Tag Archives: Coffee Technology

Episode Ten: Warfare and Coffee Part One – The Civil War

When I say the words, “Civil War” what are the first things that pop into your mind? If you’re from the United States, it’s probably things like slavery, Abraham Lincoln, or Gettysburg. But, in fact, the thing Civil War Soldiers journaled about more than anything else was coffee. War has a way of making people appreciate the small pleasures in life. Coffee, as it turns out, is one of the biggest small pleasures that exists.

Over the next several episodes we’ll be exploring the intersection of warfare and coffee, beginning this week with the American Civil War.

Civil War-era rifle with built in butt stock coffee grinder

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Episode Three: Fermenting Coffee

For thousands of years humans have used fermentation to preserve food, leaven bread, and brew alcohol. In 19th century Belgium lambic beers were brewed using the yeasts and bacteria naturally found in the air. Fermentation is an integral part of the way we process coffee as well, but because of function – not taste. What can history teach us about fermentation, and how can we use that to create even better tasting coffee?

This week’s episode relied heavily on the article, “Looking beyond Origin for flavor diversity” by Lucia Solis. Read the article here. Also, here’s a link to the BuzzFeed video referenced at the beginning of the show. Links to the rest of the sources for this episode are below. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the Coffee Canon email list. A special gift is going out this week to those on the list! You can sign up here.

Colin

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Episode Two: Italian Coffee

Episode Two of Coffee Canon focuses on Italian coffee. We often associate Italy with espresso, but the truth is that true espresso didn’t exist until about 1950. Developing It took the work of key inventors, businesspeople, and visionaries who saw coffee not for what it currently was, but for what it could be.

In this episode I feature a radio interview by Professor Jonathan Morris. You can listen to the whole thing here. Also, he wrote a fascinating paper on Italy’s coffee journey: check it out here.

Enjoy the episode, and feel free to reference the sources below if you’d like to read more. Also, don’t forget to sign up for the Coffee Canon email list if you haven’t already.

Colin

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