1)      Hands down, every source agrees that your gourmet ground coffee should be store in an airtight container.

2)      If you’re going to have it around for more than a week, putting it in the freezer isn’t a bad idea. However, it should be said that constantly changing your coffee’s temperature  is a really bad idea. Why? Because the moisture from your thawed coffee seeps into the grounds and changes the flavor for the worst.

3)      Freezer is much better than the fridge. There are all sorts of different aromas floating around in your fridge, and your poor coffee is left to absorb them all. The fastest way to ruin your coffee, is to put it in a fridge.

If you’re looking for the ultimate taste in roasted coffee, you should look into buying beans and grinding them before each use. The freshness is unrivaled, and beans actually hold better in the freezer than regular grounds.

There’s nothing I love better than kicking back with a cup of fresh roasted coffee, a couple of pieces of toast generously buttered and smothered in blackberry jam, and a copy of the New York Times on a Sunday morning. The sheer aroma of my coffee, combined with arts pages of the newspaper, just makes me happy.

There’s no one particular kind of coffee that I drink. I love all kinds of brews of coffee and their different aromas and levels of richness. This is what makes coffee drinking exciting. Whether my coffee has a rich, buttery flavor, a mellow, full-bodied feel, or an acidic edge, I love it. As long as it’s good quality coffee with cream and sugar, I’m happy.

I refuse to waste money on buying coffee from coffee houses each day. I source a wide range of brews from coffee companies and make my own, both at work and at home; it’s cheaper, easier, and I can have my coffee just the way I like it.

Summer’s always exciting because it’s ice coffee time. Every couple of days, I make a big batch of black coffee so I can make myself an ice cold, refreshing coffee whenever I please. Ah, roasted coffee. What would I do without you?

Here’s some trivia for you: Americans love their coffee so much that they consume a fifth of the world’s coffee (and Canadians, Austrians, Italians and Scandinavians drink the rest). So have you ever wondered about where your beloved gourmet ground coffee comes from?

Coffee grows best in tropical, equatorial regions – ideally above 3,600 feet and below 8,000 feet. Coffee is an evergreen shrub that produces cherries, and each one contains a couple of beans that can be dried, roasted, ground and turned into coffee as we know it. Coffee bushes are slow burners: it takes them about 7 years to produce their first crop.

Coffee is grown in more than 50 countries around the world, and the five main coffee producer regions are Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, and the State of Hawaii, best known for its Kona coffee, which grows on the slopes of the active Mauna Loa volcano.

In Mexico, coffee is mainly grown on small farms in the south of the country, in Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas. In Africa, roasted coffee is grown in Ethiopia, where legend has it that coffee trees were first discovered, and at the foothills of Mount Kenya.

Roasted coffee houses in Europe have a long and illustrious history. They’re places where great intellectuals, painters, writers, filmmakers and other artists met to discuss groundbreaking ideas. Here are our top five famous coffee houses.

1. Café de Flore, Paris – Situated in the Saint-Germain-Des-Prés district of Paris, this café was a hotspot for thinkers in the early twentieth century and was frequented by the likes of Apollinaire, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Giacometti, Hemingway and Picasso.

2. Caffé Greco, Rome – Caffé Greco opened in 1760 and is just a stumble away from the Spanish Steps. It was particularly attractive to musical types: Wagner, Mendelssohn and Liszt all drank their coffee here.

3. Café Central, Vienna – Café Central opened in 1860 and quickly became known as the “Chess School” because many regulars were chess players, one of them being the Russian revolutionary Leo Trotzky.

4. Café Slavia, Prague – Opening in 1863 and located directly opposite the National Theater, this coffee house is today popular with members of Praque’s acting community.

5. Café New York, Budapest – Café New York, which opened in 1894, is the Hungarian capital’s oldest coffee house. It was destroyed in World War II but was restored to its former glory in 2006, and is once again a thriving coffee club.

I’ll admit it now: I just can’t start my day without a nice big cup of strong fresh roasted coffee and a similarly large breakfast: I’m talking eggs, tomato, bacon and home fries or French toast or pancakes with fresh berries, with cereal and fresh fruit.

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I truly believe it. When you skip breakfast, your brain slows down and by mid-morning you’re feeling weak and moody. Some people think that just having a coffee and a sugary energy bar for breakfast is sufficient and helps with weight loss, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, a big healthy breakfast full of protein and fiber can stop you from snacking on bad foods throughout the day.

