Iced Perfection

This has been an exceptionally  hot summer for most of us. It is the perfect time for Iced Coffee but if you want your coffee with ice to be as strong and delicious as when it is served hot, and you have a Tassimo Single Serve Brewer,  you are in luck.  New this season are two stand-out selections, both from Gevalia: Black Iced Coffee and Sweet and Creamy Iced Coffee. At first we were skeptical when we received a complimentary sample of each but these brews stand up to ice. Both have a bold taste that won't be diluted by ice and since they are single-serve portions, every cup will be as fresh (and delightfully strong) as the first. Order online at http://www.tassimodirect.com/tassimo/index.aspx  and wake up to a refreshing iced coffee.

                                   

Kaffe, Café, Coffee

There is little else like that first waft of fresh coffee in the morning. There are many excellent coffee brands to choose from and many methods of preparation—drip, cone filter (Melitta) single-cup servers (Tassimo, Keurig, Senseo).

We will discuss the different methods of preparation later but first, there recently was some slightly jarring news from Colombia: Coffee consumption is starting to outpace coffee production.

What does that mean for consumers? Will we be paying more? Will there be fewer choices? Visit http://www.coffeeresearch.org/market/coffeemarket.htm for a bit of a primer on the coffee market:

"There are two markets for coffee: the cash market and the futures market. The cash market is the market today. It is the price you would pay for coffee today if you could receive it today. The futures market is used to help determine the price for future deliveries. It is used to purchase a contract today to guarantee a future shipment of coffee. More importantly, however, the futures market for commodities like coffee is used to help protect against the wild variations that occur due to coffee market speculation."

Now about the recent news, according to Bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=aXxEc.GuoUb4

"Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The world coffee market will swing to a deficit of as much as 10 million bags next year from a surplus as demand growth outstrips production, said a growers group in Colombia, the third-biggest producer.
Global coffee output will exceed demand by 6-7 million bags this year as Brazil, the largest producer, is in the more productive phase of a two-year cycle, said Juan Lucas Restrepo, commercial manager at the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia. Lower Brazilian output and demand growth of 2 percent next year will cause the shortfall, he added. A bag weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).
'Overall consumption is growing faster than production, and global inventories will decrease further next year,'' Restrepo said in an interview in Tokyo Oct. 17. ``Growth is not coming from mature markets but from emerging markets.'

When Colombia completes a tree replanting program, the amount of coffee hopefully will increase.