People, often than not, pair food with a beverage that is palatable to their taste. One food commodity that does not go out of the picture nowadays is coffee. It has become so essential in our daily routine that different coffee shops mushroom all over the world. Every food imaginable is paired with coffee. But what food really goes well with coffee? Is there really any formula that would make any combination perfect?

Most people won’t even care what food they eat as long as they have coffee in the morning. It really depends on your own tastes what you want to pair coffee with. The truth is, there are great food out there that can taste even better with coffee.

Well, here are some suggestions.

Coffees that have deeply smooth, natural chocolaty, and nutty tones goes well with any salad, biscotti, or shotbread.

A sweet, full rich coffee with a well-balanced taste, and with a touch of orange or caramel tone is taste great when paired with cakes, nut bread, and granola.

Coffees grown in high-altitude places is usually known for being consistently smooth and fragrant. Consequently, these coffees have rich, smooth, and delicate taste. These goes well with baked foods that are lightly flavored.

Coffees with rich, fruity taste, and with hints of wine, lemon, and berries and medium roasted go well with cuisines that include lemongrass or spicy dishes or bread.

Coffees with smoky smooth, fruity, and with rich chocolaty tones or medium to dark tones go well with cheesecakes, chocolate cakes, or pies with carmelized sauces and subtle flavored baked food.

Coffees with deep berry or strong winey taste is great with fresh fruits, scones, and tarts.

Coffees that are of mild and medium tones or those with delicate, dry, intensely sweet go well with breads, quiches, cookies, breakfast, or lighter taste foods.

Coffees with naturally exotic, earthy, or intensely smoky taste go well with heavy cuisines like roast beef or lamb, tomato sauce or sauteed vegetables.

Heavy and dark roasted coffees go well with fruit tarts and pies, meat, potatoes, rich filled-desserts, or anything with chocolate and caramel. It also goes well with most scones and biscuits.

There is really no formula as to the kind of food that really goes well with coffee. A taste that is to one’s liking may not go well with another’s and vice versa. This is true with any kind of food and beverages. Every food and beverages that one takes would still depend on one’s taste buds.

So finally, pairing coffee with any kind of food is like a journey. A long the way, you will encounter varieties of food that, though delectable, are not compatible with your coffee. However, like every journey, it should still be savored and enjoyed.

As William Henley would say, You are the captain of your ship, you are the master of your soul. I say, you are the connoisseur of your coffee, you are the taster of your food.

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Coffee is such a delicious and popular beverage that there are a lot of coffee variations that people have come up with. This article will discuss some of the most popular coffee blends in the world.

1. Espresso – A very famous coffee blend in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, and most of the world. This blend originated in Milan, Italy in the early 20th century.

Espresso is concentrated coffee brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffee that has been ground to a consistency between extremely fine and powder.

During the early days, it was made through steam pressure, but with the invention of spring lever piston has made espresso the commercial success that it is today.

2. Cappuccino - This is a coffee-based drink prepared with espresso, hot milk, and steamed-milk foam. This is a variation of espresso but different enough and popular enough to merit its own place in this list.

This beverage has an milk/foam ratio of 150 ml and 180 ml, differentiating it from a caffe latte. It is traditionally served in porcelain cups because of the heat retention properties better than paper cups or glass.

Cappuccino got its name from the order of Franciscan Minor friars, named “Cappuccini” because they have a tradition of wearing hoods with their habit Hence the name.

3. Caffe latte – Latte in Italian simply means milk. This drink is approximately one third espresso and two-thirds steamed milk, with a layer of foamed milk approximately 5 mm thick on the top. It is similar to cappuccino, the only difference is that cappuccino has only 50% the amount of milk.

The debate rages whether this concoction is from Italy or made in California. It was said that Lino Meiorin invented caffe latte in 1959 because his customers demanded more milk in their cappuccino. They thought that the cappuccino was too strong for their taste. Lino then made a new menu with the caffe latte included prominently.

4. Frappe – This is a cold coffee drink made from instant coffee. It was created in Greece in 1957 in the city of Thessaloniki. It is served cold with a straw, with or without sugar or milk.

Yanis Dritsas was a Nestlé employee who introduced a drink for kids where a chocolate drink was shaken in a shaker and then served. According to Wikipedia, “Dritsas’ employee Dimitris Vakondios was looking for a way to have his usual instant coffee during his break but he could not find any hot water, so he mixed the coffee with cold water and a shaker.” And a new beverage was born in .

Outside of Greece there is also the Thai iced coffee that is served in Thai restaurants.

5. Instant coffee – This is the most popular coffee preparation, as it should. It is simply coffee that is dehydrated and converted into powder or granular form. This can then be hydrated with water to provide a drink identical to the original form.

This is the most popular coffee preparation because of the long shelf life and the ease and speed of preparation, plus it tastes almost as good as the original. Or at least some brands claim that they taste almost as good as the original non-dehydrated version.

