Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 05:53:18PM -0400, Buzz Hausner wrote: > Roasting coffee beans causes the break-down of caffeine molecules. The > longer you roast, the less caffeine per unit of beans. Espresso beans > are generally roasted to within a mere smidgen of palatability. Ergo, > less caffeine per measure of coffee than one might expect to find in > other brews. Think of it like developing film... > While roasting drives off a very small amount of caffeine it is generally insignificant enough to say that roasting doesn't actually dictate caffeine content. Caffeine content is generally down more to the type of bean rather than the degree of roasting. Robusta contains generally about 2 times more caffeine that Arabica coffee. Then you get into the varietals - a Celebes Kalossi will contain far more caffeine than say an Ethiopian Harrar. And so on and so forth... While caffeine is soluble in water it is less soluble than most of the good ingredients we are trying to extract from the bean for espresso so it is the limited time that water is in contact with the ground beans which dictates the caffeine level. If you get an overextracted coffee then more water has passed through the coffee and extracted more of the caffeine and other unwanted components. Caffeine is generally higher in coffees brewed using other methods because the water is in contact with the coffee for a much longer peiod of time so more caffeine is extracted. And beans for espresso are not roasted to "within a mere smidgen of palatability" (well there I suppose we get back to Starbucks but I was hoping we were improving on that!) They are roasted to produce the optimum cup for that particular blend of beans. When I have a specific blend I am able to adjust the roast I give the beans, together with both the brewing pressure and temperature of my machine to produce the optimum cup. In addition to that there are many other factors such as extraction time, extraction volume and the grind needed to obtain this. Did I mention there are fanatics out there that obsess over coffee? Did I mention I was one of them? <g> -- Tony Terlecki ajt@mrps.demon.co.uk > Buzz Hausner > > -----Original Message----- > From: lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org > [mailto:lug-bounces+buzz.hausner=verizon.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf > Of Jeffery Smith > Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:26 PM > To: Leica Users Group > Subject: Re: [Leica] Starbucks > > Mine is definitely >100C. It is a Krupps maker. Inasmuch as caffeine is > only water soluble in HOT water, I'm surprised to hear that it extracts > less caffeine. I suppose that the reduced time on task might reduce the > ability to extract as much. > > Jeffery > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information