June '04: This has been a momentous month for us. Because our wholesale business (as distinct from our website) had grown to the point where almost all of our time was being taken up with coffee production and packaging, it became obvious that we needed to make a decision. Basically there were two choices: either employ someone to assist us, or think about hiving off and selling the wholesale part of the business. Perhaps if we'd been 20 years younger we might have gone for the first option, but under the circumstances we ended up offering our wholesale sector to a much larger, well established (40 years) coffee company in Adelaide.

The company was very interested in expanding their sales of organic coffee, and since most of our wholesale business was built around the growing organic sector of the industry, they snapped up our entire customer base of distributors, retailers, and cafes. This left us with just our website to operate.

However part of the sale contract was that the new owners take over the Oz Coffee name and logo, which meant we've had to change the name of our website, and remaining business. This we've done and CYBER COFFEE was born. Any hits directed to Cyber Coffee will now automaticaly be forwarded to www.cybercoffee.com.au, where apart from some minor changes, all of our existing products are still available.

We hope that our valued internet customers will remain with us, since the only thing that has changed is our name.

HEALTH BENEFITS:
COFFEE FOR INVALIDS & FLO NIGHTINGALE

‘Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management ‘ originally published in 1859 has a paragraph titled “Nutritious Coffee” in the Invalid Cookery chapter . The ingredients she states as 1/2ounce (approx 14gms or 2 heaped dessertspoons) of ground coffee and 1 pint (2cups) of milk. In her method Mrs Beeton advises freshly grinding the coffee, and placing it in a saucepan with the heated (nearly boiling) milk, and boiling together for three minutes. Then leave on the hob (ie on the stove but not on direct heat) for 5 minutes to allow to settle, and pour into a cup. She also suggests the addition of a well beaten egg if more nutrition is required.

Mrs Beeton also claims “Our great nurse Miss Nightingale” says both tea and coffee are restoratives for the patient, but recommends limiting each to 1 - 2 cups per day. She feels that “Coffee is a better restorative than tea, but a greater impairer of the digestion” (ref: paragraph 1864 and subtext). Miss Nightingale felt that to grind freshly at home ensured the quality and integrity of the coffee.
In earlier paragraphs Mrs Beeton similarly advises buying freshly roasted coffee “berry”, which should be ground shortly before it is to be used, and “should never be boiled”, an opinion which is still strongly supported in the 21st century.

We recommend for example that water for the plunger should be brought to the boil and allowed to cool for a minute before pouring over the grounds or else the coffee grinds may scorch and the flavour be negatively affected.

Mrs Beeton’s ‘Simple Method ‘for making coffee was to slowly pour boiling water over coffee grounds held in a thick muslin bag, (suspended from an iron ring) into a preheated coffee pot. We saw this method repeated at every corner cafe in Laos. At the edge of the cafes, or on the footpath, large pots of water were kept constantly on the boil. For every coffee order, out would come the muslin sock to which was quickly added a measure of ground coffee and the appropriate amount of water, from the boiler, poured through it to be caught in a metal jug. This was immediately transferred to tall glasses and served, usually with the addition of condensed milk unless you were quick to ask for black.

COFFEE FOR BOWEL CANCER?

Researchers in Uppsala Uni in Sweden, (as reported in 1997 in a Weekend AFR) have shown that people drinking four or more cups of coffee a day are 30% less likely to develop bowel cancer. Other researchers in the Netherlands were claiming a negative cholesterol substance called Lp(a) was reduced by drinking generous amounts of coffee but couldn’t recommend it as a cure because too much coffee was needed and thus may have other side effects. BUT the good (anti cholesterol) effects were more likely to be found in drip filtered and instant coffees, and less likely in boiled styles such as Scandinavian and Turkish.

COFFEE FOR CANCER & GERSON’S THEORY

A contraversial alternative cancer therapy, acknowledged but not endorsed by the Anti-Cancer Foundation, has been with us since the 1920’s, developed by Dr Max Gerson. It follows a very strict dietary regimen underpinned by organic coffee enemas. The Anti-Cancer Foundation issues very strong warnings about this method but does produce an information sheet for interested members of the public. Their email address is: acf@acf.org.au The Gerson Institute is operated by the daughter of Dr Gerson and a newsletter from The Gerson Primer gave their address as PO Box 430 BONITA CALIFORNIA CA 92002. If this is not current no doubt a search on the internet will produce results.

COFFEE SKIN PRODUCTS

Various unique beauty products have recently been developed using coffee as the basis. Coffee oil is believed to enhance the quality and appearance of the skin. A group called Natural Source produce a series of beauty products: the “Daintree Facecare” range and include for example, Tropical Coffee Moisture-rich Lip Fix Cream, and several other coffee based products which sound good enough to eat if not drink. They use Australian grown coffee and other pure Australian tropical ingredients. Their contact details are: The Natural Source, 55 Bromby Street, South Yarra VIC 3141 Phone: 61 3 9821 5271, and their web site is: www.thenaturalsource.com.au

GROWING & ROASTING YOUR OWN:•GROWING YOUR OWN COFFEE

I had occasion to glance through an old ‘Earth Garden’, March/May 1998 magazine and chanced across an enthusiastic article on ‘G.Y.O.coffee’ written by Colin Westwood. Colin was originally inspired in the late 70’s to grow coffee after Bill Mollison, the permaculturalist both gave a talk and green coffee bean/seeds to participants to plant.(nb I too was fortunate to meet with Bill Mollison in Alice Springs when he similarly came to the Alice to conduct a series of lectures on Permaculture). Colin’s article demonstrates how coffee can be easliy grown, and in fact thrives if ignored, except in open spaced frost prone areas.

