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How to remove coffee stains from a white tablecloth

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Sara Walker

How to remove coffee stains from a white tablecloth

If you’re a fan of both entertaining and coffee, the chances are that at some point you’ll end
up with a coffee spillage on your tablecloth or napkins. Whether it’s an over-enthusiastic
guest, an over-full cup or a moment of distraction when using the coffee machine, it only
takes a few drops to mark a white cloth. Don’t despair, though – most coffee marks are
relatively easy to remove and shouldn’t leave a permanent stain. Here’s what to do:

1. The quicker you can act, the better – if possible, tackle the spill while it’s still wet. Dab
up any residue with kitchen roll, taking care not to rub too hard and spread the stain.
Rub a little washing liquid into the stain and leave it for a few minutes, then rinse
thoroughly with cold water. If you’ve caught it early enough, this should remove the
mark completely, and you can then wash and dry the cloth as normal. If you missed
the spill the night before and don’t find it until the next morning when it’s thoroughly
dried into the fabric, don’t panic! The mark should still come out, it may just need a
little extra effort.
2. Make up a solution of one part wine vinegar to three parts cold water, and add a
little washing liquid or powder. Holding the cloth over the sink, work the solution well
into the stained area with your fingers and leave it to soak for 10 – 15 minutes. Rinse
thoroughly with cold water.
3. Launder the cloth as usual, adding a capful of bleach if the fabric is suitable (check
the label first). Don’t tumble dry the cloth, as if there is any residual staining you risk
setting it into the fabric. Check the area, and if there’s still a mark repeat steps two
and three again.

It’s a good idea to use a table protector under any cloth, so that any spills don’t mark the
table underneath. Happy entertaining!

Coffee In Lapland

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Sara Walker

Finland is often perceived as being one of the more mysterious Scandinavian countries. What happens in Finland? What’s Finland known for? And why visit such a cold part of the world?

Apart from Lordi winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006, the Northern Lights and having lots of lakes, Finland is also home to Lapland, Father Christmas and many keen coffee drinkers. Finnish people have been said to love coffee more than any other nation, according to the site www.uta.fi, with the average person consuming three to four cups a day.

It might not seem like a country of coffee consumers but we’d like to think it makes sense, especially in the north where the sun doesn’t rise during the winter months.

As you already know, coffee beans keep us alert; they wake us up and a steaming hot brew can be the perfect antidote to a cold dark day. Finnish winters can often be tough – especially for tourists who aren’t used to minus 20 temperatures. It’s also significantly darker because the sun doesn’t rise which means many people who aren’t used to living in semi darkness can sometimes feel tired, disorientated or even depressed.

Coffee beans and a big bar of Fazer chocolate (the chocolate popular throughout Finland) would therefore seem like the ideal choice. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see people sat outside in the snow next to small fires overlooking frozen lakes despite temperatures being well below minus 10.

Over here, we’ll have our summer picnics, but we probably wouldn’t think about venturing outside to have a picnic in the snow. In Finland, however, it wouldn’t be unusual to spot people enjoying what can only be described as winter picnics with sausages cooked on open fires, hot flasks filled with steaming, freshly brewed coffee and traditional Finnish snacks.

So, why visit Finland? Apart from coffee beans, you can also visit Father Christmas at Finland’s Christmas Village in Rovaniemi (Lapland’s gateway town), immerse yourself in Finland’s sauna culture and marvel over some of the most spectacular countryside in the world.

Coffee At Christmas

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Sara Walker

We’ve all got our opinions as to why we celebrate Christmas, what we like about the festival and what Christmas means to us – the birth of Jesus, presents, togetherness…

If you like and celebrate December 25, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a time when people are generally warmer, kinder and more pleasant to each other. For example, you’re probably more likely to give to a homeless person on Christmas Eve than at any other time of the year or be more generous to strangers – providing you haven’t left your Christmas Shopping to the last minute and you’re now in a frantic hurry!

But, did you know that coffee also plays a part in the tradition of bringing people together too? In the 19th century, roasting coffee beans at Christmas was a traditional family activity that was supposed to bring the whole family together. For many families today, drinking coffee at Christmas is still seen as an important Christmas tradition.

