These days, with high-end and exclusive coffee shops on every corner, espresso beverages are more popular than ever before. What is espresso? It appears to be a necessity for everyone on earth, particularly in the morning. Do you know about coffee beans? Espresso is an Italian word that roughly describes a coffee beverage prepared specially, or expressly, for you. Espresso drinks are brewed with a pump or lever that pushes down on the coffee beans.

The fact that the entire world loves the drink and uses what they term espresso coffee beans to make the drink, does not negate the straight fact that any coffee bean may be roasted to make espresso. This means that light and dark roasted beans are used to prepare espresso. Some regional preferences worth noting about espresso is that espresso beverages on the west coast are created with dark roasted coffee beans. These coffee lovers have traditionally termed these beans as French roast. East coast espresso drinkers prefer theirs’ made with a light roasted bean. Italians always use a medium roast bean for their espresso.

Espresso Machines Genuine espresso machines produce a minimum pressure of one hundred and thirty five pounds per square inch. This is enough hot water pressure to force through a dense mass of compacted ground coffee. The entire process ought to be finished in less than 30 seconds. In addition, steam pressure units yield only 50 pounds of pressure per square inch and that is why Italians do not think of these machines as real espresso coffee makers.

Espresso coffee is brewed with a genuine espresso maker using roughly a tablespoon of super finely ground coffee beans and gives you a one to two ounce shot. A top quality espresso beverage will have a rich layer of dark foam across the surface. Every Italian with this coffee drink looks for the foam as a measure of its quality

How to Drink Italians especially seem to have formed a strong attachment to espresso. This is especially true of those actually living in Italy. They view it as a social drink, a custom, as you chat with a neighbor at the local coffee bar. It appears that the whole world is beginning to agree about this terrific beverage and that marvelous coffee comes from Italy.

I must tell you however that there is a specific method to drinking your espresso. The Italian method of drinking the beverage is as follows. Take the cup up to your nose and inhale the aroma of the freshly brewed espresso. Sniff it – as you would a fine wine before drinking it. Now you drink the entire four or five successive swallows quickly while it is still hot. ‘Tap’ the empty cup back into the saucer, and you’re good to go.

True coffee afficionados always drink their coffee straight, right? Wrong! There are, if anything, more blends and flavorings of coffee than there are of wine. Cast off your confines and let loose with the 101 different ways to enjoy nature’s gift.

Coffee beans have been mixed and blended to create an innumerable variety of brews. Beans from one side of the world are blended with those from the opposite side both offering their unique flavor and when combined make for a delicious brew.

For example you can mix Indonesian beans with those from Columbia and the result will be a dark brew with in incomparable body and flavor. And these are not the only two countries that together create a great blend of coffee. Again, the possibilities are endless.

Mixing beans is not the only way to add variety. Many flavors can be added to coffee to make the ordinary extraordinary. The choices are endless chocolate, french vanilla, almond, and much more. Experiment a little to see what flavor you prefer.

When it comes to making a mocha, the variety of chocolates matches the different options of bean. A Yemeni with a touch of dark chocolate, melted and stirred well, will enhance an already wonderful foreign blend. Or, for those days when lighter is better, try an American roast with a bit of Ghiradelli milk chocolate. Yum.

The variations possible with coffee are as boundless as they are delightful. And they’re not limited to beans, roasts or flavorings. Several different liqueurs and liquors provide another route for the coffee lover to travel.

Full-bodied Jamaican forms a solid base to which to add dessert pears, brown sugar and a hearty helping of rum. For a twist, try brandy instead of rum or apricots instead of pears. And, Amaretto’s sweetness makes a delectable counterpoint to a Costa Rican blend, for those who like getting intoxicated and sober with the same drink.

In Mexico they have perfected the blending of coffee with cocoa. As a hot cup or coffee or poured over ice, it is hard to deny the great flavor these to create together.

And the innovators of coffee confection don’t stop there. The more audacious have gone so far as to offer a frozen cappuccino that wakes up the sleepy on a warm day. For added zing, try mixing with a chocolate mint flavoring.