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Tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world. It stands tall next to coffee and even water, imagine that. People who are sick of sodas and coffee often go to tea for refreshment. Tea is an important beverage as discussed in the past articles. Tea has been the center of some movements and even revolutions, that is how great the history of tea has been so far.

For people, instant powdered tea in tea bags are the only thing they know to consume. This article will help people know the kinds of tea that they can drink aside from commercial powdered tea. Here are the most popular and delicious tea varieties you can try.

Green Tea

Once upon a time, black tea was the most consumed tea in the West. But maybe because of the much hyped healing properties of green tea, this strain of tea has become very popular all of a sudden. Not to say that green tea is a bad type of tea, it is actually very tasty.

Green tea is made solely with Camellia Sinensis with minimal oxidation during processing. Recently, scientific studies has been done on Green tea. Preliminary studies show that this type of tea has properties that can lower the risk of heart disease and cancer, as well as help in weight loss management.

Black Tea

The taste of black tea is robust and malty. You should drink black tea with milk or honey. You can also add a bit of lemon if you want. This type of tea is more oxidized than any other tea, thus it has more caffeine content than any of them. Black tea in a tea bag is still one of the most popular types of tea in the world.

Black tea in China is also known as “Crimson Tea.” Experts says that this is a more apt description of the color of the tea. Although, the name black tea can also be descriptive of the color of the tea leaves that it was drawn from. Black tea can also refer to a tea serving without milk.

The advantage of black tea from green tea is that it retains its flavor in about a year, while green tea loses some of its taste in less than that.

Oolong tea

This Oolong tea is a favorite of tea aficionados. Its taste is very complex with a few blast of fruity after taste that tingles the palate. Oolong can start at 10% oxidation to 70% oxidation. This means that it can be almost like green tea at lower oxidations and it can be almost like black tea in higher oxidations.

Although, Oolong tea tastes a little like green tea than black tea, it does not have the grassy, vegetal hints of green tea. It also does not have the wonderfully strong aroma of black tea.

The name Oolong tea originated in China where it can mean “black dragon tea.” There is a theory about the history of this name where Oolong was a direct descendant of the Dragon-Phoenix Tea Cake tribute tea. It was said that eventually, Oolong replaced the said tea when it became popular. It got its name thus because it looks like a dragon with its curly, dark, and long features.

More tea varieties

Aside from the three very popular tea varieties mentioned above, there are also some other teas that you might enjoy. There is the rare white tea which people posit as more potent than green tea when it comes to health benefits. Thee is also Tisane or herbal tea, which does not contain real tea but it has various plants boiled up like chamomile.

Tea is a very popular beverage because a lot of its properties are special unto itself. It may have healing effects or not, it does not matter, since it is still enjoyable as just a beverage. Hopefully, the revival of the popularity of tea among the masses will help people realize that artificial drinks can cause obesity and even diabetes in some cases. We should really be thinking and consuming only healthier food stuffs to help us stay energetic and able to perform everyday.

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Colombia or officially the Republic of Colombia is the 4th largest country in South America and the 26th largest in the world. Accordingly, it is the 29th largest population in the world and the second most populous country in South America, next to Brazil. Colombia is part of the Pacific ring of fire where they are prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The weather in Colombia is largely determined by its closeness to the equator, which essentially means that it is predominantly tropical. There is what they call Tierra Templada or temperate land, which is the best place to grow coffee in the country.

This is the main reason, among other things, that Colombia is the third largest producer of coffee in the world. Although Colombia is a distant third to Brazil at only 16% coffee production, it is still very competitive and far from Indonesia with less than at 7% production, and Mexico at fourth with only 4% coffee production.

It was in the early 1800′s when coffee was first introduced to the land of Colombia, but it was on 1835 when plantation and cultivation of the product began. The coffee in Colombia are grown in altitude. It is one of the richest coffee in the world as it is described as full bodied and perfectly balanced.

Different historical statements agree that coffee in Colombia was brought by visiting Jesuit priests from Europe in the 16th century. There are two regions that Colombian coffee is grown. The first is in the Central MAM region around Medellin, Armenia and Manizales. The second is on the more mountainous Eastern side where Bogota and Bucaramanga lie.

The coffee flavour from the first region is said to be full bodied, rich, and with balanced acidity. While the coffee from the mountainous side of the region is said to be even more richer with very minimal acidity. This is why the finest coffee in Colombia comes from this mountainous region.

It was only very recently that Vietnam surpassed Colombia in coffee production. Vietnam actually produces almost 6 more tonnes of coffee than Colombia at this moment. The thing is, many people still believe that the Colombian coffee is superior than coffee grown in Vietnam. This is, of course, an opinion of a vocal majority of coffee drinkers and is echoed by coffee experts all around the world. Experts believe that the Robusta product of Vietnam is inferior compared to the rich, full bodied, and balanced Coffea Arabica L. of the high altitudes of Colombia.

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