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Specialty Gourmet
Coffee
by: Gary Gresham
Specialty gourmet coffee is a very hot
commodity in today's market. The consumption of gourmet coffee has
steadily grown with consumers enjoying the more sophisticated tastes
of gourmet coffee beans.
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Specialty gourmet coffee, sometimes
called premium coffee, is exceptional coffee beans grown only in ideal
coffee-producing climates. These coffee beans have unique
characteristics because of the soil they grow in which produce very
distinctive flavors.
Gourmet coffee has a more balanced
flavor and richer taste than the standard mass-produced coffee.
Gourmet coffee beans go through a rigorous process of certification
that is stricter to help keep the quality high.
In the 1974 issue of the "Tea & Coffee
Trade Journal", Erna Knutsen first used the term 'specialty coffee' to
describe these unique coffee beans that are produced in special
microclimates with these distinctive, exceptional flavors.
In 1982 the Specialty Coffee
Association of America was created by coffee professionals to help set
quality standards for the specialty coffee trade.
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Since the 1990's the growing popularity
of the coffee houses and specialty gourmet coffee retailers, have made
gourmet coffee one of the fastest growing food services markets in the
world. In the United States alone, it nets approximately $8.5 billion
a year.
Some have compared specialty gourmet
coffee to wine. The aromas and flavors have similarities in how the
consumer connects with the two beverages. The characteristics of
gourmet coffee however, are more even complex than wine. The coffee
bean is more dependent on altitudes, climate and soil variation than
with the grapes used for wine.
The history and tradition of the
specialty coffee grower makes this a very complex beverage. So pour
yourself a cup of your favorite specialty gourmet coffee, sit back and
enjoy, you deserve it.
Copyright © 2005
Perfect-Coffees.com.
All Rights Reserved.
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