Colin’s information embraces the growth process from germination through to potting and planting out (in a warm northerly pozzie). Apparently the gardener has to wait 2 years before fruiting. The berries are handpicked when a deep red colour. (We have seen workers in Laos spreading a sheet of plastic/tarpaulin beneath the trees before picking commences to drop the ripe berries onto, and to facilitate bulk gathering.)

In my opinion the growing is the easier segment of the total process as next one needs to drop the ripe berries into a bucket of water and let them sit for a few days to rot the flesh from the internal seed/beans. This is called the ‘wet process’ as distinct from usual ‘dry process’ where commercial amounts of berries dry on vast cement surfaces in the sun, being raked and turned daily and finally rumbled to remove dry flesh and husks. The ‘wet’ worker needs to squeeze each berry to loosen the flesh and press it off. Each cleaned berry or bean is dried on screens, allowing air to circulate, for 2 - 5 weeks depending on the dryness of the weather. When dried the beans are ready for roasting.

ROASTING THE COFFEE BEANS

Colin describes his use of the kitchen bench top fan-forced oven for roasting, butwe have found the most efficient roaster for small quantities of green beans is a popcorn roaster. These can be purchased for approximately $50.00 at most appliance stores. Along as you have a space outdoors with access to power, 60 - 80 gms of beans (whether purchased or grown) can be roasted using this machine. The beans still have a papery husk or skin which comes off as it is heated and dried thus the need for being outdoors as this can result in quite a shower of husks.

We have found it takes 6 - 7 minutes for a medium roast, and another two or three minutes for a darker roast. The time depends on the beans. The roaster should be assessing the colour of the beans throughout the roasting, and must take the retained heat of the beans into account as this continues to cook the beans even after their removal from the heat source. Consequently we roast the beans to a shade just lighter than required, then immediately dip the beans into a cooling water bath to stop the cooking process and hold the roasting level. Obviously one needs to experiment to work out the optimum time and level of roasting for their beans.

Finally the freshly roasted beans are ground to make a delicious coffee. We find the roasted flavour of the beans becomes fuller if left for 12 - 24 hours; particularly with darker roasts as the coffee oils start to form, and make the roast aromatic.

Colin recommends the coffee tree flowers as aromatic and worth displaying inside as cut flowers. Coincidentally Burke’s Backyard has a section on growing your own coffee plants and could be found on: http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/facts/2002/garden/coffee_8.html
A further hard reference can be found in: “Backyard Self-Sufficiency” by Jackie French (published by Aird Books Melbourne, 1992). Jackie is a well known guru of the “Earth Garden” genre.

Another home-roasted coffee fan is one of our customers who contributed the following:

Home-roasted coffee, using a surprisingly simple method, can produce fresh coffee which is arguably as good as any obtainable. All that is required is a saucepan and lid, a glove or pot-holder (it gets hot), a metal-mesh sieve, a laundry misting spray-bottle, a heat source and 15 minutes of your time. The heat source could be a gas or electric stove, or even a campfire.
It is best to roast sufficient coffee for, say, one or two weeks at a time. You will be surprised at the amazing aroma of the fresh roast, particularly after it has matured in a container for a couple of days.
METHOD
Toss two or three handfuls of your choice of green beans into the saucepan and replace the lid . A suitable blend could be something like 80% Arabica beans (for flavour), and 20% Robusta (for body); it is good to experiment. Hold the saucepan with a gloved hand over the heat, which can be turned up quite high at this stage. Give the pan a good shake every 5 seconds of so, to allow even heating. After about 6-8 minutes, you should hear a mild cracking sound, like popcorn but somewhat quieter. There will be some smoke at this stage, and the beans will begin to look flecked with dark brown patches.

Immediately the cracking begins, turn the heat down to low-medium, to slow the process. Shake the pan at least every 5 seconds now, and don't worry about the smoke...it smells nice, like an Italian coffee shop! But do lift the lid and check the colour of the beans every few seconds; this is the critical stage, because you do not want to over-roast and carbonize the beans.

You may like to compare the colour with some standard beans at this stage. Whatever, after only a few more minutes, the correct shade of brown will be attained (keep shaking). Then quickly dump the hot beans into the sieve and straight away give them a few sprays with the laundry spray, to cool them and prevent over-roasting. Shake the sieve...some dark "chaff" will come loose.

The beans will be seen to have swollen to about double their size when green. Allow them to dry thoroughly whilst still warm, then, after a few hours, place them in an airtight container. The chemical reactions seem to go on in the beans for at least a couple of days after sealing, and as stated above, the aroma after 2 days will drive you mad!!

Chris vonderBorch
(nb Chris purchases green coffee beans from us.)