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Another single-serve coffee brewing system is muscling into the Canadian market through the acquisition of coffee retailer Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. purchased Timothy’s Coffees of the World, Inc. from the private equity firm Sun Capital Partners for $165 million today. Green Mountain, which specializes in organic, fair trade, and specialty coffee, is set to open a roastery in Toronto.

The cash deal will also vastly broaden distribution for the U.S. company’s single-serve Keurig coffee machines and its disposable single-serve K-Cup beverage pods at retail outlets throughout Canada. Timothy’s is a licensed roaster of Keurig, which was acquired by Green Mountain in 2006.

“Single cup is a very fast growing segment of the coffee business,” said Scott McCreary, chief operating officer of Green Mountain’s specialty coffee business unit. With the Timothy’s brand as part of the family of brands it gives us an opportunity to develop in the Canadian marketplace.” Keurig coffee machines are sold at Costco and Home Outfitters in Canada and Green Mountain plans to extend the reach of its K-Cups into grocery stores.

While the overall brewed-at home coffee segment is still 50 times larger, single-serve coffee has surged in Canada recently, with the on-demand segment consisting of single and double-serve pods growing sales 81% in 2008 to $12.5-million as cost-wary consumers decided to brew more lattes at home. Timothy’s has no retail outlets but its brand of single-serve K-cup portion packs is sold at 17,900 retail locations. “It is good for the [retail brand in Canada],” said Mr. McCreary. “People who love Timothy’s coffee don’t always have the opportunity to go to a retail store.”  Timothy’s wholesale coffee business distributes to retailers, offices, hotels, grocery stores and restaurants.

1. Spent coffee grounds should never be reused to make coffee, but they have other uses. Grounds are great for your compost or to sprinkle around plants. You can also purchase Java Logs, made of recycled coffee grounds, to burn instead of wood.
2. The World of Coffee employs more than 25 million people, most of them in Third World countries, who grow, harvest and process the beans prior to shipping.
3. Roasted coffee gives off twice its weight in CO2, a process called de-gassing. The valve in coffee bags allows this gas to escape so the package does not explode. With no valve, coffee cannot be packaged until it is already partially stale.
4. Coffee cupping is the term used to describe the process of evaluating the taste and aroma of a roasted coffee. True coffee connoisseurs prefer mild roasts because they can better taste and smell the unique characteristics of the bean.
5. In its early days, coffee was most frequently thought of as a form of medicine. It was readily accepted as a stimulant and as a cure for digestive problems. It was also used to keep devoted Muslims alert during their long hours of prayer.
   
6. There are 2,000 known substances contained within each coffee bean, including over 800 flavour oils. Upon roasting, these oils are responsible for all of coffee’s great taste and aroma.
7. Like peanuts, coffee beans usually grow in facing pairs which are covered with a tough-skinned parchment. The individual beans are covered by a silver skin resembling tissue paper.
8. When beans are roasted, they expand and the outer skin breaks off making a popping sound. This resulting chaff makes a great garden mulch.
9. In 1776, the Green Dragon Coffeehouse was the headquarters for rebels fighting in the American Revolution.
10. In 1789, Café le Foy is used by freedom fighters to stage the Storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.
11. By definition, most coffee drinkers have never tasted fresh coffee. There are only two ways to enjoy the great taste of fresh roasted coffee: (1) roast quality green coffee beans at home, or (2) find a local roaster selling certified fresh roasted coffee.

To roast your own green coffee beans, a preheated ceramic plate works best, however, any pan with sides can be used, such as a cookie sheet, pie plate or pizza pan.

1. Preheat oven and cooking sheet to 450°F (230°C).
2. Spread an even layer of green coffee beans onto cooking surface. Make a hole in center to allow for more even roasting.
3. Roast on the middle rack for approximately 6-10 minutes, or until beans begin to crackle and pop. Remove beans from oven and stir with a wooden spoon. Quickly place back in oven.
4. Roast for an additional 2-6 minutes. During this period it is critical to watch the beans as they turn colour quickly from light to dark. Watch the beans closely to determine your preferred roast colour and stir if necessary to create an even roast. (Tip: Roasting should take no longer than 15 minutes. If it does, increase oven temperature by 25°F (14°C).
5. Remove cooking sheet from oven when beans have reached desired roast colour. Transfer to a heat resistant bowl for cooling.
6. Enjoy immediately. Use within five days of roasting. Grind just before brewing.