Hot mugs of coffee can also help people to feel more connected according to some psychologists. A study was conducted with hot and iced coffee to determine whether participants would feel warmer and more connected to people when they had a hot cup of coffee in their hands.

Approximately 40 participants took part in the study; they were then shown a series of photographs of people who they had to rate according to how warm they felt each person was.

The results show that the people who were given hot mugs of coffee wrote more positive things about the pictures of people they had to identify, as opposed to the participants who were given iced coffee. Similar experiments show that holding hot objects can make us more generous and trusting towards other people.

So, if things start to get a bit too prickly this Christmas – you know what to do – just make everyone a hot mug coffee and sit by a fire.

The Health Benefits of Coffee

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Sara Walker

The Health Benefits of Coffee

All coffee lovers know that a good cup of coffee made from freshly-ground coffee
beans can help wake you up in the morning, lift your spirits throughout the day and
generally improve your concentration, but studies have also shown that drinking
coffee in moderation could be beneficial for your health.

Studies collated by Harvard Medical School show that the drink could have varied
health benefits, including:

A reduced likelihood of certain types of cancer. In a 2005 study, results showed
that people who drank coffee regularly were 50% less likely to suffer from liver
cancer than non-coffee-drinkers. Other studies have also shown lower rates of colon,
breast, and rectal cancers in coffee drinkers.

A reduced risk of diabetes. Men who drink six cups of coffee a day are half as
likely to get type 2 diabetes as non-coffee-drinkers, and for women, there’s a 30%
reduction in risk. The science behind this is not yet clearly understood, but it could be
that coffee contains certain compounds that help the body metabolise sugar.

A reduced risk of gallstones and kidney stones. According to the BBC, studies
have shown that coffee drinkers are less likely to suffer from kidney stones and
gallstone.

Reduced chances of Parkinson’s disease. Most recent studies indicate that
drinking coffee regularly can help to protect men against Parkinson’s disease. The
results are less apparent in women, possibly as the female hormone oestrogen
inhibits the breakdown of caffeine. Researchers estimate that men who regularly
drink two or three cups of caffeinated coffee a day are two to three times less likely
to develop the disease. Men who are heavy coffee drinkers, drinking more than six
cups a day, are five times less likely to develop the disease, although experts warn
that drinking this much coffee could have other health implications.

Next time you’re drinking your daily coffee, remember that not only does it taste
delicious, in moderation it could be helping your health as well – so there’s even more
reason to enjoy it.

Top 5 Coffee Myths

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Sara Walker

Myth 1 – you need to use boiling water to make the perfect cup of coffee.

In fact, using water that’s too hot will scorch the coffee, causing it to release bitter-tasting
compounds and spoil the taste. The correct temperature to use for the perfect cup is around
93 degrees centigrade – good commercial coffee machines will regulate this automatically.

Myth 2 – the best place to store coffee is in the freezer or refrigerator.

Actually, roasted coffee beans are porous, and quickly absorb liquids, moisture and food
smells, making the freezer or fridge one of the worst places to store coffee. Keep any
leftover coffee beans at room temperature in an airtight container, and make sure they’re
well away from strong light or heat which can quickly cause the flavour to deteriorate.

Myth 3 – buying ready-ground coffee is just as good as grinding your own

In reality, the flavour of coffee beans starts to deteriorate as soon as they’re ground, and
despite modern manufacturing and packaging methods, ready-ground coffee will never be
as fresh as coffee that you grind yourself. Ideally, coffee should be freshly ground each time
you use it.

Myth 4 – if you buy good-quality coffee, it’s fine to use cheap paper filters

Cheap paper coffee filters can produce inferior results, as they’re treated with chemicals
that can affect the flavour. If you’re using paper filters, check for brands that say ‘oxygen
bleached’ or ‘dioxin free’.

Myth 5 – a strong cup of coffee needs to brew for a long time

As a rough guide, coffee should brew for between four and five minutes. Leaving it any
longer than this may result in stronger coffee, but the resulting drink will also have a bitter,
unpleasant taste. Brewing for less time may give you a weaker drink, but it will be insipid
and flavourless. For the perfect cup, you’ll need a good coffee machine to take care of the
brewing time, and you’ll also need to choose the right blend. Robusta blends are stronger
than Arabica, and dark roasts are more intense than lighter roasts.

