Kevin Sinnott explained in his knol, that no matter how expensive the beans, if you don’t have a good brewer, you won’t get to taste them at their best.

The following is the exceprts of tips on how to test your coffee brewer:

• Visit consumer feedback sites – You can always learn about anything from other consumers.
• Temperature – 195 to 205 Fahrenheit is the official recommended temperature.
• Grounds saturation – This is about how well the water sprayhead and filter are designed to keep all the grounds wet during brewing.
• Contact time – It is currently the most common fault of the typical consumer auto drip brewer, and also a common fault of overzealous consumers when grinding for auto-drip or manual brewers.

Kevin shared his easiest coffee brewer test of all:

… The easiest test of all is to simply time your brewer. If it’s up to eight minutes, you can probably compensate by grinding coarse. If it’s past that, I would suggest parting company with it. If you’re absolutely determined to make it work, you can compromise by brewing half batches or so, on the theory that you can bring the contact time down to around six minutes. It still won’t address temperature shortcomings, but it will at least help prevent over-extraction.

To learn more, please visit Kevin’s knol.

The arrivals of gourmet coffee and tea has transform the customary habit into lifestyle. In my opinion, drinking coffee and tea today match the lifestyle of hanging out in pubs in past times.

Drinking coffee and tea are always related to caffeine consumption issues. Caffeine does have the positive effects, but people need to be aware of it’s negative effects. The best way is to learn all about caffeine, including its impact in our health.

You can learn all about caffeine from an informative and easy read knol written by William Wynn.

From the extensive information William covered about the history of caffeine, I found that his explanation about the usage of caffeine is compelling.

William explained that caffeine is not only used in coffee and tea beverages, but also in drugs for medication.

According to the knol, there are potentially several benefits of using caffeine at the right dosages, such as:

• Caffeine increases the metabolism and suppresses appetite which is why it is used in some diet aids.
• Caffeine is known to increase the effectiveness of basic pain relievers./li>
• Low doses of caffeine appear to increase motor coordination.
• Adenosine promotes sleep, and since caffeine blocks it from the receptors, this wards off the feeling of sleep.
• Mood actually becomes more positive from low doses of caffeine, up to about 200mg.
• An increased intake of caffeine also increases a person’s willingness to accept alternative ideas as well as raises performance levels on repetitive tasks.

However, one must be cautious about the negatives and side effects, as well:

• Higher doses of caffeine causes lowered motor coordination.
• Blocking adenosine too much can lead to insomnia and cause headaches.
• Anxiety is generally only caused from excessive amounts of caffeine.
• After prolonged use of caffeine, the body can build up a tolerance to it, causing addiction.
• Excessive caffeine intake can cause heart problems.

The key in caffeine intake is to know how much is needed to have it actually helps you, and what’s the limit to avoid it causing lethal effects.

William Wynn’s knol is an excellent resource on caffeine, and I suggest you to visit the knol to learn more about it.

Image by Drab Makyo.