A good cup of coffee is like fine wine and good quality cigars. There are various different types of coffee beans and these determine the flavors that the blend presents for the coffee connoisseur.

Many coffee makers blend a combination of the lower cost Robusta beans with the more expensive Arabica gourmet beans. The Arabica beans have a finer aroma, a richer flavor and more body than the less expensive beans.

The quality of the coffee is dependant on the proportions of the mix of these beans. Quite often a coffee might be advertised as a blend of gourmet beans and lower grade beans when in fact there are only small traces of the gourmet beans in the blend.

The gourmet beans gain much of their flavor from the soils they are grown in, with the best beans coming from the volcanic regions where the rich soils produce the best tasting beans. [Read more…]