Coffee - When You Really Need That Caffeine Buzz

There are many ways to jumpstart a day, you can go and stand under a cold shower, have someone yell at you as if they were asking someone to send breakfast from the adjoining county, and so on, or you could drink a cup of strong coffee. Some people say that eating one apple is better for this sort of thing but they obviously don't drink coffee.

There are a lot of people who sleep heavily and wake up groggy because even the regularly scheduled eight hours is not enough for them. Then there are people who sleep very badly so their quota of sleep is not met by the time the sun rises. Both types, need a coffee jolt in the morning to shake off that 'still need to sleep some more' feeling.

However, these days coffee is not simply something that clears the mental cobwebs and gives people a bright eye and the courage to face another day. Coffee has become more than an emergency standby. It is now the beverage to be consumed many times in the course of a day.

Coffee when you wake up, coffee when you arrive to work, coffee during the first break, and another cup with lunch. And on and on it goes. Coffee all the time. Sometimes, it is justified too. If you have attended meetings, you know what it means. If you are in the speaker's position you need to be alert and not start yawning halfway through the presentation, coffee helps. If you are the audience and you sit there wishing you were a hundred miles away, fishing perhaps, then coffee can provide that semblance of alertness that makes everyone think you are really paying attention. In short, no matter what the occasion or need is, coffee has become a good old standby.

Then there are the coffeehouses on your way while taking a stroll. Some people probably use the coffeehouse as an excuse to walk. If they didn't have a coffeehouse a couple of blocks away, they had to go a long time without getting out of their home and seeing the rest of humanity, who is also drinking coffee. Sadly, there are too many coffeehouses now days, so people tend to walk less and less, which is not a good thing because nothing gives you energy like coffee to walk around even when tired.

The height of decadent comfort comes along with coffeehouses that have drive through facilities. You can just grab a cuppa java on your way to work or after work (or going anywhere) and your legs never have to feel your weight.

Too much coffee can lead to a chain reaction of sleep related problems. Coffee drives sleep away, so if you have a cup close to bed time, then you wont get a good night's sleep. You will feel groggier in the morning and drink some more coffee. By lunchtime, you will be running on coffee energy only. Come night time, if you don't change your habits, you will drink coffee again and by the end of the week you wont be able to survive without it, no matter what time of the day it is.

Coffee is a good thing, with a nice taste, nice after effects and a good mental cleaner, but like everything, be careful how much you drink and when you drink it.

Magdalena Witkowska is a successful Webmaster and publisher of http://www.thecaffeinebuzz.com To find out more about Coffee , please visit her website.

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Coffee Shops

But have you ever wondered when the first coffee shop started? For most harried career individuals, a visit to their coffee shops for a nightcap with friends and business associates is their idea of a relaxing evening.

It quickly grew in popularity, and by 1675, three thousand coffeehouses were born in England. Boston welcomed its own version of this haven for coffee lovers in 1670, while Paris opened the doors of its first-ever coffee shop in 1671. The first coffee shop opened in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1554, while the first coffeehouse opened in Cornhill, London, in 1652.

Its success was akin to that of tobacco in seventeenth-century Europe. The first coffee plantation in modern times was started in Brazil, in 1727, using slave laborers from Africa. A more credible version asserts that the first coffee shop opened in Krakow, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, owing to its close trade ties with the Turks. The coffeehouse was started using supplies left behind by the losing Turks. As the legend goes, the first coffeehouse was believed to have opened in Vienna in 1683, after the Battle of Vienna.

For the French, Spanish, and German people, a café is a place where a wide variety of beverages are served, ranging from different types of coffee, tea, and alcoholic beverages. In the Netherlands, the term coffee shop is used to refer to places where marijuana is sold, since one needs fewer permits to open a coffee shop. The Dutch people associate the word with bars and thus relate it more to alcohol. The term "Café" is synonymous with a place where coffee and meals are served together.

Visit your favorite coffee shop and take your pick from among these wonderful concoctions, sure to warm your hearts and lift your spirits. What are you waiting for? In addition to those blended commercially, a lot of coffeehouses have their own signature house blends.

