The Coffee Bean Menu

I’m thinking you might agree that it is sometimes difficult to find that perfect coffee bean.  The Coffee Bean Menu does the hard work to make that search easier.

A coffee bean that will fill your lungs with that sweet smell from the mornings grind.  A coffee bean flavor that passes your lips and takes you from I Can’t Open My Eyes, to I’m Ready To Conquer the World.

Here at The Coffee Bean Menu we promise to feature coffee beans that can do just that!

On our website we feature only the best coffee beans.  And, we provide relevant information about finding, purchasing, brewing, tasting, relaying history, and recommending basically everything you need to know about the very best coffee beans!

The Inventors of Coffee

Legend has it that goats discovered the coffee bean fruit.

You read that correctly: goats!

Happy goat family (goats discovered coffee beans?)

“happy goat family” by bagsgroove, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

What’s the real story?

Shepherds noticed that goats were dancing, and they wondered why.

So they followed the goats and discovered that they were dancing after eating quantities of coffee cherries, which are home to the coffee beans to which we are more privy.

That’s Really the Pits…  No Really!

Coffee Beans - The Coffee Bean Menu

“Coffee Beans” by Nate Steiner, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

That’s right!

Coffee beans are really the pits of cherry-like fruits.

This may be hard to believe; especially when considering the fact that we usually see them and refer to them as beans, but believe it or not, coffee beans are really the pits of coffee cherries.

When shed from the cherry-like casing, the coffee beans emerge as what are known as green coffee beans, fully raw and unroasted.

Why is this important?

These raw Coffee Bean Menu treats have many nutrients and proteins that are wonderful for the human body.

For example, the raw unroasted beans are chock full of carbohydrates that contribute to the signature aroma that comes with any wonderful cup of coffee.

In addition, that usual bitter taste that comes alongside that warm cup is a result of the proteins and amino acids in the raw green coffee beans.

Here’s the deal:

Since you probably got to this page looking for great coffee beans, we won’t delay any further.

For your viewing pleasure (and we expect, your drinking pleasure), please find on the Coffee Bean Menu website what we believe to be the best tasting coffee beans that can be found.

The reviews back us up!!

Perfect Coffee | HowCast – How to Use a French Press

In our Jaggerware family, we have recently rediscovered the French Press. The mom in our family had used a French Press many years ago. But, she had really gotten away from using it.  She had forgotten how really good coffee can be that is prepared correctly in a French Press.

With this recent rediscovery, some of the medium/dark to dark roast coffee drinkers in our family found that when the French Press is used correctly, the results are heavenly. The flavor is richer and stronger.

Why is the important?

With the French Press, stronger doesn’t equate to the typical increase in bitterness you get from going stronger.

Here at The Coffee Bean Menu our expert view is that French Press produces coffee that is absolutely wonderful. So, the only thing left to do is to give you some good easy to follow instructions on how to use your French Press.

French Press the HowCast Way

Here’s the Deal:

We at Jaggerware LLC just love the folks at HowCast. As usual they have expertly captured not only how easy it is to use the French Press. But, have laid out each of the steps so they are incredibly easy to follow.

The Story is:

In this video, they describe a starting 30 second period to get the flavors going. For those on the go, this extra step can make this process a little to “hands on”.

The Jaggerware family has a slight twist to this by just putting all the water in and combining the separate 30 second and 3:30 minute periods into a solid 4 minutes.

In our opinion, this doesn’t cause any loss of flavor and makes the process much easier to follow since you eliminate a “monitoring” step. This gives you extra time in the morning to finish that makeup, or organize your things for the day.

Either way works!

Tell us your preference in the comments below, or about your own variation of using the French Press. Here is the HowCast way. We find this video to be very well put together. Enjoy!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIKr2EMkm48

How Are Various Roasts Created?

In this infographic we give you the rainbow of roasts!

Coffee Bean Roasting, Taking a Crack At It! – EMBED CODE

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Coffee Bean Roasting - Infographic unroasted, light, medium, dark roast

Coffee Bean images and categories by Dan Bollinger [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

If your preference is to read your temperatures in Celsius, we’ve made the conversion for all of those outside of the US.

What You Need to Know About Roasting

Coffee Beans

“Coffee Beans” by Pen Waggener, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Coffee beans can come in various levels of roasts. In general coffee beans roast to the following basic levels:

  • Unroasted
  • Light
  • Medium
  • Dark

Within each of those “levels”, there are several “sub-categories”.  Different temperatures, and amounts of bean cracking define the different roasting levels.

And, these sub-categories often go by special names like City, Full City, Italian or French (among others).

