15 Household Uses For Coffee Filters

Coffee filters can be used for more than filtering coffee. You will be amazed at the many other uses for coffee filters. These creative ideas are both money and time savers, and who doesn’t like saving money? Once you see the wide array of ideas you are sure to come up with a bunch more. Here are a few ideas for putting your coffee filters to use:

Coffee filters can be used as disposable bowls for snacks such as popcorn, chips or crackers, allowing you to save time.
You can use these filters if you run out of paper towels to clean windows, and they do an excellent job.

Heat up leftovers in the microwave and cover them with a filter. This will help keep your microwave clean.
Use coffee filters to absorb grease from greasy foods, they do the job perfectly.

Catch ice cream drips by using a coffee filter as an ice cream cone holder, it will absorb the mess.
Use like a Kleenex when you don’t have a tissue, it will get the job done when you are in a pinch.

Keep a few coffee filters in the trunk of your car, and you will be able to check the fluids with ease and avoid the mess.
Use them to clean your glasses, they actually work the best and won’t leave any lint on the lenses.

Make an air freshener by adding some baking soda and using a twist tie to secure the contents. Then put them in all the places you need to freshen up.

Use as small bowls to divide ingredients to ease the mess in the kitchen and making cleaning a breeze.
Use coffee filters to polish your shoes, this will keep them nice and shiny.

Us e them when you are packing breakable dishes, this will help protect them better than newspaper.
Use coffee filters as coffee cup covers when you are re-heating coffee to avoid any spilling or splashing. This will help keep your microwave looking its best.

You can use them to protect your counter when you are cutting vegetables, they will help make sure you are slicing the vegetables and not your counter.

Coffee filters can be used to help diffuse the brightness of the flash on your camera. This will help ensure that you get the best picture possible.

To Sum It Up

Coffee filters can be used for many things that you may never have thought of, so be sure to take advantage of all these extra household ideas, and you will indeed save time and money.

A Brief History of Espresso

Luigi Bezzera, the owner of a manufacturing business invented Espresso at the turn of the century.  Luigi Bezzera was simply trying to figure out a way to brew coffee faster.  He figured if he could just add pressure to the brewing process it would speed things up.  Thus the "Fast Coffee Machine" was created.  His idea of a fast cup of coffee turned out much better than he had planned, what he ended up with is a better, fuller tasting cup of strong coffee, as well as a much faster process.  He found that the quicker more efficient brewing method allowed for the quality of the beans to be extracted as opposed to over extracting he had previously experienced.  The term "Espresso" means fast in italian, hence the term.

It wasn't until later when Desidero Pavoni purchased the rights from Mr. Bezzera for the espresso machine that it became popular.  Pavoni was extremely successful in marketing the product and probably changed the way people drink coffee from then on.  Just look around!  Coffee and Espresso shops are popping up everywhere, even in the U.S. it has become not only popular for the delicious beans, but has given us a new place to socialize.

Espresso Timeline:

In 1901 Luigi Bezzera filed a patent for the espresso machine that contained a boiler and four "groups". Each group could take different size filters that contained the coffee.  Boiling water was forced through the coffee and into a cup.  Ambrogio Fumagelli says that this was the birth of (fast) espresso coffee.

In 1903 Luigi Bezzera's patent was then purchased by Desiderio Pavoni and put to market in a big way.

In 1905 The Pavoni company begins manufacturing the espresso machines soley based on Bezzera's patent.

In 1927 First espresso machine was installed in the United States.  It was a La Pavoni Espresso Machine installed at Regio's

in New York.

In 1938 Cremonesi designed a piston pump that forced hot water through the coffee.  It was installed at Achille Gaggia's

coffee bar.

In 1946 Gaggia begins manufacturing the commercial piston machine.  Resulting foam or cream layered coffee or cafe'.

Top Coffee Recipes To Impress The Loved Ones

Have you ever tried preparing fancy coffee adding whiskey or other things? Yes! Coffee can be prepared adding various recipes to it for the taste you want. The tradition of serving coffee with a different relishing flavor has been there since ages. There are as many ways to prepare coffee as there are races in the world.

Discover here the art of preparing a variety of the most experimented beverage in the world. There is no longer any need to step in a restaurant for sipping your favorite cup. You can prepare it with a difference, every day to the wish of your gusto and enjoy a cupful of it being hypnotized in its flavor. The modus operandi is very simple and you simply need the ingredients of the recipe for the kind of the taste you want.