America's Perception of "Gourmet" Coffee

It's an enormous industry involving many players in the supply chain—the growers and farm workers, the processing mills, exporters and importers, small-batch roasters and huge commercial roasters, coffeehouses and cafes—all of who do their part to bring coffee to you, the final consumer. Coffee is the second most-highly traded commodity in the world next to oil.

Considering how large the coffee industry is, how much of what's marketed as gourmet could actually be considered truly gourmet coffee? Which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to apply to the coffee most Americans drink on a daily basis. By definition, it implies rare, expensive, high-quality, or at least sophisticated in some form of its preparation and service. You'll find one word dominates the label rhetoric: "Gourmet." Gourmet, it's such a over-used term. Take a walk down the coffee aisle of a grocery store and read the labels.

In fact, the reality is they're much likelier selling the exact opposite of high quality coffee beans. That being the case, it becomes hard to believe the ads and labels on store shelves claiming rich, delicious, gourmet coffee. Sad to say, it's estimated only 10 percent of coffee sold is considered poor to satisfactory in quality.

Dark roasting covers a multitude of sins, including any flavor flaws. It's precisely because of their low quality. While there are some specific coffees that taste wonderful as a dark roast, there's a reason most coffee today is roasted so dark. Not necessarily true. Somehow the influential marketing gurus at roasting companies have managed to convince the masses that dark roasted coffee equals gourmet coffee. For instance, consider the ever applauded Dark Roast.

Why use expensive, high-grade beans for flavored coffee, since the natural flavors themselves will never be detected over the added flavorings of Irish cream, French Vanilla, or Hazelnut. And then there's flavored coffee—a low-quality bean masquerading as gourmet coffee.

And for a true connoisseur of coffee, that's what you should be looking for. A lighter roast shows that the roaster has confidence in the quality of the beans. Of course the actual lightness of the roast will depend on your personal taste. Similar to grilling a steak, a great coffee will often taste great as rare to medium, or, in coffee terms, light to medium. Though the marketing says otherwise, coffee that is indeed gourmet should never require extensive roasting.

top reasons why im a coffeehouse lover

To me, there is nothing more relaxing and conducive to creative juices flowing than sitting in a comfortable, overstuffed chair with a hot cup of coffee or tea by my side. First and foremost, I'm a writer. There are many reasons I'm a coffeehouse lover. I don't have time to deal with foaming and frothing milk, nor do I want the hassle of steam burns and a mess in the kitchen. Also, I get something at coffeehouses that I can't get at home: a decent espresso drink. The service at coffeehouses is amazing, and the people there are always smiling and cheery (even at the God awful hour of 6 am). If that's not worth $3, I don't know what is! When I go to a coffeehouse, everything is prepared perfectly and I don't have to clean anything up. Plus, the variety found at my local coffeehouse is unlike anything in any home I've ever seen. While I like cappuccinos and lattes as much as the next girl, sometimes I like to switch things up a bit. When I feel like a cup of ginger green tea, I can have it. If I change my mind and decide that I want a sweet and blended frozen beverage, I can have that too, all without having to go to a store. Also, the company found at my local coffeehouse is second to none. There are artsy people, professional men and women in suits, college students and more. It's a slice of life and something I appreciate sitting in the midst of. I don't have to pay $60 a month for wireless, I can just head down the street to a coffeehouse, something I'd be doing anyway. Probably the best out of all of the reasons I'm a coffeehouse lover is the fact that I can get free wireless internet.

To me, there is nothing more relaxing and conducive to creative juices flowing than sitting in a comfortable, overstuffed chair with a hot cup of coffee or tea by my side. First and foremost, I'm a writer. There are many reasons I'm a coffeehouse lover.I don't have time to deal with foaming and frothing milk, nor do I want the hassle of steam burns and a mess in the kitchen. Also, I get something at coffeehouses that I can't get at home: a decent espresso drink. The service at coffeehouses is amazing, and the people there are always smiling and cheery (even at the God awful hour of 6 am).If that's not worth $3, I don't know what is! When I go to a coffeehouse, everything is prepared perfectly and I don't have to clean anything up.I don't have to pay $60 a month for wireless, I can just head down the street to a coffeehouse, something I'd be doing anyway. Probably the best out of all of the reasons I'm a coffeehouse lover is the fact that I can get free wireless internet.