TRAVEL: CULINARY & DINING
Have you ever wondered what makes a person a Connoisseur? Simple, for example a coffee connoisseur is a person who is seemingly an ‘expert’ on the topic of coffee. Well, this week, we explore the world of coffee and bring you some information that will get you started on the coffee world. So next time you travel, you can decide whether a cup of coffee is the right one for you or not!

Let’s take a look at the history of coffee. It is agreed that coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia by a sheep herder named Kaldi. He noticed his sheep behaving strangely as they grazed near a green leaf bush which seemed to have bright red cherries on it. Kaldi decided to try the cherries himself and he soon understood why his sheep were so joyful.

He felt the effects. These effects were heard about by the monks at the local monestery and the monks then used the fruit to stay awake during extended hours of prayer. They then distributed the fruit to other monesteries around the world and this boys and girls, is how coffee came to be. Though it was discovered in the Central plateaus of Ethiopia , it was cultivated in Yemen around the 6th century, meaning it was brought over to Yemen from Ethiopia.

Today, there are two main species of the coffee plant that are cultivated and form about 80 percent of the world’s production. These are the Coffea arabica or Arabica Coffee and Coffea canephora or Robusta Coffee. The coffee plant is a perennial evergreen plant. The difference between the Arabica Coffee plant and the Robusta coffee plant is that the Arabica species is self-pollinating, whereas the Robusta species depends on cross pollination.

So how do the coffee connoisseurs tell if a cup is up to standard or not? Well, there’s something called cupping which is used to evaluate the flavor profile of a coffee. Here’s how it works. A table is usually prepared and the coffee cups are placed in a triangular fashion with about 6 to 10 cups per coffee.

At the top of this triangle you should place a sample of the roasted coffee and a sample of the green coffee. Then in the center, you should place a cup of room temperature water and an empty cup containing the cupping spoons.

Coffee brewing is an art and it is important to use the right brewing machines and measurements. Coffee should be brewed for 4.5-5 minutes using a ratio of 55 grams of ground coffee per liter of filtered water and ideal temperature is 97°C. Some of the best coffee in the world can be found in East Africa, The Caribbean, Central and South America, North America, Yemen and India.