For millions of people around the world, the enjoyment of a great cup of coffee is one of life’s true pleasures. For many of us, it's a ritual we savor each and every day.
A satisfying brew of gourmet coffee stimulates our senses in so many ways. The tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee beans never fails to raise our spirits – it’s a sensation we never grow tired of. The rich flavor of our favorite dark roast or gourmet blend excites the palette and warms the soul. A skillfully extracted cup of espresso is most certainly a shot of heavenly splendor.
If this sounds like passion, you are right! At the Gourmet Coffee Zone, we celebrate this passion for great gourmet coffee. Most of all, we enjoy the opportunity to share this passion with you.
When we talk about gourmet coffee, we're referring to the full range of elements, conditions, and techniques that add up to a superior coffee experience.
The journey from the coffee plant to the cup is quite an adventure. From thousands of small plantations in exotic places around the world, come a wide variety of beans, each offering their own unique profiles and characteristics. The finest beans are graded and selected.
The skillful roaster determines which style of roast best matches the profile of the varietal to bring out the best qualities of the beans.
With the freshest roasted beans possible, the proper grind is essential preparation for the final step, the brew. There are at least six popular methods of brewing coffee. To bring it all together, the appropriate brewing method complements the beans, the roast and the grind to produce the ultimate gourmet coffee experience.
A Community for Gourmet Coffee Lovers
Our goal is to bring the community of gourmet coffee lovers together. We are putting together a growing wealth of information to help you expand your enjoyment of gourmet coffee. Whether you are just starting out, an expert, or somewhere in the middle, we want to share our collection of information, tips, and ideas with you.
Many of us likely fall somewhere in between the neophyte and the expert. Maybe you’ve been enjoying gourmet coffee for some time but never explored much behind the scenes. It’s amazing how much is really going on. The world of gourmet coffee truly is a fascinating subject to explore.
One of the great benefits we enjoy about coffee is the social experience. Whether we share a cup in the morning with our family, take a coffee break at work, relax at our favorite coffee house with friends and other patrons that share our passion for great coffee, or savor a delectable double espresso at the culmination of a great meal, a cup of coffee is meant to be enjoyed in the company of others. Coffee is a part of our every day lives. It does bring us together. We appreciate the opportunity to share this sense of community with you!
A Gourmet Coffee Adventure
If you feel as we do about great coffee, whether a novice or an experienced connoisseur, your quest for information is only matched by the pursuit of great coffee itself. The road to a more satisfying gourmet coffee experience is a gratifying adventure.
We hope you will enjoy the Gourmet Coffee Zone to assist you for all of your coffee needs.
- Coffee History – coffee has existed as a popular beverage for over a thousand years. Records indicate that the discovery of coffee dates back to around the 8th or 9th century A.D. either in Ethiopia or Yemen. From it’s earliest beginnings, through the centuries, to our modern times, the history of coffee is a fascinating and compelling story.
- Coffee Origins – coffee beans are grown in many locations around the world. Angola, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Hawaii, Indonesia, Kenya, Puerto Rico, Yemen, to name a few of the many exotic places. Each location produces its own unique bean characteristics that contribute to the interesting varieties of coffee you can experience. Exploring and understanding more about the origins of the beans we can select to create great gourmet coffee is part of the interesting adventure.
- Coffee Beans – which species of coffee bean, the lineage or heritage of the coffee beans, how the beans are grown and harvested, and which process the grower uses to cure the beans all contribute to the quality, characteristic, and flavor of the coffee. How beans are selected and graded, and how different beans can be combined or blended to produce different coffee characteristics are also helpful aspects to understand. Familiarity with these attributes about the beans goes hand-in-hand with your knowledge of the coffee’s origins (where the beans come from) to maximize the gourmet coffee experience.
- Coffee Roasting – roasting is the essential step to bring out the finest qualities and characteristics of the coffee bean. Understanding more about the roasting process and the types of roasts will open up a new dimension for you. Once the beans have been roasted, they tend to lose their freshness quickly. The key to a great cup of gourmet coffee is to use the freshest roasted beans possible. One of the easiest ways to obtain the freshest roasted beans is by ordering online direct from the roaster. Let us help you find great sources for roasted beans. Or maybe even try your hand at roasting the freshest beans at home yourself.
- Coffee Grinding – brewing coffee from freshly ground beans is always better. Once beans are ground, they will stale even faster. As you may already know, producing a superior cup of coffee is enhanced when you adopt a just-in-time approach. For the most flavorful result, use beans that have been recently freshly roasted, and then wait to grind the whole beans until just before you are ready to brew the coffee. There are a variety of home grinders with the most common being the blade grinder. Typically, the more expensive grinders provide more precise control over how course or fine the beans are ground. It’s important to match the grind to the method of brew. An incorrect grind can spoil a great coffee result.
- Coffee Brewing – there are a variety of coffee brewing methods. For the most part, it’s a matter of personal preference. An automatic drip/filter coffee maker with a programmable timer ready to prepare our coffee for us as we awake in the morning has a certain convenience. But don’t overlook other methods of brewing that can produce a superior result. Which ever your preference of brew method, we have plenty of suggestions, tips and techniques to assure you achieve the best brew result possible.
- Coffee Store – We hand select and recommend the finest gourmet and specialty coffee available from the some of the best master coffee roasters. Available for purchase online in our coffee store, with convenient ordering and shipping right to your door. Discover and explore some of the most exciting single origins and blends, and enjoy truly great coffee, always freshly roasted to perfection.
And of course, to prepare and enjoy great gourmet coffee, you'll need the right tools. We feature in our online store many of our favorite coffee products, coffee accessories and coffee equipment. We provide plenty of descriptions, recommendations, tips, and suggestions on coffee machines, coffee grinders, roasting machines, espresso machines, storage containers, and more. - Coffee Recipes – there is an amazing variety of ways that coffee is enjoyed around the world. For the purist approach, a straight un-adorned fresh brewed cup of coffee is the ultimate satisfying coffee experience. But for millions every day, delicious coffee drinks are undeniably popular. Want to broaden your horizons and learn how to make your own gourmet coffee drinks? Café au Lait, Cappuccino, Caffe Latte, Macchiato, Mochaccino, Turkish Coffee, Iced Coffee, and more. And as surprising as it may sound, how about the many exciting ways you can use coffee as an exotic and tantalizing ingredient in your cooking - a truly gourmet experience!
- Guides and How Tos – sometimes there is nothing better than a step-by-step how-to or guide to help you master or learn the right technique. Want to learn more about selecting beans, roasting your own beans, brewing the perfect cup of coffee, or grinding your own beans to properly complement the brewing method you prefer? And then there is the art of extracting a cup of great espresso. We have a number of how-to guides and tutorials to assist you and help.
Remember to bookmark and save a link to the Gourmet Coffee Zone in you favorites. Our website continues to grow with interesting and helpful gourmet coffee information, so be sure to come back and visit us soon.
To your gourmet coffee enjoyment!
The Gourmet Coffee Zone
