What’s the Difference Between Caffeinated and Decaf Coffee?

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Coffee lovers seem to eventually ask themselves this question: what is the difference between caffeinated and decaf coffee? Besides the obvious answer of “one wakes me up and one is good to drink with dessert” we’ll take a closer look at the differences.

What is the Difference between Caffeinated and Decaf Coffee?

If you are an enthusiastic coffee drinker, then you are probably interested in finding out a little bit more about this six centuries old habit of drinking the amazing beverage. The general opinion is that decaf coffee is not natural, and that if you remove the caffeine from the coffee plant you are left with nothing. However, many people drink decaf coffee due to a general belief that this type of coffee is healthier than the regular coffee. Now, to answer the burning question, the main difference between regular coffee and decaf coffee is that there is more caffeine in the former, whereas there is much less caffeine in the latter. It’s the obvious answer, but beyond that, most people wouldn’t know the difference in taste.

Which Is Better – Caffeinated or Decaf Coffee?

Both types of coffee are regarded as good for different aspects of our health. To start off, regular coffee is known to help with pain relief, and in the largest number of instances people with migraines turn to this amazing beverage to ease their pains. Regular coffee is also regarded as an energy shot, waking people up each and every morning.

Health Benefits of Coffee

Caffeinated coffee can have health advantages over decaffeinated coffee. It has been proven that it does not increase blood lipids which are in tight connection with heart-related diseases. Caffeinated coffee can also protect people from diabetes. You can rely on health advantages and disadvantages, or even on which tastes better to you – the choice is yours to make.

Our personal opinion generally comes down to the time of day. If i’ll be going to bed in a few hours, I’ll switch to decaffeinated coffee. Otherwise, I’ll be looking to my fresh roasted coffee for the full flavor and pick me up.

How to Roast Coffee Beans at Home

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First off: why do you roast your own coffee?

We hear a lot about this, because we sell a lot of green coffee beans to enthusiastic coffee roasters. We like to think it has to do with tradition. Coffee roasting used to be a recognized skill reserved for artisans. That was centuries ago. But more and more, people are finding creativity and passion in this lost art of roasting and brewing their own specialty coffee.

Roasting coffee beans can be done with equipment as simple as a stovetop popcorn popper or even a fire and a frying pan. We recommend at least a kitchen oven, and ideally a roasting machine.

No matter which you choose, though, prepare to learn about yourself as much as you do about roasting. The process is open to your own instincts and, after some trial and error, your preferences.

Your success roasting your own beans depends on several variables. They are:

Heat. Most beans require a roasting heat between 340 degrees F. (for fast-air roasting methods such as professional roasting machines) and 540 degrees F. (slow-air methods such as ovens).

Motion. The more the beans are moved during the process, the more even the roast. Uneven roasting isn’t necessarily a downgrade; it can result in a deeper roast and richer flavors.

Cooling. This is critical, because beans can easily burn causing bitterness; fast cooling allows you to stop roasting at just the right time to attain your favorite flavor profiles.

Chaff. All coffee beans lose their thin outer shells during roasting, and the light “chaff” that results must be filtered out properly to preserve the right taste and smoothness.

This is where you come in, as the expert roasting barista. You’re watching closely for each stage of the roast. In general, these are:

Yellowing. The green beans will start to turn a yellowish color as the sugars inside the beans heat up; the coffee at this point will smell like grass.

Steam. The sugars begin turning to carbon dioxide and the water inside starts to vaporize, which dries the bean and causes it to expand. Watch for the steam coming from the beans.

First Crack. Coffee roasters know the sound of beans cracking. This is a key step in the roasting process, because now the roasting is really getting underway. The bean is now drying out rapidly. Its shell cracks, and it starts releasing its fragrant oils. You’ll now start to smell coffee as you know it. Some people stop the roast here.

Carmelization. As the sugars continue roasting, the bean turns darker and darker brown. The oils are now fully migrated and the bean may have doubled from its unroasted size.

Second Crack. The beans will start cracking a second time, louder than the first. Now you’re in the territory of daring roasters, where your roasting technique will determine the flavor more than the actual bean will.

Darkening Roast. A few ticks after the beans have cracked a second time is about all there is left before the sugars and oils have burned away. Experienced roasters know this as a French roast; any more, and it won’t be a coffee at all!

