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The journey of sugar

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sara Walker

Ever wondered how sugar gets from the ground to your cup of coffee? The world’s sugar comes from two main sources – sugar cane, and sugar beet. British sugar is made from sugar beet, and sold under the brand name Silver Spoon.

Sugar from beet

After harvesting, the sugar beet tubers are thoroughly washed and dried, sliced into chips, then suspended in hot water for about an hour. The sugar is diffused out of the beet chips into the water, which thickens and is referred to as ‘juice’. The beet slices are pressed to extract the maximum sugar, and the remaining solids are used as animal feed.

The sugar juice is cleaned then evaporated to reduce the liquid content. The remaining fluid is then boiled until the sugar starts to crystallise out. The crystals are then dried and packed.

Sugar from cane

Sugar cane grows in tropical and sub-tropical climates around the world. Once harvested, the cane is crushed to extract the juice which is then cleaned and evaporated. The juice is then boiled, until crystals form in the same way as they do for the sugar beet process. Any residue is used to make molasses, which is used in cattle food or in a distillery to make alcohol.

The final product of both sugar beet and sugar cane is called ‘raw sugar’ and it looks like brown sugar at this stage, with a moist, sticky texture. Once it’s been packed and transported to the country where it’s to be used, it’s normally refined again to remove any remaining molasses and produce white sugar.

At the Wholesale Coffee Company, we sell a range of sugars, all made from sugar cane. Our products include brown and white sugar, lump sugar and individual sugar sticks, and all are suitable for cafés or caterers. For more information, please visit our coffee ingredients page.

Café de Olla – an Autumn Favourite!

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Sara Walker

Autumn is coming towards us at a hundred miles an hour and it’s time for those days of hot stuff. Meaning: anything hot goes – hot chocolate, hot wine, hot fireplaces, hot duvets, hot…anything (we’ve heard hot people are especially in demand…hugs can keep one warm almost forever!)! Adding to the list of hot things is Café de Olla – a Mexican coffee drink.

Coffee ingredients you keep in the cupboard may include honey, sugar (brown, or white), sweeteners (xylithol and stevia are the most natural/healthy ones we’ve been told?!), honey, cacao to sprinkle on your cappuccino and maybe a flavouring syrup, or two. Have you tried cinnamon in your coffee though? It’s a delicious addition to any cup (in some places they use it instead of cacao for the cappuccino) and in Café de Olla it’s one of the main coffee ingredients. The Mexicans are very specific about how a cup of Café de Olla is supposed to be made, but if in a hurry, why not just try to add a dash of cinnamon sprinkled on top of your coffee? Did you know that cinnamon can help balance your blood sugar levels if you use a sweetener as well? Just don’t overdoes on it – too much cinnamon is not good for you. Many say you shouldn’t even use it every day.

Café de Olla from Nibbles and Feasts

Coffee Ingredients:
4 cups water
4 cinnamon sticks
4 heaping tablespoons of ground coffee (36 oz.)
4 tbsp. of brown sugar (piloncillo)

N.B. For better results boil the water in an earthenware pot and serve it in earthenware mugs. According to Mexican cooks, it imparts a more flavorful experience.

Preparation:
Boil 4 cups of water with brown sugar and cinnamon in a clay pot, when boiling add the coffee and turn off heat. Let stand 4 minutes, strain and serve, preferably in clay cups.
You can also add a little rum!

Makes 4 cups

Coffee and sweeteners

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Sara Walker

If you like your coffee sweetened, you’ve probably already gone through the sugar versus artificial sweetener debate. Each type of sweetener has different benefits, and making the decision could be more difficult that it looks. Here, we run through the main advantages and disadvantages of sugar and artificial sweetener.

Artificial Sweetener

The main advantage of using an artificial sweetener is the reduction in calories, useful for people trying to lose or control weight. Sweeteners look much like sugar, and can normally be substituted on a like for like basis in cooking, but on average one level teaspoon of granular sweetener contains only two calories, compared to 16 calories for an equal amount of sugar. Many sweeteners are available in an even more concentrated tablet form, allowing you to control the serving size and reduce calories even further.