It seems like an oxymoron at first. Energy drinks are usually laced with artificially produced caffeine, High Fructose Corn Syrup, synthetic Taurine (ref: Dangers of Taurine with Caffeine) and of course, for marketing effect artificially produced vitamins. How can any of this be good for you. It isn’t.

More and more people that consume the traditional energy drink regularly or even daily have already or are destined to eventually suffer from stomach, kidney, liver or heart problems. Not to mention the effects these chemical cocktails can have on one’s teeth (premature enamel degradation) or skin (dehydration related blotching).

This generation is graduating into adulthood without the previous generations’ coffee addiction, but with a more potent daily stimulant: the energy drink. Many spend hours surfing the net or watching TV, instead of playing sports, which compounds the problem with soft drinks, increasing the incidence of diabetes and other diet-related diseases.

Why should we worry about this new breed of stimulants? One could say that a cup or two of coffee every day has never caused serious health effects. This is because coffee gets its buzz from natural coffee beans. Not from the chemical laboratories that produce synthetic caffeine.

Like most natural substances, the caffeine in the coffee beans cannot easily be separated as a distinct molecular structure. It comes with many other elements, including fibrous membranes, which actually reduce the speed of absorption of the active caffeine.

With these new drinks, the caffeine is produced in a laboratory, usually in Eastern Europe or Asia. This chemical has one big plus over natural caffeine: it is extremely powerful, perhaps too much so. All of the natural elements that come within the coffee beans or Guarana seeds or tea leaves are eliminated in factory produced caffeine. Synthetic caffeine is also easier to produce than natural caffeine, another advantage from the producer’s point of view. Unfortunately, for us consumers, this potent and purely chemical caffeine shot is absorbed into our circulatory system as soon as it hits the first part of the intestine.

Natural products like the actual coffee from coffee beans, Guarana seeds or tea leaves, are absorbed more gradually by the body. They are also not as concentrated and therefore less toxic than the chemical caffeine in most energy drinks. Here are some advantages of natural caffeine (whether it be in coffee, tea or Guarana). Firstly, the increased mental alertness is longer. Instead of the instant high you get from most energy drinks and then the subsequent downfall, you get a sustained feeling of mental clarity for a few hours and the effect eventually wears off more naturally and gradually.

Secondly, continuous exposure to synthetic caffeine over saturates our nervous system. If this excessive exposure continues, our nerves go haywire. This is Mother Nature’s way of telling us to be careful. Our hands may quiver, nervous habits develop; our body starts to show signs of stress not different from those related to anxiety or depression. Not recommended for anyone.

With guaranine or tea or natural coffee beans, our circulatory and elimination systems can easily eliminate the excess quantities of caffeine without taxing the nervous system. The additional organic matters buffer and slow down the absorption enough so that the body and deal with the toxicity. But even with natural stimulants, they must be used carefully and not in excessive amounts. It is best to stick with one portion a day of coffee or one 12 oz can of an organic energy drink or a serving of warm or cold tea.

Organic coffee doesn’t have any of the artificial additives found in industrial agricultural operations. Whole Foods Markets has many of these types of coffees.

Two energy drinks that I recommend are GURU Energy Drinks from Canada and Syzmo from the US. They are both organic, come with exclusively natural caffeine from Guarana and/or coffee. The big plus for GURU is their taste (tastes great) and the fact it doesn’t have a random cocktail of added vitamins. Syzmo is excellent quality but much more expensive, and the taste needs getting used to. One of the GURU products is sweetened with Stevia (GURU Lite), which is an added bonus (see my post on Benefits of Stevia: (ref: Stevia wins over Chemicals).

With regards to teas; cold, brewed teas will provide the best combination of anti-oxidants and natural caffeine. A brand I like is ITOEN, from Japan. Itoen Teas seems to be the purest, unsweetened product out there. The Zen taste grows on you after a couple of bottles. See their website at: Itoen Teas. Another cool brand is the US based Honest Tea, but they recently sold out to Coke and now it seems they’re selling out to the sweeter American taste buds.