Let's reveal the secrets of some of the ecstatic flavors of coffee beans:

Cafe Borgia
This Italian serving needs hot chocolate, whipped cream and grated orange peels as its main ingredients. Take two cups of strong Italian coffee and mix it with another two cups of hot chocolate. You can make the proportion as per your need but the coffee and the chocolate ratio must be the same. Pour it in the mug and add the cream and the orange peels...And its ready for an amazing sip!

Irish Coffee
A cup of Irish Coffee lights up the mood and fascinates truly in Irish way. A cup of it requires Irish whiskey, cream, and sugar. Prepare a cup of strong coffee, then add one shot of Irish whiskey and the amount of sugar you need. Put the cream over the top. It's ready for the shot!

Caribbean Coffee
This is a sweet coffee for a sweet mood. Feel the taste of coco in a tart flavor. You need baked grated coconut, coconut water, milk, sugar and cream if you are willing for a little change. Make three cups of strong coffee. Mix the grated coco, milk and coco water in a pan and heat it till it is creamy. Put some extra grated coconut in the cup to be served, pour the coffee and the milk mixture prepared along with some sugar. The sip of it will take you to the beaches of Caribbean!

The Mexican Mocha
You require two cups of strong coffee, chocolate syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, whipping cream for the mocha to comfort you in the scorching sun. Mix the chocolate syrup, cream, cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg in a cup. Pour strong coffee prepared into the mug and add little bit of cinnamon in it. Add some chocolate syrup and stir well. Pour the mixture of cream over it. Have it and feel it!

While trying these coffee recipes, you will be a coffee expert. Be innovative in your coffee preparations and give it name you want and surprise your friends and loved ones.

The History Of Coffee

Coffee, the brew, that more than half the people around the world need to kick start the day. Ever wondered about the origins of this humble but oh so important cup of joy and how it landed up on the shelf in your neighborhood store? Did you also know that everyday there are about four hundred million cups of coffee consumed around the world? It all began about two thousand years ago and today it has a market where the output as a commodity is a close second to petroleum in its dollar value.

Coffee by itself is broadly categorized into two main types - the Arabia which started out on the Arabian Peninsula and the Robusta which has twice the amount of caffeine. Apart from this there are at least a dozen bean varieties in existence today. The beans are red or green in type and here the red is known for its higher aroma and lower acid content and it is this type that is used to make some of the finer coffees of the world.

The coffee berry or ‘cherry’ as it is called, is not of any value by itself but yes, the bean inside it, that’s the one which has all the importance attached to it. It is this bean that is aged, roasted, ground and then sent on for brewing. The picking is done by laborers who pick a few baskets a day and they have to be skilled in separating the red from the green beans. This has a very definite role to play in the final product. The time of picking of this cherry is of the utmost importance as it has to be done when the berry goes from green to red.

Once picked, the fruit undergoes a process of being soaked, scoured and rubbed mechanically and the bean is then washed to ensure no flesh of the fruit remains. The beans that are the result of this fermentation stage are then sun dried on large concrete or rock surfaces till their water content drops to about 12 percent. This is followed by the sorting of the beans based on size and color. After the polishing to remove any remaining skin they are then sent on for roasting or kept to age from three to eight years. Roasting happens at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit where the beans expand to almost double their size, then crack and turn brown as the oil inside is secreted out. This oil is where the difference in the basic flavor comes from. Post the roasting, the beans are de-gassed which means that the beans produce a lot of carbon dioxide and this is removed by airing them out or packaging them in semi permeable bags for shipping.

At the roasting stage, a lot of in-house techniques have been developed which basically account for the difference in flavors. So coffee in Kenya or Java will taste different from say some other country. At the grinding level there are again a lot of differences in styles and the results of those styles. The Turks pound the beans into a powdery consistency using a mortar and pestle and in some other places the ‘burr’ grinder crushes the beans to a regular sized granule and yet others chop the beans to a less homogeneous size using a chopper.

The final cup that you get is actually either boiled, which means hot water is poured and the grounds are allowed to settle or it is pressure-prepared, which refers to the espresso type where not quite boiled hot water is poured through the grounds at very high pressure or then the third way of percolating where hot water drips onto the grounds and is filtered or otherwise it is steeped like tea is, but the bags tend to be larger.

So there you have the journey of coffee from the plantation to your cup and with research coming up with the benefits of drinking coffee, let’s raise a toast to the cup that cheers!