Artificial sweeteners are also used by diabetics, as they don’t trigger the same reactions that sugar does.

The main disadvantages of sweeteners is that they are not a natural products, and if taken to excess can have undesired side effects such as stomach problems. They can also have a bitter aftertaste, although this is not usually discernible in coffee.

Sugar

Sugar is a wholly natural product, and contains no artificial chemicals or additives. It also boosts energy levels, and has no aftertaste. It is, though, relatively calorific, and is also detrimental to tooth enamel, causing decay and cavities.

If you’re trying to lose or control weight, it may be more helpful longterm to gradually reduce the amount of sugar you take in your coffee, eventually weaning yourself off altogether, rather than switching to a sweetener. Simply replacing sugar with sweetener will help to control calorie intake, but won’t help to reduce a ‘sweet tooth’ and sugar cravings.

As the choice is so personal, most caterers and cafés provide a choice of brown and white sugar and sweetener. For individual portions of sweetener and sugar suitable for trade use, please visit our coffee ingredients page.

Autumn Blueberry Cake

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Sara Walker

For you coffee fanatics out there it might be a challenge to find something that adds to your coffee, rather than subtracts from it. That is to say: it makes your fresh roasted coffee beans taste even sweeter than when just having a plain cup of Joe.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Co. we consume quite a lot of coffee. Our favourite at the moment is the Tunki coffee – after all Tunki coffee did receive an award as best tasting coffee in the world! All in all, a cup of Tunki coffee therefore isn’t a bad way to start your morning!

We wanted to find something seasonal to pair with our Tunki coffee with as a treat and just found this gorgeous recipe for Blueberry-Lavender Coffee Cake with lemon drizzle at Healthy. Delicious., which is looking very promising. It even promises that it won’t taste too much like perfume from the lavender. Phew.

Try the cake and try our Tunki coffee with it!

Ingredients

For the filling

1 cup blueberries
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon dried lavender

For the cake1 cup Gold Medal white whole wheat flour

1 cup Gold Medal all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (3/4 stick), softened
? cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk

For the glaze

¼ cup confectioners sugar
1 lemon, juiced

Preparation

Prepare filling by combining blueberries, water, honey, and lavender in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil; cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until thick and syrupy. Let cool.
Heat oven to 350*F. Grease the bottom and sides of a loaf pan.
In a mixing bowl, combine the flours, baking soda and salt. In a second bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla. Stir in half the dry ingredients – the batter will be very thick and doughy. Stir in half the buttermilk – the batter will thin back out. Repeat.
Pour half the batter into the prepared pan. Spread with blueberry filling. Top with remaining batter. (The pan will be ½ to ¾ full).
Bake for 45-55 minutes. Let cool.
Add the confectioners sugar and lemon juice to a small saucepan set over medium heat. Cook 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until sugar is melted. Immediately drizzle over the cake.

The story of sugar cubes

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Sara Walker

Sugar cubes or lumps have been a popular method of sweetening coffee for over 150 years. Sugar in cube form is stable, easy to store and most importantly, easy to measure, helping the coffee drinker to regulate their intake.

Sugar lumps come in two varieties – sugar cubes, which are commercially manufactured to give a uniform size and shape, and lumps which are more irregular.

The inventor of a commercial process to make sugar into uniform cubes was a Swiss-born Czechoslovakian named Jakub Kryštof Rad. At the time, sugar was available in large, unwieldy blocks called ‘loaf sugar’, which were extremely hard and difficult to break. Juliana was injured while attempting to cut the loaf sugar, and asked her husband to invent an easier method. Quickly seeing the possibilities, he began working on a machine which would both refine cane sugar and press it into cubes. He was already the director of a sugar company, and his sugar cube press was operational less than a year after his wife’s request. On January 23rd 1843, he was granted a five-year patent for his invention.

The famous Henry Tate of Tate and Lyle quickly took up the idea, and was soon manufacturing sugar cubes at his sugar refineries in London and Liverpool. As Tate wasn’t able to use the Czech method, he bought a patent from a German engineer called Eugen Langen, who’d invested a different method of processing the sugar in 1872.

