Coffee... fuelling you...and your car!

Does it get any better? Here we have a drink that switches on your day , keeps you smiling when the idiot called The Boss is mucking around in your territory, and gets you home before the “on” lamp in your brain, flickers and fades for the night. Well yes it could get better… you could buy a nice coffee machine to make it better; you could be given a years supply of the best Blue Mountain… or the stuff that has been passed through the gut of some rare animal….but that’s missing the point.

It does get better, and from an environmental perspective too. What if coffee could not only fuel you…but your car as well? What if you could use the grounds from your coffee machine waste container to make biodiesel? Well you can.

Consider the fact that 7 billion kilograms of coffee are grown each year, and that used coffee grounds have an oil content of between 11 and 20 percent. Then consider that a major constraint to wider production of biodiesel is that there is a lack of low cost, high quality oil containing feedstock. Soyabeans and sunflower seeds, the traditional source of oil for biodiesel, are not only expensive but are used for human consumption – not much point in having cheap fuel and expensive food!

Now three US researchers have found that spent grounds from coffee machines, which are usually just thrown out or used as compost, can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply. And if you thought that the high antioxidant content of coffee was a myth, then change your mind as the scientists developed a more stable fuel than conventional biodiesel, because of coffee’s high antioxidant content.

Best of all, the fuel actually smells like coffee! Now I hate going to fill up, but with the sweet smell of coffee in the air, I might see more people outside the Wild Bean Café than in it!

Storing coffee - the right and wrong way

I often get asked by customers "should I keep my coffee in the fridge?". The answer is simple: not in an open pack ! The fridge might sound like a great place: cool and dark...but the reality is that the fridge is a place of multiple contaminants. Roasted coffee is pretty absorbent and readily takes on surrounding "smells". A fridge is full of smells...last night's gravy and the lunch ham....etc. If you are set on the fridge, make sure your coffee is in an airtight container.

Some folk I know keep coffee in their freezer. It's not what I'd do because you don't want to keep freezing and thawing coffee. Again, if you must, use airtight containers with small quantities so as to avoid temperature fluctuations.

The biggest threat to coffee is oxygen, not temperature. So personally, I just keep my coffee in airtight containers in my pantry, which is cool and dark most the time. Secondly I only keep as much as I can drink in a month.

Storing coffee in bean format is the best - but no more than 30 days please! Only grind just before you drink. Today's coffee machines and coffee vending machines have very high quality grinding and dosing mechanisms so using an automatic espresso machine is the perfect, and easist, way to ensure you get fresh coffee on demand. You can check out a few of these machines on my site at www.officecoffeemachines.co.za

Where did coffee machines come from?

It's a question that I just had to answer and the internet dished up Chris Vorelli who has written a great article on this very issue.

He says that a man called Mr. Laurens developed the first coffee-making machine in 1818. Although it has been modified over time, what is really interesting is that there are just as many patents by women as men! Go women!

In the 1960’s, the first filter machines were invented - dang ...what did they drink before this!

The espresso machine on the other hand was developed by Lugia Bezzer in Italy in 1901. Ironically, all he wanted to do was get his employees back to work as quickly as possible. He thought that if he forced water through the coffee grind using pressure, that it would speed up the brew time. He was not only right, but he started a culture of coffee loving that has extended across the globe. Unfortunately for him (I think!) but good for us, he sold the patent in 1905 to Desidero Pavoni who developed an espresso machine that used a piston pump to force water through a tube and into the coffee. In 1946, the commercial espresso machine was invented. Since that time, the espresso maker has been produced by many name brand companies, including Jura, Gaggia and Saeco...brands we stock.

Thanks you two wonderful pioneers...without you...