Some tips for achieving the ultimate roast:

• Green coffee beans have a long shelf life (2 to 10 years). Keep dry and store away from direct sunlight (like grains, sugar, etc.).
• Maximum flavour is achieved with a medium roast.
• A dark roast increases body and decreases both acidity and caffeine. A light roast has less body, but higher acidity and caffeine. Coffee tastes flat without some acidity.
• Roasted coffee is perishable. Consume fresh roasted coffee within 5 days after roasting. Store in any vessel – glass jar, stainless steel bowl, etc. Do not store in the fridge.

Always remember, practice makes perfect. Over roasting and under roasting the green beans are common to those who are becoming master roasters.

Taste

To put it simply, the true taste of fresh coffee is naturally sweet, not bitter. The first sign that coffee is stale is a bitter taste. 99% of all North Americans are drinking stale coffee. Great tasting coffee relies on how soon the coffee is brewed and consumed after roasting. For coffee to be fresh, and best, it must be consumed within five days after roasting, three hours of grinding, and fifteen minutes of brewing. As with wine, the taste of coffee depends on the quality of a fruit, and the way that fruit is transformed into a beverage.

The downside is that fresh roasted coffee has a very short shelf life. Regardless of packaging, freshly roasted coffee is only fresh for a maximum of five days, and the  majority of coffee on the market today far exceeds the 5-day freshness window, by the time it is roasted, packaged, distributed and sold.

Experience

It is quite an experience to learn about and buy green coffee beans and select tools for roasting, grinding and brewing. It really is quite easy it is to roast your own coffee and experience coffee like never before. Those who roast their coffee from green coffee beans will never go back to the coffee they used to drink!

Green coffee beans have very little taste. Coffee taste as we know it, is created during the roasting process. At 400°F/205°C to, simple sugars and carbohydrates inside the green coffee bean begin to caramelize, creating over 800 different flavor components. Making a fine cup of coffee is a science, but one that is easy to master.

Knowing What You Are Drinking

As most entomologists or folks working in agriculture will tell you, most mass-produced, pre-ground coffee (as well as chocolate) has well, bug insect parts in it. Most governments allow a wide variety of insect parts in most food products. According to the Food and Drug Administration,  if more than 10% of the green coffee beans are damaged or infested, the food is rejected. This means that if  10% or less of your coffee is roach parts, it is acceptable. The FDA marks the significance of this as aesthetic, meaning that it will not harm you but may be too much to stomach for the average consumer. If you buy green coffee beans and roast and grind them yourself you will have a much better idea of exactly what you are consuming.

Buying Green Saves Green

Green beans have a long shelf life, approximately 2 to 10 years. Therefore you can purchase a large quantity of good quality, organic green coffee beans for the same price as a pound or two of processed coffee.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters completed the installation of a 572-panel solar array on the roof of its Waterbury, Vermont distribution center this summer.  The 100 kilowatt solar energy system was constructed through a partnership between Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the State of Vermont’s Clean Energy Development Fund and Green Mountain Power, a utility that provides a quarter of the state’s electricity.

Admittedly, the massive array of solar panels will only produce a small percentage of the electricity required by the plant, but the company believes “the greater benefit is in showing what is possible for the future.” according to the groSolar website.

Speaking of which, a live information stream of the energy being produced by the solar array is available at http://grosolar.kiosk-view.com/gmcr.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters also offers its employees group discounts on solar power systems through a green benefits program with groSolar. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters donates $1,000 toward a participating employee’s solar electric system, which also receives a $0.25 per watt installation discount from groSolar.

Make even stronger coffee, preferably in a Vietnamese coffee maker. (This is a metal cylinder with tiny holes in the bottom and a perforated disc that fits into it; you put coffee in the bottom of the cylinder, place the disc atop it, then fill with boiling water and a very rich infusion of coffee drips slowly from the bottom.)

If you are using a Vietnamese coffee maker, put two tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a cup and put the coffee maker on top of the cup. If you are making espresso or cafe filter (the infusion method where you press the plunger down through the grounds after several minutes of infusion), mix the sweetened condensed milk and the coffee any way you like.

When the milk is dissolved in the coffee (yes, dissolved *is* the operative word here) pour the combination over ice and sip.

Ca phe sua da (Vietnamese style iced coffee)

* 2 to 4 tablespoons finely ground dark roast coffee (preferably with chicory)
* 2 to 4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (e.g., Borden Eagle Brand, not evaporated milk!)
* Boiling water
* Vietnamese coffee press [see notes]
* Ice cubes

Place ground coffee in Vietnamese coffee press and screw lid down on the grounds. Put the sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of a coffee cup and set the coffee maker on the rim. Pour boiling water over the screw lid of the press; adjust the tension on the screw lid just till bubbles appear through the water, and the coffee drips slowly out the bottom of the press.