If I don’t have a substantial breakfast and roasted coffee, I essentially render myself completely ineffective as a person. I can barely talk or be civil, let alone perform good work for my employer! I deliberately wake up an hour and a half before I need to leave my apartment each morning just so I can prepare, enjoy and digest a proper breakfast. Join the big breakfast and coffee club today!

You’re just made two nice full mugs of roasted coffee, and as you’re walking to the living room to enjoy them with your loved one, a big splash of piping hot after dinner blend falls to your beautiful cream colored carpet. Sound familiar?

The good news is, coffee stains are pretty easy to remove, as long as you tackle them as soon as they happen. And contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to invest in expensive cleaning products to remove stains.

First, blot away any excess coffee with paper towels or an absorbent cloth as soon as the coffee hits the carpet. Start at the edges and work your way towards the center.

Next, prepare a cupful of warm water with a teaspoon of washing detergent in it. With a damp cloth or sponge, blot the carpet with the soapy mixture, being careful not to rub.

Then, combine a third of a cup of white vinegar with two thirds of a cup of water. Vinegar helps to neutralize the acids contained in your fresh roasted coffee. Blot the mixture onto the carpet.

Finally, gently dry the affected area using a clean paper towel. Easy, right? It’s now time to get back to enjoying your gourmet ground coffee.

If you love fresh roasted coffee, then chances are you like coffee chocolate, coffee ice cream and coffee cake. Here’s the recipe for our favorite coffee-flavored cake with an indulgent coffee liqueur whipped cream frosting, a true treat for any coffee lover. It’s rich, it’s strong, and it couldn’t be easier to make.

Cake:

5 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee dissolved in 3 tablespoons boiling water
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Frosting:

2 cups whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup strong cold coffee
2 tablespoons coffee liqueur
Chopped walnuts or almonds

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To make the cake, whip the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until creamy and pale. Blend in the vanilla and coffee mixture, then fold in the flour and baking powder. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter. Bake for 30 minutes in a 10-inch pan, then cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, whip the cream and sugar until soft peaks form. Add the cold roasted coffee and coffee liqueur, and beat the mixture until stiff. Cover the cake with the frosting, top with nuts, and chill in the refrigerator before serving.

One of the most delicious ways to cool down on a hot summer’s day is with an iced roasted coffee. But if you’re not careful, you can find yourself spending all the change in your wallet on iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks every day.

Making your own iced coffee is simple, cheap and often more satisfying than store-bought or made to order iced coffee, which can sometimes be insipid. When you make your own, you can ensure you get the right intensity of flavor and the milk and sugar just the way you like it.

To make a quick iced coffee for one, start with your favorite dark gourmet ground coffee. Put a heaped tablespoon of coffee and white sugar to taste in a tall plastic cup. Cover with just enough boiling water (about an inch) to dissolve, stirring well. Then, fill the rest of the cup with cold water and/or fresh milk, as desired. Finally, top with plenty of ice cubes and vanilla ice cream or whipped cream for a really decadent drink.

If you want to enjoy your iced coffee on the go, simply put a lid on your plastic cup, add a straw, and you’re done. You’ve just made an iced coffee that’s bound to be better than Starbucks’ and saved money in the process!

Love the taste of gourmet ground coffee but don’t want the buzz of caffeine? That’s where decaf coffee comes in.  Decaffeinated coffee may be appropriate for people who love the taste of coffee but need to avoid caffeine such as those with kidney, anxiety or sleep disorders.

All decaffeinated coffee contains some element of caffeine, so if you’re particularly sensitive to caffeine, keep in mind that drinking 5 to 10 cups of decaf coffee could represent the same amount of caffeine as drinking one or two cups of regular coffee. Decaffeinated coffee contains a similar amount of healthy antioxidants as regular coffee.

Coffee is most commonly decaffeinated by steaming unroasted green beans, which are then rinsed with a solvent that removes the caffeine while leaving the coffee flavors. This process is repeated 8 to 12 times to remove at least 97% of caffeine (a European Union standard requires that 99.9% of caffeine is removed).

Through the Swiss Water Process, unroasted green beans are rinsed in hot water until 99.9% of caffeine is removed. This process was established in Switzerland in the 1930s, and the world’s only roasted coffee decaffeination plant using this method is based in Vancouver, Canada.