What's Brewing

The history of coffee and Catholicism is quite an interesting one. Initially coffee was the Arab drink, but with time, it became a cultural emblem closely tied to Italian culture and to this day it is regularly served at the Vatican. Vendors throughout all of Rome make a living out of selling rosaries, coffee, and replicas of Michelangelo's work. How did it all come to be? The short answer is that during the Middle Ages Italy became an important merchant port and coffee was one of the new hot commodities in the market. Coffee consumption spread throughout Italy but it...

Even though coffee has been drunk for centuries, espresso only came about at the beginning of the twentieth century, after numerous Italian inventors took on a quest to make stronger and purer coffee. The experimental methods varied but they all worked around brewing the beans under high pressure for a short amount of time instead of the typical steeping and pouring. All the testing and trying resulted in the densest coffee ever made, and as a consequence of the pressure used in this process for the first time, coffee goes through a carbonation process.  If you’ve ever had a good...

Some things about coffee are a matter of preference, but some others are absolute truths. Coffee beans are routinely examined and graded. Sometimes they may pass and sometimes they don’t. If they don’t, the beans are sold for a lower price. This exam is taken quite seriously. So seriously, that the test is not done in regular kitchens where different factors can affect and corrupt the coffee. Instead, the test is conducted in a lab; specifically, these labs tend to be called coffee labs and they are up for hire. Anyone can submit beans to be tested and graded, and...

Coffee has been at the forefront of many political and social conflicts. To this day, economies are built, destroyed, and rebuilt over coffee beans. One of the most fascinating coffee upheavals included the American Founding Fathers and a rowdy Bostonian called Samuel Adams (yes, the beer man). It was December 16 of 1773. A day well remembered by patriots as the Boston Tea Party, an event that marked the beginning of the end of British colonialism over America and the start of a quite special bond between Americans and the drink tea was replaced by -coffee.  These were the days...

  Many new mothers nowadays are learning the ropes of the game through TikTok and YouTube tutorials. The access to all this information and wide range of experiences has been very eye opening to most, but as coffee farmers don’t spend much time on those platforms, I’ll take it upon myself to give you some insight on how coffee farm moms do it.  Teach by example For many of us, our mothers have been our first preachers. They’ve taught us right from wrong, good manners, and good habits. At coffee farms, these lessons are taught by example. Motherhood and parenthood...

When the coffee is good, you don’t need much to make it special. Your local coffee shop may have seasonal specialties with an ingredient list and directions longer than the instructions for rocket fuel, but it really shouldn’t take that much to get your powerful drink together.  When farmers crave making a treat out of their coffee, their go-to recipe preserves the flavor of the beans and maintains the simplicity of things in the countryside.  Without further due, here is the recipe: Ideally, boil some water and panela (raw sugar cane) in a pot until it melts and creates a...