Friday, April 12, 2013

Coffee, My Morning Drink of Choice

 
 
Good Morning!
What is the first thing that you drink in the morning?
Coffee, water, coke,diet coke, tea?
I try my hardest to remember to down a full cup of water before anything.  It rehydrates your body after it has been fasting and working all night long.  It also helps to get the motor running, if you know what I mean.  Seriously if you have trouble with constipation add a full glass of water with a little lemon juice to your daily habits before drinking anything and see if that doesn't help.
 
Coffee.  Regular, decaf, Swiss water decaf, flavored, espresso.  I like it all.  Maybe I should file this one under those things that I love, unquestionably. I am a big fan of Swiss water decaf.  Do you know what I am talking about?  No?  Well let me educate you this morning!
 
The Swiss water method of decaffeinating.
1.  Green beans are cleaned and hydrated with pure water.
2.  Actual coffee components are added to the water of the now plump beans for more coffee flavor since they are actually being watered down.
3.  Everything is sent through a carbon filter 8-10 times until it traps 99.9% of all caffeine. 
The beans are dried and roasted just like all other beans. 
Done, no heat, no chemicals.
 
If your coffee is NOT Swiss water decaffeinated the process goes like this.
1.  Coffee beans are first steamed for 30 minutes and then repeatedly rinsed with either dichloromethane or ethyl acetate for about 10 hours.
2.  The solvent is then drained away and the beans steamed for an additional 10 hours to remove residual solvent.
 
Why even drink decaf?  There are many reasons to.  Some people are really affected by the caffeine.  Others are prone to kidney stones and caffeine in any form aggravates it.  If you have high blood pressure you would be advised to stay away from caffeine as well.
 
What ever your coffee choice is please educate yourself.  Find out how the beans are roasted.  How it is decaffeinated.  Where the beans are from.  It all makes a big difference in price but more importantly your health.  Did you know that there are reports that show over 1,000 chemicals in regular roasted coffee! 
 
I buy our coffee beans from Dean's Beans Coffee.  They roast your coffee beans when you order and ship it most of the time the next day.  It can't get any fresher unless you roast them yourself.  Which if you are into that they do sell green beans.  They are fair trade and organic.  You will also notice that each bag is a full 16oz not the mere 12 oz you get in a grocery store bag. 
 
Here are some price comparisons:
Starbucks 1lb bag $11.95
Dean's Beans 1lb bag $8.59
Dunkin Donuts 1lb bag $8.99
 
Toast!  (with butter but that could be another post)
Angela
 


5 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for this! I am one that can't handle all of the caffiene and I just recently learned about the decaffinating process. :( A few people had mentioned Dean's Beans but I kept forgetting the name of the company when I went to Google it. I think I will order some today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Btw-what is your favorite flavor of Swiss Water Decaf from this company? So much to choose from.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I usually order enough for 4 months+ so I order a 5lb bag of mexican chiapas decaf, 5lb bag of birdwatchers decaf, 1lb bag of espresso decaf and a couple regulars. Right now I really like their regular columbian. Glad it was helpful and I love to read comments so thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always try to make sure we have Swiss water decaf, too!

    I love my coffee, but Dean's is a new company to me. I will be sure to check them out. Thanks for sharing!

    Joining you from Our Simple Farm's link up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for sharing this on Wildcrafting Wednesday! Hope to see you again tomorrow for our next hop!
    http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/04/wildcrafting-wednesday-17.html

    ReplyDelete