What’s the full story?

This Wikipedia page does a great job of defining the roasting characteristics that exist. And, the Wiki even breaks these roast level into additional sub-categories.

At The Coffee Bean Menu, we’ve researched and found the best coffee beans at each roasting level. We hope you’ll agree. If not, let us know in the comments about a better coffee bean and we’ll review it!

Unroasted

Unroasted Coffee BeansWhen a bean has not been roasted at all, it is considered “unroasted”.

End users order coffee beans this way to be able to do their own roasting.

Others may just enjoy the flavor of an unroasted coffee bean.

But, usually that’s not the case for a typical coffee drinker.

In the article Best Unroasted Coffee Beans, we’ve identified some coffee bean favorites.

Light Roast

Light Roast Coffee BeansWe’ve search the web for some of the best lightly roasted coffee beans to be found.

Kilambé Coffee pictured here was our choice for the best Light Roast Bean. We found that Light Roast Beans to be tried “lightly” (not very often; pardon our pun).

There just were not very many reviews for the light roast beans.

So, we think these choices are a little riskier then what we’ve found in the medium and dark categories.

All simply because with small numbers of reviews, there can be a large variance in opinions.

Let’s just say it’s more difficult to “smooth” out the “nut job” reviews when you have a small sample.

You just can’t tell if the person is a “one off”, or if they really are spot on with their criticism.

To read up more on our top choices for Light Roast Coffee Beans, read this article.

Medium Roast

Medium Roast Coffee BeansA large number of coffee drinkers prefer a “medium” amount of roasting. This is a very popular category.

Beans in this category are roasted at a level in between “light” and “dark”. Often coffee drinkers in this category are “power” drinkers that consume many cups a day.

A drinker that is drawn to the medium roast is often looking for a good smooth caffeine delivery mechanism.  They want a drink that doesn’t overwhelm with strong dark roast flavor, or a light “more bean like” flavor.

Large numbers of people use coffee beans with this level of roasting.

This Equal Exchange coffee bean is the top bean we found in this category. Read up on some other wonderful Medium Coffee Beans in this article.

Dark Roast

Dark Roast Coffee BeansA dark roast coffee bean is is often for the long term serious coffee drinker.

You don’t typically find coffee newbies going for the darker roasts.

Those partakers of the dark roast typically have slowly migrated from lighter roasts through medium and on to dark.

This is because the darker you get, the stronger the flavor. And, if you ask the “less dark” drinkers, the more bitter the taste gets.

The dark roast is typically an acquired taste from years of stepping up their coffee “game”.

The dark roasts cook at higher temperatures and for a long time. The beans are cooked past the first and second crack of the bean. This often releases the internal coffee bean oils.

The best dark roast bean that we found was this Kicking Horse Coffee brand. To read about all of the Best Dark Roast Coffee Beans that floated to the top of our lists, follow your reading onto this article.

Why Are There Various Types of Grinds

Coffee Bean Menu in a Cup

“Coffee Beans” by デニス モジョ, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Another surprising fact that you may not know about coffee beans is that they are in fact the second most traded commodity on earth.

Now that’s impressive!

But just think about how many cups of coffee you go through in the span of, let’s say, a month. That number is probably upwards of thirty or forty.

Even if you add all of that up, it’s still astonishing to think that coffee beans trade the second most of all commodities.

Coffee beans offer a plethora of topics.

Among the most common are the different roasts, the different ways to prepare it, and the different ways to grind the beans.

Many find the most interesting topic among these to be the different ways to grind the beans.

While there are four different roasts, which include unroasted, light roast, medium roast, and dark roast.

There are also different ways to grind coffee beans.

To be exact, there are four different ways to grind coffee beans: coarse grind, medium grind, fine grind, and extra fine or Turkish grind.

Below are some interesting Coffee Bean Menu findings regarding each type of grind.

Coarse Grind

Coarse Coffee Grind (a Coffee Bean Menu favorite)

“Coffee Grind Coarse – French Press” by Michael Allen Smith, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0/a>)

The coarse grind is the grind that takes the least time to make.

It involved only grinding the beans a few seconds with a coffee bean grinder so that the pieces of the beans that remain are still large chunks of the beans.

This kind of grind is the most useful for French Press coffee brewing, vacuum coffee pot brewing, cold brewing, and percolator brewing.

The coarse grind allows for the flavor of the coffee beans to remain intact while keeping them big enough to now flow through the filter plunger of the French Press.

For cold brewing, the coarse grind exposes the most surface area of bean grinds to the water while the grinds soak in the water during the cold brewing process.