La Perruche, who produce high quality sugar lumps, use the different method of moulding the cane sugar into a block, and then breaking it into lumps. Each lump weighs between three and six grams. This has the disadvantage that the cubes aren’t a standard size, but also the advantage that each user can adapt their serving size if necessary. To see our range of La Perruche sugar lumps, as well as sugar cubes from other manufacturers, please visit our coffee ingredients page.

What is brown sugar?

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Sara Walker

Everyone has their own way of sweetening their coffee. Your preference might be for white lump sugar, loose brown sugar or sweetener, but do you know what you’re adding to your caffeine? Here are the facts about brown sugar.

The sugar gets its distinctive darker colour and flavour from molasses. The brown sugar that’s normally offered with coffee will be light brown sugar, with low levels of molasses and thus very little difference in taste to white sugar, although aficionados reckon they can detect a richer, fuller flavour. Dark brown sugar is heavily molassed and more normally used for baking. The sugar may be allowed to retain molasses naturally at the point of refinement, or may be produced by adding molasses to refined white sugar, which is the normal method when bulk-producing sugar for commercial sale. The added molasses mean the finished product is softer and moister than white sugar. Naturally produced brown sugar is less refined, and thus retains more minerals than white sugar.

Due to its softer consistency, brown sugar is prone to clumping once the packet has been opened, and should be stored in an airtight container. If you’re providing the sugar commercially, in a café or catering business, it’s most practical to use lump sugar or individual sugar sticks to prevent clumping and wastage. For cooking, putting a specialist terracotta disk in with the sugar will prevent clumping. Sugar that’s already reached the lumpy stage can be rescued for cooking by being melted in the microwave

At the Wholesale Coffee Company, we’re proud to supply La Perruche brown sugar cubes, a top quality naturally produced brown sugar that retains natural molasses for the best flavour. Prices start at £5.75 for 1 kg. We also supply individual sticks of Fairtrade brown sugar, for catering use. For more information on our range of sugars and sweeteners, please visit our coffee ingredients page.

Designing your own coffee packaging

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Sara Walker

If you’re re-packaging your own coffee beans for sale, there are several aspects to consider when designing the packaging. In addition to your own design, company logo, product name and contact details, there are also practical and legal aspects.

The packaging should provide physical protection, keeping the product inside safe from any damage which might cause it to deteriorate. It should also keep out any external contaminants such as water, dust or oxygen, keeping the contents fresh and clean for the duration of the shelf life. It should provide a platform for clear, easy to read information about the contents of the packaging, and be secure enough to show any tampering. Packaging should also make the beans easy to store and transport.

Many coffee bean retailers choose soft plastic bags for packaging, which are a cost effective option and keep the contents fresh. In addition to the product and company information, the packaging needs to carry a sell by date, and to list any ingredients other than coffee beans. It should also provide clear storage instructions for the beans, both when the bag is unopened and after it’s been opened. The weight of the contents must also be clearly marked, and the country where the product was packed. You might also like to add recycling information, including any relevant symbols to help consumers.

Any packaging that you choose must be made from a product that’s approved for safe food contact, and if you’re designing your packaging from scratch for the first time, it’s a good idea to get it checked by an expert – the Food Standards Agency are a great source of information and advice.

If you’re looking for pre-packaged coffee beans at competitive prices, please take a look at the coffee beans page of our website – we’ve got a great range available to meet all trade and commercial needs.

Coffee Shop Window Displays

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Sara Walker

When setting up a coffee shop the first thing you think of is probably not the window display. The smell of fresh roasted coffee beans, yes. The idea of roasting green coffee beans to perfection, potentially yes (if you want to roast yourself). Splendid freshly brewed coffee, most certainly yes.

When people set up coffee shops they usually reckon that the best way to get patrons is to have patrons in the shop already. That’s the best window display – large windows that show the ambiance of the place and the people in it. How to get people in there? A big sign outside with some special deal, or temptation, the waft of freshly brewed coffee and potentially some freshly baked cakes too, and decent pricing, really great ambiance, and excellent treatment once you walk in the door. This might work, but by ignoring the windows altogether, you are missing out a great way of attracting potential customers.