The story of decaffination

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Sara Walker

Decaffeinated coffee now accounts for around 10% of worldwide coffee sales. If you
drink coffee on a regular basis, you may sometimes choose decaffeinated coffee
over standard – but have you ever wondered just how the process works?

Coffee is a natural product, and it contains many substances which all contribute to
the complex flavour and aroma. Caffeine is just one ingredient among many, and the
problem faced by manufacturers is to remove it without compromising all the other
substances and thus affecting the flavour. There are several possible methods, all of
which treat the green coffee beans prior to roasting.

The first commercially successful method was invented in 1903, and involved
steaming the coffee beans then washing the caffeine out with a solvent. A method
still in use today by small local producers is Swiss Water Processing, which involves
soaking the beans in hot water. Once the caffeine has dissolved into the solution,
the beans are thrown away, and the solution is filtered through carbon to remove the
caffeine.

The decaffeinated solution is then used to soak a new batch of green coffee beans.
As the solution already holds the maximum amount of other coffee compounds from
the original beans, but contains no caffeine, only the caffeine from the new batch
filters out. The process is repeated several times using the original solution, which is
continually filtered to remove the caffeine, until the maximum amount of caffeine has
been extracted from the new beans, which are then dried and roasted as usual.

EU standards dictate that coffee sold as ‘decaffeinated’ must be at least 99.9%
caffeine free by mass, so sometimes the beans have to go through the process
ten or twelve times, making decaffeinated coffee expensive to produce. However,
there’s good news for decaff lovers – scientists have discovered a coffee bean that’s
naturally low in caffeine, which could have a big impact on the decaffeinated coffee
industry, making your daily decaff as full of flavour as regular coffee.

Would you wear a top made from coffee beans?

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Sara Walker

Coffee bean clothing might sound like something from an Alexander McQueen collection, but apparel made from coffee beans doesn’t necessarily have to mean high fashion.

Fabric manufacturers, Singtex, based in Taiwan, were the first company to make clothes out of ground coffee. Instead of the waste coffee grounds being dumped in a landfill, Singtex, saw an opportunity to make environmentally friendly fabric from them.

The finished material is surprisingly soft, breathable and airy, making it ideal for outdoor activities, sports and yoga. However, the benefits don’t just end there – clothes made from coffee beans also absorb horrible smells, protect you against harmful UV rays, and they don’t need to be washed as often as regular clothing. This would obviously depend on your work out style!

As a result, Singtex fabrics have been snapped up by many global sportswear brands such as North Face, Nike and Adidas – in 2011, the company had as many as 70 brands buying its products and since 2009 when the fabric was launched, the company has won international recognition for its eco products; however, it doesn’t end with coffee – there are others.

Singtex and the manufacturing company, Petagonia, also make sportswear from discarded plastic bottles and even stinging nettles. Apparently, nettles were used to make fabric for thousands of years before cotton took over in the 15th century.

However, a few years ago when the cotton industry started to get a bad reputation due to some companies trying to genetically engineer cotton plants and exploit cotton farmers in India and reports of child labour, it seems clothing manufacturers started to look for alternatives.

Due to the massive success of coffee based fabrics, in the future, Singtex plans to create other functional environmentally friendly products out of coffee beans such as shoes and even soap.

The Coffee Pot Shoe

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Sara Walker

Do you remember the nursery rhyme, ‘There was an old woman who lived in a shoe?’

It might be a far-fetched connection, but that’s exactly what sprung to mind after the discovery of the footwear designer, Kobi Levi. Some of his designs almost look as if tiny people could inhabit the shoes or use them as functional everyday objects. For example, the shoes that resemble miniature red shopping baskets or the high heels sculpted to look like ladders.

Other designs include shoes that look like ducks with the heels sculpted to look like yellow beaks, rocking chair shoes and even pink chewing gum shoes – we’re not so sure about wearing these ones though.

Our favourites out of the Kobi Levi collection are the coffee pot shoes that really do look like coffee pots filled with deliciously brewed coffee beans with the heels of the shoes resembling hot black coffee being poured. So, if you like the idea of wearing coffee pots on your feet, you’ve got two designs to choose from – the sophisticated black coffee pot or the classic white coffee pot resembling fine china.

