original reports hitting the news were rather sensational, it turns out there’s a lot of misconception surround the study. Apparently the original research was done on mice not humans, so it’s a little bit of a stretch to make an analogy between the two. Second, the amount of caffeine that the mice were subjected to were extraordinarily high, equivalent to about 50 cups of coffee in humans. I know people who like there coffee, but that’s outrageous and no where near what any normal human being would drink. You can read the entire article here.

An article in Bloomberg indicates that farmers in Brazil are stepping up to meet the increase in demand for arabica coffee beans. Specifically they are starting to invest in improvements to increase their yield and quality, including expanding the acreage that is being planted for coffee beans. That is welcome news as coffee output is set to drop to 43.5 million bags this year down from 48.1 million bags last year. The trees work on a two year cycle and unfortunately this is the lower-yielding half that we are experiencing. The full article is available here on Bloomberg.

The Los Angeles Times ran an article recently on the high price of coffee. According to the article, the increasing cost of coffee beans is being dutifully passed on to the consumer. J.M. Smucker Co is set to raise the price of Folgers and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee by 11%, their fourth increase this year. Starbucks also plans on raising their prices by 17% for coffee beans sold in-store. Apparently coffee bean commodity prices are being hit by a combination of bad weather, increasing demand from China and investor speculation. You can read the entire article here.