Kiss Java

Every morning as you wrap your hands around a warm mug of your favorite coffee, you close your eyes and gratefully sip the world’s most popular caffeinated drink. Like most coffee drinkers, you may take your morning brew for granted. After all, coffee is coffee, right? Maybe not. To transport coffee from the farm to your kitchen, many laborers work long hours in hot, tropical climates. To maximize profits, commercial farms focus on quantity rather than quality. As a result, workers who harvest and process the beans receive low wages, and pesticide use guarantees high coffee bush productivity with no regard to soil health, future crop growth or employee safety.

Alternatively, fair trade coffee companies purchase coffee beans directly from the growers. Every farmer receives an honest wage and works under fair conditions. In most cases, fair trade coffee growers practice sustainable farming techniques which improve the beans’ flavor and protect the land. When you purchase fair trade coffee, you enjoy a great cup of java and support farming communities in third-world countries.

Equal Exchange

In an effort to act with social responsibility, Equal Exchange assists farmers in planting and growing high quality beans. The company could earn a higher profit by paying typical third-world wages, but they choose instead to cultivate quality. In appreciation, consumers like you willingly pay more for an ethically harvested and amazingly flavorful cup of coffee.

Gorilla Coffee

Roasted daily on location in Brooklyn, New York, Gorilla Coffee has earned fair trade and organic certification. The shop’s owners package freshly roasted coffee and label each package with the roasting date. In addition to receiving fresh coffee beans, you receive high quality taste and support coffee bush growers with every cup of Gorilla Coffee you drink.

Batdorf & Bronson

Direct relationships with each farmer defines Batdorf & Bronson service and ethics. They only work with growers who cultivate healthy soil and maintain clean water. Additionally, each building that shades drying coffee beans also provides a home for migratory birds. Along with the absence of pesticides, these sustainable practices ensure that every cup of Batdorf & Bronson coffee supports the health and future of coffee bean bushes worldwide.

The Roasterie

As an exchange student in Costa Rica, Danny O’Neill developed a love for coffee. He started The Roasterie as a means of sharing his passion and promoting fair trade practices. In addition to ensuring each farmer receives fair compensation, O’Neill also provides aid to schools in the countries from which he obtains his coffee. When you purchase fair trade coffee, you do more than feed your caffeine addiction. You also support families and communities throughout South America.

Peace Coffee

By purchasing fair trade coffee, Peace Coffee supports development projects in third-world countries. Growers who supply coffee to Peace Coffee use a portion of their profits to support important projects like schools, clinics and farming communities in Ethiopia, Indonesia and Mexico. Not only do the farmers receive financial resources to care for their families, but they also meet needs in their communities, thanks for consumers like you who purchase fair trade coffee.

If all this talk about fair trade has made you thirsty for a great cup of coffee, search your local grocery stores for these and other fair trade brands. Use a grocery coupon to save money and support communities around the world. If your local store does not carry fair trade coffee, talk to the manager and request these brands. When you purchase fair trade coffee, you make a difference in the lives of the coffee farmers and their communities while ensuring high quality coffee fills your mug every day.

Engineers are intrinsically an unusual bunch. Most people are thrilled to start using new computers because they are faster; you can’t wait to take them apart to see how they are built. Most people look at the restaurants, stores and landmarks in a new city; you can’t stop thinking about how to time the traffic lights to improve the flow of traffic. And the list goes on. You’re destined to become an engineer because you’re always thinking about how to improve your world.

Once you’ve chosen to pursue an engineering degree, though, you enter a new world. It’s the world of night classes, long nights collaborating with classmates on group projects and studying for exams through the night. The adjustment can be a little tough if you’re not a natural insomniac or night owl, but you can’t change the system. So, as they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. What better approach to take than to develop a working relationship with coffee?

Coffee and Academia

Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, scientifically proven to improve your concentration and make you more alert. It can keep you focused during class after pulling an all-nighter, make your late-night study sessions more effective and keep you feeling energetic when facing a term paper due the next day.

Get into the Habit

If you’re not already a regular coffee-drinker, an expert can get you started. Your college friends can introduce you to different coffee-based options, such as coffee, espresso and cappuccino. Keep experimenting with flavored coffees until you find some that you like, or maybe you’ll discover that straight, plain coffee is your favorite. If you’re living in a residence hall, your cafeteria probably has coffee available during all opening hours. You can store instant coffee in your room and heat water in the microwave so that coffee is available whenever you need it.

A Few Health Tips

Before you get addicted to coffee, remember to drink responsibly.