Presenting the Curtis CGC Single Cup Coffee Brewer

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This is the Generation Four (G4), and before you ask what that means take a look at the controls.

Curtis CGC Single Cup Coffee Brewer

The new single-cup coffee brewer from Curtis is clear evidence that home (or trade) coffee brewing has entered the digital age. Operating the brewer is a little like operating your smartphone – a touch screen mover than four inches across presents icons that guide you through the process of brewing your own coffee.

The digital control module can be extremely easy to use, perhaps for hurried mornings: presets allow for the most common brews at the touch of a button. This programmability produces single cups of coffee according to pre-specified coffee types, grinds and weights.

This machine isn’t just for the homeowner who really, really loves his coffee. For all the intuitive controls over time, temp and volume – pretty much essential for people who love to experiment with their roasting levels and flavor profiles – the Curtis CGC also features a range of features for specialty coffee brewing.

The pre-infusion and pulse-brewing controls let the user specify how long and for what intervals (as little as five seconds) that the water and the grounds are interacting. And the water bypass function results in quite a variable kick, at the user’s discretion.

Durability is built-in, also, with mineral-tolerant design (handy for hard water applications), as well as clean, non-metallic parts that probe water levels and sense temperatures. The electronics – such as the digital control board – are well-shielded from water as well. The unit is built about as imperviously as you can build something that’s designed to absorb periodic impact while containing and funneling steam and water.

The Curtis G4 CGC also runs pretty nice diagnostics on itself. The built-in system provides real-time feedback on what it’s doing, including advance warning systems for impending failures and an energy save mode.

It’s probably no surprise, either, that the manufacturer chose a single-cup design for the G4 CGC. It’s on the edge of the trend in coffee – instead of mass produced and sold according to set recipes, coffee nowadays is fussed over and crafted, then served one individual cup at a time.

In short, the Curtis G4 CGC tries to be what everyone who is a serious coffee brewer – or even a drinker – would love to own. It largely succeeds.

The Curtis G4 CGC is sold through Our Coffee Barn and other top-of-the-line coffee suppliers.

An Overview of Home Coffee Roasters

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If you’ve begun roasting your own coffee beans, you already know that it’s a passion. We feel the same – and not just because we provide home roasters along with a tremendous variety of green coffee beans.

We share in your passion for roasting great coffee, whether you’re just beginning or whether you’ve been doing it for a long time and you’re looking to add on or upgrade. So your choice of home coffee roaster is anything but casual.

The most exciting coffee roasters will, frankly, look terrific in any area of your home. But they’ll also contain wondrous features in small spaces. The best home coffee roasters will allow the operator a wide range of control over time and high temperatures while displaying the entire process through clear glass.

Our selection includes some of the finest roasters from some of the finest brands available for home coffee roasting. More than that, you’ll discover a range of price points to fit your application perfectly.

Even our lower priced units, such as the Fresh Roast SR 500, are packed with value. The SR 500 has three temperature settings including a top roasting temperature of 490 degrees, and a newly-added fan speed control for a wide range of even roasting profiles. An easily controlled, extremely flexible timing system makes for easy on-the-fly time adjustments including rapid cooling. And a top-mounted chaff collector system makes clearing chaff hassle-free.

At the other end of our spectrum, you’ll discover the finest in professional-level roasting in your home with the fully programmable Hottop KN-8828p. It’s the latest in a distinguished line of home coffee roasters, with well-loved features like forced-air cooling, smooth, sleek stainless steel construction, heavy-duty components and a 250-gram capacity combined with full programming capabilities. This is the ultimate in design, durability and flexibility for adventurous – and refined – home coffee roasters.

In between, we offer the Gene Café home coffee roaster – an extremely respected brand that brings with it ease, elegance and unique features like the patented off-axis roasting chamber that makes for consistently even roasting.

This overview shows a commitment to home roasting on the same level as our commitment to providing you the finest in roasted and green coffee beans from around the world.

An Overview of Coffee Grinders

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Why invest in a coffee grinder? We hear that a lot. It’s just a quick way to grind up coffee beans, isn’t it?

Well, yes – and no.

A quick check of some of the coffee grinders we sell will let you know that coffee grinders are an integral part of a larger process. They’re tools that enhance and maximize the flavor of the coffee beans you’ve invested in, yielding the true flavor of the bean and the roast without interference.