From the regular drip coffee maker to the old fashioned coffee perker, and even the gourmet espresso machine, coffee makers and grinders are a common kitchen gadget. Many people around the world love a fresh cup of home brewed coffee, and they like to have it on hand for guests or in the morning to go with breakfast. There are many ways to brew a fresh coffee, some requiring more work than others.

The most commonly used coffee makers are the automatic drip variety, using pre ground coffee beans place in a paper filter. While these machines don’t produce gourmet quality coffee, they are an excellent way to easily brew consistent pots of coffee, and are very economical to purchase and operate.

Single serving coffee makers are now available, which take a small packet of coffee grounds like a tea bag. The main advantage to these are that a single cup of joe can be made quickly, and there are many flavors and varieties available. Houses needing several cups at once won’t find these machines as useful or economical.

The French Press is a good way to make one or two cups of coffee. Also known as the coffee plunger, these glass and stainless steel gadgets are designed so that both the hot water and coffee are placed inside and allowed to steep briefly. Then, the plunger is pressed down, separating the grounds from the coffee. The resulting java is reported to be stronger and thicker than that made by a drip coffee machine.

Many coffee lovers would argue that the best coffee is produced by an espresso machine. Hot water is forced through very fine coffee grounds under high pressure. The resulting coffee shot is a little thicker and stronger than plain drip coffee. A cappuccino uses espresso coffee as a base, as do several other coffee drinks.

Many people like to use a coffee grinder at home to get fresh coffee grounds. Some coffee makers come with a built in grinder. There are many affordable grinders available in most department stores. This opens the door to many gourmet coffee varieties at the supermarket, from flavored beans to organic beans.

We were given a coffee machine that has a timer and a coffee grinder built into it. Every morning the preloaded coffee beans go into the grinder and grounds pour down into the filter. By the time I get up, coffee is ready. It is one of my all time favorite kitchen gadgets.

Each coffee tree produces very few beans that can be harvested. Also, the coffee tree can only be found in very tropical climates which mean that it can only be found in countries close to the equator. That being said, the coffee tree grows in more than 70 different countries.

The word ‘beans’ is deliberately in single-quote marks, since the thing that gets roasted and ground to make the drink isn’t really a bean at all, it’s a seed.

In particular, it’s the seed of a fruit that grows on trees that can easily reach twenty feet or more. Some wild varieties grow to over 45 feet or 15m. Most of those seeds come in a pair, though there is a variety that produces only one (the peaberry). The berry resembles a cranberry, with a sweet pulp covered by a membrane called a silverskin.

In a band around the equator from approximately 25 degrees north or south, comes the overwhelming majority of the world’s coffee output. Temperatures of between 60F (15C) and 70F (21C) are best as is rainfall of six inches per month or more.

High altitudes of course means less oxygen in the air and this is also a condition in which the coffee tree thrives. The steamy air that is produced by the hot climates and rainy most weather put these trees in the sauna like condition that they love and thrive in.

Some coffee trees are more resilient and less particular than others and this makes the larger producers of coffee. These types, like the canephora or robusta, do not require the high altitudes. Naturally the pickier the tree the better bean it produces. If you want the finest cup of gourmet coffee, like the arabica, you will have to go to the high altitudes.

Some fruit trees thrive on intense sun. Coffee trees do not fall in this category. Providing shade and shelter for them helps protect the trees from windy conditions and filters the suns rays allowing the tree to grow and produce at its best.

The process from reaping from your tree is a long one. From its beginning to the point where the tree will produce fruit is a period of about 5 years. Once it begins to produce you will only get about 2 pounds of coffee from each tree.

Those two pounds equal about 2,000 beans, (correct or not, it’s the standard term), usually hand-picked by manual laborers. Manual they may be, but ignorant they are not. Coffee bean harvesting is a skill developed over time, where the picker learns to select good beans and discard the bad. Bean by individual bean. That’s only one reason coffee is high priced.

The harvesting of coffee beans is a huge industry. Coffee is second only to oil as a worldwide commodity.

