Key West
Gen Information
Accommodations
Hotels
Bed and Breakfasts
Vacation Rentals
Weddings
Real Estate
Fishing
Flats Fishing.
Party Boat
Light Tackle
Sportfishing
Restaurants
Art Galleries
Art and Crafts
Bars
Shops
Dolphin Tours
Eco Tours
Kayaking
Sailing and
Sunset Cruises
Scuba Diving
Snorkeling
Camping and
R.V. Parks
Marinas
Nice Tips To Do
Other Fun Stuff
Dry Tortugas
Plane Rides
Boat Rentals
Parasailing
Sky Diving
Adult Entertainment
Area Parks
Car Rentals
Airline Flights
Key West Books
9-11 Memorial
******************
Take it easy in Hemingway's Key West
Earthtimes, UK -
Is it 4 pm or maybe already 5? Nobody cares much as details like that are
unimportant on the island of Key West on the southernmost tip of America.
Key West Shops Java Lounge |
Java Lounge
Anyone interested in Juice n' Java coffee must visit JavaLounge, Key West Florida. This coffee house serves a delicious mixture of java, bagels, sushi, cakes, muffins ... award winning deserts and pastries ... and of course, Italian espresso!
Here you will find the Java Lounge and it's
pastries and snacks. Their small garden area
is a favorite with the locals
in the morning
to get their fix of coffee, news paper, and gossip.
Here you see Mawari behind the counter.
So drop on by our
Key West Shop and sample
some of
our coffee, pastries and fruit. Enjoy
the peace and quite in our garden as
you relax with a great cup of Java.
Some Java Facts while Dreaming about
our great cup of Coffee.
Grinding Coffee
Every step of transforming green coffee into hot brewed
coffee makes the flavor essence of the bean more vulnerable to destruction.
Green coffees keep for years, roasted coffees begin to lose flavor after a week,
ground coffee an hour after grinding, and brewed coffee in minutes.
Onced roasted, coffee beans still keep fairly well. But once
the coffee is ground, it begins to go stale in a few hours. Canning or otherwise
pakaging ground coffee simply replaces the natural coffee package, the bean,
with an artifical package. When consumers break open the artifical package, they
may find a coffee that is relatively fresh, but not for long.
Keeping Coffee Fresh
The easiest and most effective way to assure freshness is
grind your coffee yourself just before you brew it. Grinding coffee fresh just
before you brew it is one of the easiest things that you can do to improve the
quality of your coffee.
The ideal coffee routine would be as follows: Buy coffee in
bulk as whole beans. Put the beans in an airtight container in a cool, dark
place, and take out only as much as you want to grind and brew immediately.
A good way to store whole bean coffe is in an airtight solid
glass jar with a rubber gasket inside the cap that gives a good seal. Don't put
the beans in the refrigerator. The moisture and smells will destroy the
freshness and flavor. Freezing whole beans works well, but only light to darkish
brown roasts. Very dark-roast coffees do not freeze well.
The Perfect Grind
In general, grind coffee as fine as you can without
clogging the holes of the brewer or turning the coffee to mud. The finer the
grind, the more contact there will be between coffee and hot water, and the
faster and more thoroughly the essential oils will be released, without
activating harsher, less soluble chemicals.
On the other hand, you don't want to grind your coffee to a
powder, because completely pulverizing it destroyes the essential oil, which
becomes vaporated by the heat and friction of the grinding process.
Roasting
The key to excellent coffee is the roasting process, to
which we owe the delicately flavored oils that speak to the palate as eloquently
as caffeine does to the nervious system.
Roasting Overview
The chemistry of coffee roasting is complex and still not
completely understood. his is owing to the variety of beans, as well as to the
complexity of the coffee essence, which still defies chemists' best efforts to
duplicate it in the laboratory.
Much of what happens to the bean in roasting is interesting,
but irrelevant. The bean loses a good deal of its moisture, for instance, which
means it weighs less after roasting than before. It loses some protein, about 10
to 15 percent fo its caffeine, and traces of other chemicals. Sugars are burned
or caramelized, which contributes color and some body to the cup.
Roasting is simple in theory: The Beans must be heated, kept
moving so they don't burn or roast unevenly, and cooled, or quenched, when the
right moment has come to stop the roasting.
Coffee that is not roasted long enough or hot enought to
bring out the oil has a pasty, nutty, or bread like flavor. Coffee roasted too
long or at too high a temperature is thin-bodied, burned and industrial
flavored. Coffee roasted too long at too low a temperature has a baked flavor.
Most roasting equipment uses a rotating drum above a heat
source, usually a gas flame. the drum rotates, tumbling the beans to ensuring an
even roast. The air temperature inside the drum is usually controlled at about
500 degrees F; the precise temperature depends on the intentions and philosophy
of the operator. Eventually, the deep "bound" moisture is forced out, expanding
the bean and producing a snapping or crackling noise. Then, when the interior
temperature of the bean reaches about 400 degrees F, the oil suddenly begins
developing. this process is called pyrolysis, and it is marked by darkening in
the color of the bean.
This is the moment of truth for the coffee roaster,because
the pyrolysis or volatilization, of the coffee essence must be stopped at
precisely the right moment to obtain the flavor and roast desired. They are
quickly dumped into a metal box, where pyrolysis continues until the beans are
quenched with either cold air or cold water. Most specialty roasters air
quenched their coffee.
Clyde's Key West Shops