Strange as it may sound, the best home coffee bean grinders are built to grind the beans gently, with a minimum of contact. This sharply reduces the moments where water, oil, sugar and flavor can evaporate from the bean during the grinding process.

How does the coffee grinder accomplish this?

Lets’ start with the grinders themselves. We believe they should be flat or conical burrs – the type that crush the beans instead of cut them repeatedly, as blades do.

The motor and drive system are important, too; they should run with relatively low heat to avoid burning the beans.

Higher-end home coffee grinders can also feature dosers which distribute equal amounts of coffee beans into the grinder for consistent, accurate amounts of ground coffee. Some of these dosers are programmable along with the grinding timer itself.

The burrs should be highly adjustable for a wide range of grinds. This is especially important for pourovers and other brews that require course grinds; yet the grinder should be easy to clean so that it won’t clog with dust or bean residue.

In short, a home coffee bean grinder is a finely-tuned piece of equipment meant for a centuries-old craft. Our Coffee Barn offers coffee grinders with the highest quality features. Check out our current selection!

The Benefits of Green Coffee Beans

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You may have heard recently that green coffee bean extract might be a good option for weight loss. We’re not weighing in on this – actual coffee made from unroasted beans would be extremely bitter or would have no taste at all – but if it’s true, that’s just another reason to love green coffee beans.

We prefer to look at green, unroasted coffee beans as the starting point for a beverage that can be almost as individual as the person drinking it.

You can find that in roasted beans, too – French Roast, original Italian-style espresso, Brazilian coffee, Colombian coffee, Sumatran blends and many more are available off the shelf. But customers who choose green coffee beans are often true aficionados who enjoy the process as much as the result.

These home roasters tend to be practical, too. Stocking green coffee beans – we supply them in one, five and 10-pound bags – allows for fresh roasted coffee at any time. Unlike roasted beans – which start to lose their flavor within days of roasting – green coffee beans can stay on a shelf for several years without degrading.

In fact, the original coffees in the U.S. were made from naturally aged beans – they’d been stored in the hulls of ships during long and dangerous journeys, and the resulting flavors were outstanding!

The other obvious benefit to using green coffee beans is that they are most often a good window into your source of coffee. Are the beans all of similar color? Are they about the same size and shape?

The overall appearance of your green coffee beans shows how well your supplier has inspected the shipment. They should all have been dried consistently, and they should all appear to be from the same batch at harvest. These subtle clues can tell you a lot about whether the people you are buying from love coffee as much as you do.

Plus: you can discover a coffee that’s just for you! By stocking your own green coffee beans, you can experiment with different roasting techniques as well as coffees grown in vastly different areas of the world. Yu have control over literally a world of flavors!

Check out the selection of green coffee beans available from Our Coffee Barn!

Turn Leftover Coffee into Ice Cubes

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Looking for an easy way to add coffee to your favorite iced coffee drink? Coffee Ice Cubes. Use your leftover coffee!

Ice Coffee Cubes

Don’t pour out your extra coffee just yet! You can take that leftover coffee, pour it into your standard ice cube tray and have a tasty solution to keep your coffee drink cold. With standard ice cubes, you run the risk of watering down your coffee, especially on a hot summer day.

Beyond adding the coffee ice cubes to a standard cold press, you can use the coffee ice cubes to make a frappuccino, you can add them to chocolate ice cream, make coffee smoothies, and so much more!

Have you made ice cubes with coffee?

Start by finding your favorite fresh roasted coffee beans.

How To Use Coffee Beans as a Decorative Item

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Most of you think of coffee beans only as something you grind and use in your coffee maker every morning. Have you ever thought about using coffee beans as decorations in your home or even at a wedding?

Let’s say you met your fiancé when you both worked at Starbucks or Dutch Brothers coffee. What better way to celebrate your meeting, your decision to get married, and your actual wedding than to use coffee beans as a decorative element? Some people use glass vases or jars full of coffee beans with candles nestled into the beans as a decorative element.

Coffee Bean Decoration Light Switch

When using coffee beans as a decorative element in a wedding it’s also really helpful if your chosen colors for your wedding are non-traditional, such as brown and aqua. You could use the coffee beans for the brown and find aqua candles to nestle into them. Brown or black coffee beans might clash with the traditional wedding color of white (although the pinkish color of a Sumatra Mandheling might be a good color choice for a white wedding).