As a wholesale coffee company we’d love to see a whole collection of shoes dedicated to coffee beans with the shoes perhaps boxed in shoe boxes made to look like miniature coffee machines…the possibilities are endless. The way things are going with companies such as Singtex, designing sportswear out of coffee beans, perhaps we’ll start to see some more functional shoes actually made with coffee beans.

About Kobi Levi

Kobi Levi’s footwear design career began in childhood when he would craft shoes out of cardboard. After completing his degree, Levi went onto become a freelance shoe designer of weird and wonderful shoes. He gained worldwide recognition for his interesting creations through his blog ‘Blog Kobi’ which attracted the attention of Lady Gaga who used one of Kobi’s shoes in her music video ‘Born this Way’.

Coffee Wakes You Up

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Sara Walker

You didn’t get much sleep last night and now you’re driving home from a meeting. You have another two hours to go, so you pull up to a nearby service station and head straight to one of the coffee machines to wake yourself up. Sound familiar?

According to the book, Counting Sheep by Paul Martin, sleep deprivation is the main cause of road accidents in the UK today. It’s not surprising – as a society, we have a tendency to sleep much less than we should. In some respects, the ‘work hard, lose out on sleep’ mentality is even applauded.

Coffee beans may help you to stay alert for short bursts when you’re driving long distances, but what if there was something else to help you on those long monotonous journeys?

Of course, regular sleep would be a good start, but in the meantime, there’s coffee and… blue lights attached to the inside of your car. It might sound peculiar or even off putting, but having a blue light in your car whilst you’re driving long distances could stop you from dozing off.

A group of French and Swedish scientists recently conducted a study to test the effects of blue lighting whilst driving. The 48 participants involved in the study were either exposed to a blue LED light, given caffeine, or a placebo.

The results show that drivers who were exposed to a blue light were as alert as the drivers who were given caffeine. Blue lighting works by triggering the brain into thinking that it’s daytime, stimulating the parts of the brain responsible for alertness. Blue light after all is the last colour to appear in the morning and the first to disappear at night.

Despite the positive results, some drivers were put off by the blue light; however, it could just be something to get used to. The findings clearly show that blue lighting is definitely worth further research and development.

Coffee Art

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Sara Walker

Coffee is one of the world’s most popular drinks so not surprisingly it has inspired artists to create some stunning and/or interesting artwork. And we feel sure the day Damien Hirst decides to make coffee into art (like perhaps framing a few beans dotted about in the shape of coffee molecules…) we will see an unprecedented rise in the price of coffee beans. We are still waiting.

Coffee art is an interesting topic for anyone who owns a coffee shop, loves coffee, or sells coffee in any way, shape, or form, as it can compliment your existing stock, or add some colour to the walls of your coffee shop, or home.

We found coffee jewellery from Shay Aaron, an Israeli artist based out of Tel Aviv, below you can see coffee bean earrings and coffee cup cufflinks. He has many more though, if you visit his site: http://www.etsy.com/shop/shayaaron

Coffee bean cuff links Black Coffee Cuff links

Of course you can also turn your latte into art – perfect way to impress your guests. In fact a café can probably make quite a name just for the sake of the art that goes into the cup! The world’s Latte Art Championship will take place in Nice, 26-28th of June 2013.

You can actually make art using your beans as well. The below painting, painted by Karen Eland was made using only coffee and water!

There have also been sculptures made around coffee and one is the Yuanyang II by Tsang Cheung Shing from Hong Kong. It was made for a pottery exhibition of YingYeung, which is a drink made of coffee and tea combined. The artwork then went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Another sculpture focused around coffee is Coffee Man by Ruth Jensen. Coffee is such a world-wide phenomena that probably anyone from a big city can recognise themselves, or fellow city dwellers in the man’s pose. Who does not stop to have a coffee ever so often, or run past someone else who is?

Arkadi Kim has made the world’s largest coffee bean mosaic. It measures 30 square meters and weighs 180 kilos! It took two weeks to piece together with the help of his team. They had to roast the beans themselves to get the different colour nuances. The mosaic is called The Awakening and portrays a girl smelling the aroma of coffee. We figure that maybe the artist needed quite a lot of coffee to stay awake whilst making this piece!