When using the vacuum pot brewing process, the coarse grind allows for the coffee to extract all of the flavors out of the beans while the grinds are too big to pass through the filter used.

For percolator brewing, the coarse ground coffee grounds for the same reason that they are useful for both vacuum pot brewing and French press brewing.  The coarse grinds allow for the most surface area to come into contact with the water.  This extracts the most flavor from them without allowing them to pass through the filters of the coffeemakers.

Medium Grind

Medium Coffee Grind

“Coffee Grind Medium – Drip” by Michael Allen Smith, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0/a>)

The medium grind of coffee beans is another very important grind for drip coffee brewing with flat bottomed filters.

The medium grind allows for the water to pass through the grinds at just the speed that results in that perfect cup of coffee.

Not only that, but the medium grinds also allows for one of the most flavorful cups of coffee that you’ve ever had.

In addition, the medium grind of coffee beans is the most popular grind due to the common use of the traditional drip coffeemaker by moms and dads everywhere to aid them to wake up each morning.

Fine Grind

Fine Coffee Grind

“Coffee Grind Fine – Espresso” by Michael Allen Smith, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0/a>)

The fine grind of coffee beans is primarily used in brewing espresso coffee in an espresso machine.

A fine grind allows for the grounds to fit in the machine while also allowing the most divine of flavors to come out of the machine.

The fine grounds are pressed into a sort of hockey puck and then the scalding water is forced through the hockey puck of coffee grounds by using the immense pressure produced by the machine.

Fine grounds also cultivate the flavor that will titillate your taste buds with a tasty cup of espresso.

Extra Fine Grind (Turkish)

Extra Fine Coffee Grind (Turkish)

“The untamped coffee” by David Joyce, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0/a>)

Extra fine ground coffee is also the premium grind for espresso machines.

However, this grind is extra flavorful when used in pump or steam espresso machines.

Espresso machines that utilize a pump and steam use this grind of coffee beans to create the delectable shot of espresso.

The extra fine grind saturates for a long time to brew the espresso.

In addition, this grind is fine enough to allow water to force through the hockey puck of grinds.  But, also fine enough to saturate the espresso with the fantastic flavor that you know and love.

These extra fine coffee grounds are also known as the Turkish grind.

Turkish coffee uses this type of grind.  Turkish coffee is usually brewed by boiling the extra fine grounds with water and sugar.  It is served in small cups where the grounds settle.  Turkish coffee drinkers enjoy the grounds that settle in the small cups they drink from.

Pod Brewing

At The Coffee Bean Menu, we’ve branched out from traditional beans to pod based brewing.

We waited a long time to make that change.  Not everyone here at The Coffee Bean Menu is on board with this because this strays away from a strictly coffee bean site.

But, when you see just how many people just don’t have the time to do what it takes to brew a truly exquisite cup using very fresh coffee beans, it just doesn’t make sense to ignore that many people.

Also, these machines are getting better and better at delivering a quality cup.  Some might even say is delivers a better cup because it’s basically machine driven.  So, no human error involved.

Anyway, we are very proud of our first article into this niche.  Our article on the Best Keurig Coffee Maker goes over 10,000 words in depth into the subject.  You won’t find many other articles with this much information.  And, our Bad Ass Keurig Comparison table makes your shopping as easy as it can be.

Closing Thoughts and Ponderings

From goats to grinds, we hope you will enjoy exploring our Coffee Bean Menu website. We covered different types of roasts that might please your palette. And, discovered some different ways to prepare the perfect Cup ‘O Joe.

Feel free to jump around and to learn more as we learn more. If you think we’ve missed something obvious, please hit the Comments and let us know where we’ve missed the boat.

Do You Want the BEST Coffee Bean?

YES - GET IT NOW

We have many other topics we want to cover. So, do check back with us from time to time.

If you like any of this, please share us on your favorite social platform. Thank you for perusing The Coffee Bean Menu.


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  6 Responses to “The Coffee Bean Menu”

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  2. Rena,

    Thank you for checking in with us. I wish you the best with your new project!

    Regards,
    Emily

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  4. Anibalhutt,

    Thank you for your kind comments. I hope you enjoy the coffee you purchase. Let us know what you think about any of the beans you get!

    Regards,
    Emily

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  6. Lamivudin,

    Thank you for your kind comments. Let us know if you have a favorite coffee bean that you’ve tried from The Coffee Bean Menu!

    Regards,
    Emily

Friends of The Coffee Bean Menu: We would also like to introduce you to our friends at Dazzling White Teeth HQ. If you are a daily coffee drinker, you may find their advice useful to eliminate any teeth stains that might haunt you as an avid coffee drinker!

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