• Limit your total caffeine intake to no more than 200 to 300 milligrams of caffeine per day, or about the amount in two to four cups of coffee. As you add your total caffeine intake, remember to count other sources, such as caffeinated soft drinks and hot chocolate.
• Coffee itself has barely any calories, but cream or whole milk and sugar can add hundreds of calories per day, leading to a weight gain of a few pounds per month. Choose black coffee or coffee with nonfat milk and non-caloric sweetener to prevent weight gain.
• Consider using coffee to improve your health along with your grades. Caffeine can energize you for workouts so that you burn calories, strengthen your heart and feel better.

Engineering school lets you pursue your passion for making the world a better place, but you may need to change your daily habits. Coffee can be a powerful ally in your quest to fit in with engineering students’ nightlife, which includes late-night classes and frequent all-nighters. Coffee quaffing is cool if you drink it in moderation, so use it to your advantage.

There is no greater smell in the world than a freshly brewed pot of coffee. And since this is a blog about  loving coffee, it’s probably safe to assume that everyone agrees. Which is why today’s post is about one of the best coffee makers on the market today – the Capresso CoffeeTeam GS. The great thing about this coffee machine though is that it is really two appliances in one: a coffee maker and a coffee grinder. In fact, the CoffeeTeam GS is the industry’s first combination coffee maker and grinder that has a conical burr grinder, and these aren’t ordinary burr grinders either. The slow grinding conical burrs in the CoffeeTeam GS are made from solid steel and can grind up to 6 ounces of coffee beans at one time. The CoffeeTeam GS can ground coffee beans to nearly any preference with five settings from coarse to very fine. And after your coffee is ground it is dispensed into the coffee filter in an exact preprogrammed amount every time for that perfect cup of Java.

Living in a house with multiple coffee drinkers can be a nightmare if everyone has their own different coffee preferences. Luckily, the Capresso’s coffee maker has two different settings: brew, or grind and brew. The brew setting makes coffee directly from the coffee basket, but if you want to have different flavor of coffee on standby – like when your roommate wants to have cup his cheap coffee– all you need to do is replace the coffee basket and hit the grind and brew button. The two settings can also be used to simply alternate between whole-bean or pre-ground coffee.

Speaking of the coffee basket, the CoffeeTeam GS includes one GoldTone coffee filter, which according to many coffee purists, can be the deciding factor that separates an average cup of coffee from a awesome cup of coffee. What makes GoldTone filters so great is that they supposedly allow the coffee bean oil and other elements that can be trapped by lower quality paper coffee filter to pass through the filter to really enhance the flavor of the resulting brew while still keeping the actual grounds out of your coffee. Not to mention the fact that GoldTone coffee filters don’t have to be replaced like standard paper filters. But the CoffeeTeam GS has got you covered even if you prefer ordinary paper filters as it also fits standard size 4 coffee filter paper, in addition to GoldTone coffee filters.

Even though the Capresso CoffeeTeam GS is capable of grinding some of the best coffee ever, there are still some people that would prefer to do it themselves; well it just so happens that the CoffeeTeam GS has a manual setting for the discerning coffee grinder.  The Capresso CoffeeTeam GS lets you brew between two to ten cups of coffee, so if you’re working late at home maybe set it to four or six cups instead of the minimal two. Now if you are one of those people that have to run your water through a purifier before pouring it into your coffee maker then you can now save yourself a few minutes because the Capresso CoffeeTeam GS includes its own charcoal water filter. And CoffeeTeam’s charcoal water filter can remove up to 82% of chlorine alone from the average supply of tap water.

When it’s actually time to make a cup or two of coffee the Capresso CoffeeTeam GS non-stick thermal plate can run automatically on a schedule with a full programmable clock or manually for instant coffee whenever you want. The thermal plate can run for up to two continuous hours over 200 degrees Fahrenheit to keep your coffee hot and ready to drink. The CoffeeTeam GS comes packaged with a 10-cup glass carafe, but there is also an optional thermal coffee pot that can be purchased with the Capresso that is capable of keeping coffee warm for roughly four hours after the thermal plate’s cooled off.  Another killer feature of the CoffeeTeam GS is the Stop-and-Serve function which will essentially pause the coffee brewing process if the carafe is removed and resume it again once it is replaced. Capresso hasn’t officially stated what the “GS” in CoffeeTeam GS stands for, but obviously it should stand for the Gold Standard because clearly no other coffee maker can compare.

Buy this great coffee maker from Amazon: Capresso 464.05 CoffeeTeam GS 10-Cup Digital Coffeemaker with Conical Burr Grinder