When all water has dripped through, stir the milk and coffee together. You can drink it like this, just warm, as ca phe sua neng, but I prefer it over ice, as ca phe sua da. To serve it that way, pour the milk-coffee mixture over ice, stir, and drink as slowly as you can manage. I always gulp mine too fast.
Notes:

A Vietnamese coffee press looks like a stainless steel top hat. There’s a “brim” that rests on the coffee cup; in the middle of that is a cylinder with tiny perforations in the bottom. Above that rises a threaded rod, to which you screw the top of the press, which is a disc with similar tiny perforations. Water trickles through these, extracts flavor from the coffee, and then trickles through the bottom perforations. It is excruciatingly slow. Loosening the top disc speeds the process, but also weakens the resulting coffee and adds sediment to the brew.

If you can’t find a Vietnamese coffee press, regular-strength espresso is an adequate substitute, particularly if made with French-roast beans or with a dark coffee with chicory. I’ve seen the commonly available Medaglia d’Oro brand coffee cans in Vietnamese restaurants, and it works, though you’ll lose some of the subtle bitterness that the chicory offers. Luzianne brand coffee comes with chicory and is usable in Vietnamese coffee, though at home I generally get French roast from my normal coffee provider. My father tells me that when he visits Vietnamese friends in Florida that Luzianne and a local blend are the coffees sold in the local Vietnamese-run/shopped stores.

Of these two coffees, Vietnamese coffee should taste more or less like melted Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream, while Thai iced coffee has a more fragrant and lighter flavor from the cardamom and half-and-half rather than the condensed milk. Both are exquisite, and not difficult to make once you’ve got the equipment.

As a final tip, I often use my old-fashioned on-the-stove espresso maker (the one shaped like an hourglass, where you put water in the bottom, coffee in the middle, and as it boils the coffee comes out in the top) for Thai iced coffee. The simplest way is merely to put the cardamom and sugar right in with the coffee, so that what comes out the top is ready to pour over ice and add half-and-half. It makes a delicious and very passable version of restaurant-style Thai iced coffee.

Make very strong coffee (50-100% more coffee to water than usual), try to use something that  has some chicory in it. Pour into cup and add about a tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk. Stir, then pour over ice.

You’ll have to experiment with the strength and milk so you still get lots of flavor even after it is diluted by the ice.

Another version of this same traditional recipe simply calls for grinding two or three fresh cardamom pods and putting them in with the coffee grounds. Make a strong coffee with a fresh dark roast, chill it, sweeten and add half-and-half to taste.

Green Mountain Coffee presents a brief overview of coffee from the tree to cup. With an emphasis on the coffee farming communities, this short film illustrates how a coffee fruit becomes a sweet cup of brew.

The Fair Trade Certified™ labels are owned by Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International and the Fair Trade licensing initiatives around the world. Coffee Companies pay licensing fees to the licensing initiatives, and in turn they are able to affix the Fair Trade Certified™ trademark on their packaging. According to the licensing initiatives, a majority of the fees are allocated to the cost of certification.

Fair Trade products appeal to socially minded consumers who place a high value on the Fair Trade certification seal. Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International
certifies to consumers, through the seal, that a minimum price of $1.24–$1.26 per pound ($1.39–$1.41 per pound for organics) was paid to the farmer cooperative that produced the coffee in the first half of 2007.

Effective June 1, 2007, the minimum price was increased to $1.29–$1.31 per pound ($1.49–$1.51 for organics). Fair Trade certification includes criteria to be met by coffee cooperatives, such as fair labor conditions, freedom of association and certain environmental standards. To be certified as Fair Trade, the coffee is only to be produced by farmers who belong to farmer-owned, democratically run coffee cooperatives and associations listed on the Fair Trade registry. An estimated four percent of global coffee production is Fair Trade Certified.™

Imagine if all the coffee makers in the world were taken off of the grid. Imagine then if  your coffee machine had a solar panel on the top collecting energy to replace electricity with natural power? This brewer by designer Gun ho Lee could be in kitchens of the future.

Apparently, a documentary film about how carbon generated by us harmfully affects our ecosystem is what inspired this green home appliance. This coffee maker features an  LCD display, a coffee pod filter, hot plate, a cool design and best of  all, it is environmentally friendly!