Home decoration using coffee beans is as simple as filling a Mason jar with contrasting coffee beans and possibly placing a battery-operated tea light on top (the real tea lights don’t stay balanced well on top of the beans). If you do choose to use a real tea light rather than the battery operated one, be sure to nestle it inside a slightly larger clear glass votive. The Mason jar can be either clear or a blue-green color; the clear ones will work well for fall decorating. To add to the country look of this decoration, tie a length of twine, jute, or decorative ribbon around the jar.

You can even use coffee beans as a holiday decorating idea. The same glass jar idea in the paragraph above can be turned into a Thanksgiving or Christmas decoration simply by switching out the colors of the beans and the twine, jute, or ribbon. Another idea for a Christmas decoration is to add the coffee beans to a wide grosgrain ribbon (use glue along the flat edge of the bean) and then use the resulting coffee-bean encrusted ribbon as a tree decoration.

Another great way to use coffee beans to create decorative items is to glue them to old photo frames. This is a unique way to frame the pictures of your favorite coffee lovers.

You can also use coffee beans to make great homemade air fresheners or hurricane candleholders. For the hurricane candleholders, all you need is some scented candles (pick your favorite color; one that complements the color of the coffee beans is a good choice), your favorite colored coffee beans, and some candleholders or even glass jars (see the Mason jars mentioned above). Your candles need to be narrower than your candleholders or glass jars, so that you can set the candle inside the container. Fill the spaces between the sides of the containers and the candles with the coffee beans; don’t fill the containers all the way up, just go about halfway so that you can still see the candle. One side benefit of this craft is that the coffee beans tend to absorb offensive odors, so this is a great idea for a bathroom (or a kitchen, if you cook fish often!)

Coffee Beans for Decoration: Weddings, Candles, and More

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At Our Coffee Barn, we were surprised to find customers continually ask us about using coffee beans for decorating. It turns out decorative coffee beans are extremely popular for weddings, household items, and just about anything else you can imagine.

Decorative Coffee Beans for Wedding Center Pieces

We’ve now seen several people use coffee beans for decoration in weddings. The most common usesage comes from center pieces and candles.

Wedding Center Piece Coffee Beans

People will take an empty vase, fill it with our decorative coffee beans, and then place either a candle, flowers, or branches in the center. Many people find them to be a unique and beautiful centerpiece for weddings.

Decorative Coffee Beans for Candles are another popular option.

Decorative Coffee Beans Candle

Decorative coffee beans with candles can be used at weddings or just as decor around the home.

Making a Candle Holder with Decorative Coffee Beans

The set up is simple. You can use a vase, a martini glass, or just a standard candle holder that includes room for the beans. First place your candle in the holder. Make sure it is resting on a firm and flat base. Once you have your candle in position, then add coffee beans around the base.

Decorative Coffee Beans

Because decorating with coffee beans can use a lot of coffee beans, especially for weddings, we have a special selection of coffee beans for decoration. These coffee beans  are either older or they are leftover beans from our daily roasting. This means we can offer you quality beans for decorating at prices that are much more afforadable.

Have you used coffee beans for decorating? Share your ideas in the comments. Looking for coffee beans for decorating? Find coffee beans for decoration on our website.

Online Coffee Shops Need Passion

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Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans

We’ve always loved the idea behind a coffee shop. That’s partly why we appreciate people who choose to buy coffee online.

These people are shopping for one reason: they love coffee. They have to be. You can’t get the ambience and the fantastic blended coffee smell of a coffee shop from your web browser. So it’s up to the online coffee supplier to offer warmth and friendliness over the internet.

Very simply, this requires passion.

Your online coffee supplier shows passion for coffee by supplying a large variety of coffee from around the world – one of the key advantages of buying online. Our Coffee Barn, for example, routinely offers coffee beans from Africa, South America, Asia and many other locales.

And check out the roaster: it can roast up to a half a ton of green coffee beans each day. And we roast coffee beans almost constantly to ensure that you’re getting coffee that’s roasted, bagged and shipped on the same day.

That’s not to mention the recipes, new products, information on coffee roasting techniques and more that literally surround the variety of coffee for sale.

And the most important place that passion shows through is in the variety itself. Online coffee shops, with the right motivation behind them, can offer far more than your neighborhood coffee shop in both quality and quantity.