If you have two windows you can definitively keep one as a “keyhole” where people can look to see what the people are doing inside. The other can be used for window displays, or you can simply keep the lower part of the window free all the way along the front of the coffee shop.

Window displays are your outlet for creativity and for coming up with little gimmicks that will attract attention – whether through extreme beauty, creativity, humor, or shock. What you have to bear in mind is to keep the display in style with the coffee shop, just like the decor of the place has to match the menu. In other words: don’t do neon lights in your window display if the rest of the place represents an 18th century style salon.

Next time you are in town have a look at various shops and their window displays – note what attracts you to some, and what makes you step away from others! Below you can find some inspiration for fall decorations, albeit you might have to add some coffee beans to yours. And the smell of freshly brewed coffee…

Monday Morning Coffee Wisdom

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Sara Walker

It’s that time of the week where you look at your schedule and have a potential meltdown…and pick up the week’s first cup of coffee and drink it like you mean business. Because you do – it’s Monday morning and you have a mountain of work, making your schedule look more like Mount Everest than a walk in the park. Thankfully the caffeine will soon kick in, you will start to feel happier, more relaxed…and potentially even excited about your week ahead. That’s what coffee does to you: it opens your mind to possibilities. It keeps you going until wine o’clock when it’s time to chill out and do your best to enjoy the view of where you got so far on Mount Everest. After all, each day you get a little bit further up the mountain and instead of stressing out the best thing to do is to relax and enjoy the view that is a little bit better than yesterday. Even if you actually managed to fall and go down the mountain that day, at least you know one more route that DOESN’T work. Edison found 100 ways of how not to make a light bulb, before he made a light bulb.

Here at the Wholesale Coffee Co. we love Monday mornings. It’s time for strategy sessions surrounded by green coffee beans, fresh roasted coffee beans, espresso machines, and fresh espresso served all round – whether made by Nespresso machines, or we ground our own coffee beans and made the espresso with a traditional espresso machine. It’s quite a treat.

The best thing about Mondays though is love. No, seriously. If you love what you do Mount Everest looks kind of grand from the Monday morning perspective. Quite divine in fact – it’s your mission, your purpose in life. Or at least part of it. The other part might be friends, family, relationships, hobbies…and as with work they are all mountains as everything comes with obstacles. It should seem like a bad thing though, but rather like climbing a mountain – a mountain where every day you get a grander view.

Life is a loving work. Work fueled by coffee beans… And if you are looking to buy coffee online, you know where to find us 😉

Coffee bean packaging

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Sara Walker

If you’re importing or re-selling your own coffee beans, there are lots of factors to think about. Sourcing, storage, transport, flavour, quality control and cost are all vital considerations, but one aspect you may have overlooked is packaging.

Whether you’re packaging for trade or consumer use, key factors are brand consistency, efficiency, cost and practicality.

Cardboard canisters and tubs

A type of packaging often seen in trade packaging is cardboard canisters. They’re ideal for use in coffee shops, as they’re robust, stable, easy to open and reseal and practical to serve from. As a disadvantage, they take up a lot of storage space and are a more expensive option.

Metal canisters and tins

Metal canisters share the advantages of the cardboard tubs, and are even more robust. They’re more expensive to produce, and can be heavier. Some companies also offer promotional tins or storage tins designed to be on show in front of customers, but these are intended more for show than for practical storage as they’re not totally airtight.

Plastic packs

Made from sturdy plastic, soft bags are the most popular packaging option. They’re relatively cheap to produce, stack efficiently to maximise space, and keep the coffee beans as fresh as possible as they’re completely sealed. As disadvantages, they’re less robust than the canister options and are not designed to be opened and re-sealed, meaning than an opened bag must either be used immediately or decanted into another storage canister. For most companies, though, they’re the most practical and cost effective option. They’re also flexible, as it’s easy to alter the specifications to produce bags of different sizes for different quantities of coffee beans.

Our bags of coffee beans are supplied in strong plastic packaging for trade and commercial use, and are sealed to keep the contents fresh. For more information about our range of coffee beans, or to buy online, please visit our coffee beans page at http://www.wholesalecoffeecompany.co.uk/98-coffee-beans.