Though there are dozens of bean varieties, the plants fall into two main classes: the arabica, first cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula, and the robusta which contains about twice the caffeine.

The fruit is not of any interest to coffee growers. It simply serves as a protective home to the valuable seed, or bean, that it holds inside. This beans is the start for the over 400 millions cups of coffee made worldwide on a daily basis.

There are two major classes of beans determined by their appearance red and green. The red beans have less acidity and a shaper aroma. They are used for the specialty coffees. One of the most important steps in producing good coffee is picking the fruit.

Must of the fruit is hand picked. This is a slow process. But it requires skill to be able to correctly distinguish between the beans picked and separate the red from the green.

After the fruit it is soaked and scoured to remove the beans from its center. After being removed the beans are cleaned to remove any excess fruit. The beans are then laid out on the ground to dry in the sun until almost all moisture from the bean is evaporated away.

Once dried the beans are separated. Some of this work is still done by hand, though machines are now more prevalent to do this part of the job. Once sorted, some beans are allowed to age from between 3 to 8 years, to be used later to make special types of coffees. Others are set aside to be roasted within the same year picked.

During the 400-degree Fahrenheit roasting the beans expand to about twice their dry size, crack and change color from green to brown as oil in the interior is released. It’s this oil that gives the different coffees their basic flavor.

Naturally a wide variety of in-house techniques have developed for roasting. Beans from Java and Kenya, for example, are often lightly roasted producing a distinctive flavor. After roasting, the beans produce carbon dioxide for several days so the beans are ‘de-gassed’ either by airing or packaging in semi-permeable shipping bags.

The Breville 800ESXL Die Cast espresso maker is stunning. Fortunately, it’s not just all looks and no brains. This superb espresso maker offers several new features that entirely remove the effort in your espresso-making experience. You’ll find the taste results won’t disappoint, either.

The unit is on the heavy side at 31 lbs (19 kg). That doesn’t guarantee good coffee but it does help stabilize the machine and prevent tipping over. No muss, no waste, no time spent cleaning up spills. The stainless steel exterior extends that theme of durability and easy clean up.

The interior parts are equally high quality. They feature a chrome-plated brass filter, which provides even thermal conductivity, and therefore excellent temperature control. Some reviewers give less than stellar marks due to the thermoblock heating component. But even the most expensive units use it, so it can hardly be considered a cheap substitute. It’s doubtful whether anyone could tell the difference in a blind taste test.

There is one area where the machine is less than ideal. Because of its dual-wall design (which has advantages for pressure and temperature control), the Breville 800ESXL Die Cast espresso maker produces grounds that are sludgy. Most espresso lovers with experience of several machines will be used to a drier, more compact puck that simply flops out of the machine during cleanup. In this reviewer’s opinion, the defect is minor.

The unit more than makes up for any less-than-ideal qualities by added convenience overall. It also, not coincidentally, produces a truly fine cup of espresso.

You’ll be particularly fond of the steam wand on this model. It’s set on a ball so you can turn it any direction you desire. That comes in very handy when you have different sized cups to fill. It can be used to fill cups with hot water, too, a nice feature for those who want to make hot tea and espresso with one machine.

The Breville Die Cast 800ESXL does a great job of creating uniformly hot water throughout the machine. Poorly designed espresso makers have hot and cold spots along the channel. Those produce inferior results. As the water passes through the grinds, different amounts of the many substances in coffee are released. That affects the final flavor.

You might not expect a thermoblock heating unit to produce quality results. But the nearly $800 DeLonghi EAM 3500 also uses this method, so no one can claim it’s nothing but a cheap substitute. Few savvy baristas would want to claim that the DeLonghi can’t make the finest possible shot, and those in the know can make the same assertion about the Breville 800ESXL.

There’s a large heating tray, which simply adds to the quality. Keeping your espresso cup warm is just one more element among many for producing the best possible final result.

The large capacity, removable water tank is another great convenience feature. If you’re making shots for a large party, you won’t have to run to get a refill every few minutes.

The Breville Die Cast 800ESXL offers convenience and high-quality in a medium-priced machine. No one could be disappointed about that.