Here’s good news for the night shift -

The New York Times science editor reports the results of several studies…

About 8.6 million Americans work night shifts, and for many of them fatigue is a serious problem…

Scientists have tried melatonin, prescription medications and light therapy to help relieve so-called shift work disorder, caused by disruptions in the body’s circadian rhythm.

But research shows that nothing seems to work quite as well as caffeine.

Scientists found that caffeine worked better than a placebo — and even naps — at reducing errors and improving performance on tasks including those involving memory, attention, perception, concept formation and reasoning.

Artisan Roasting

At Big City Coffee, we hand-select the green coffee beans to order, blending the required varieties or choosing the best single origin gourmet beans. Then we artisan roast the beans in small batches using a 5 kilo drum roaster.

It’s an intimate craft process; you hear the beans tumble, feel the heat transfer, smell the coffee as it roasts, then you thrill to the snap and crackle of the beans as they reach the peak of their roast cycle.

The perfect results cascade from the drum into the cooling tray before being inspected again to assure the roast quality.

Your order is then weighed, bagged, and packed by hand, insuring that many of our coffee experts have agreed to put their names on the quality testament for every customer order.

Three 8 oz. cups of coffee (about 250 milligrams of caffeine) per day is considered an average or moderate amount of caffeine.

Ten 8 oz. cups of coffee per day is considered excessive intake of caffeine.

How much caffeine a child receives should be closely monitored. Although caffeine is safe in moderate amounts, it may negatively affect a child’s nutrition. Caffeinated beverages may be replacing nutritious drinks such as milk. A child who consumes caffeine may also eat less, because caffeine suppresses the appetite.

There is no nutritional requirement for caffeine, so it can be completely restricted in a child’s diet. Caffeine is a stimulant. Avoiding caffeine may be necessary for a hyperactive child.

If you are pregnant or if you have coronary heart disease or peptic ulcers, your health care provider may recommend that you limit or avoid caffeine intake.

Many drugs will interact with caffeine. Consult with your health care provider or pharmacist about potential interactions with caffeine whenever you take medications.

More health information on caffeine and coffee is available from the National Institutes of Health.

If you’ve ever had coffee in New Orleans, you may find there’s an added, unfamiliar but pleasant zip in that cup. It isn’t the water and it isn’t special beans. More than likely, it is the chicory doing a zydeco dance on your taste buds.

What is Chicory?

Basically, chicory is a type of flowering plant of the Asteraceae family. While there are half a dozen varieties, only two are commercially cultivated for human consumption. Chicory grows very easily in much of the US, sometimes found as a weed called coffeeweed, succory or blue sailors.

Chicory plants are usually bushy with lavender or blue blossoms. While the flowers are beautiful to look at, the roots are actually what is used in the beverage making business. The greens are sold as endive, radicchio, Belgian endive, French endive or witloof in grocery stores. Cultivation is usually done in complete darkness so the greenery of the plant can be harvested and sold as well.

Chicory and Coffee

Dating back for many decades, the root of the chicory plant has been baked, milled and substituted or added to ground coffee to add a spiciness similar to but distinctly different than cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. It is believed that the French started this tradition and influenced cities like New Orleans to do the same. The essence of a coffee drink, when mixed with chicory, is less harsh and has less acid than plain coffee brews.

It’s Good for You

There are dozens of medicinal uses and benefits of including chicory in your cup of coffee. It’s been used for centuries in Germany, Rome and France to treat everything from liver and gallbladder problems to a laxative and dyspepsia.

The most recent discovery is that chicory is high in insulin, containing up to 20% of the blood sugar stabilizing chemical. This is great news for those suffering from Type II diabetes. Taken alone or mixed with coffee from beans, those stricken with diabetes can naturally and holistically stabilize their blood sugar levels and help maintain healthy levels.

While medical professionals will steer you away from treating many internal health problems on your own, you can use a strong pot of chicory coffee, taken throughout the day, to care for a number of ailments. Dyspepsia (chronic upset stomach), loss of appetite caused by nearly anything, liver trouble, gallbladder problems and intestinal worms can all be treated to some extent with chicory root beverage. Chicory is frequently prescribed to cancer patients going through chemotherapy to counter the appetite depleting and constipation often associated with the treatment as well as the disease.

Make a Chicory Coffee

Traditional chicory coffee is made with a French press. Start with about a quarter cup each ground chicory root and ground coffee beans. Both should be the texture of rough sand. Place both the chicory and the coffee beans in the bottom of the French press.

Boil enough water to just about fill the French press. Use filtered water if possible. As the water comes to a boil, pout it into the press. The beans and chicory root will float to the top of the water. Press the French press plunger down just far enough to hold the grounds under the water.

Allow the mixture to steep for about five minutes. Press the plunger in all the way to compact the grounds and release their essence into the water. Pour into cups and sweeten with a cube of sugar or artificial sweetener and milk or cream.

The spent grounds make a great lawn and garden fertilizer. If you compost, adding the grounds will infuse nitrogen into the resulting soil. Worms will swarm to your compost and garden to munch your grounds.

Gourmet Chicory Coffee

If you don’t want to experiment at home, then you can also get New Orleans-style coffee with chicory roasted and ground to order from specialty coffee roasters. Chickadee Brand coffee is a popular organic, Fair Trade coffee roasted by Big City Coffee and available throughout Louisiana and online at http://BigCityCoffee.com

Recently there has been a major shift in medical opinion regarding the consumption of coffee. In fact, it might be said that in the old adage ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ the word ‘apple’ has been replaced by ‘a cup of coffee’.

Before anyone rushes out to brew up a gallon or two, it’s still wise to remember that drinking multiple cups of black, highly-caffeinated coffee on a daily basis isn’t a healthy option. The instant buzz of an espresso shot comes at a price – palpitations and raised blood pressure being just two of the things the addicted coffee drinker will experience after a caffeine overdose. Everyone is very aware of the caffeine content of coffee, but it’s only recently that the positive health properties of coffee have been investigated.

This has to be good news for coffee aficionados. The bad news is that drinking caffeinated coffee to excess can still be bad for your general well-being. Nevertheless, as with all things in life, sensible coffee consumption can have beneficial effects. So sticking to the recommended two or three cups a day can actually do you good.

Current research has elevated this everyday beverage to the Number One antioxidant in America, having ten times more antioxidant properties than red wine or tea, traditionally the two big front-runners in the battle against free radicals. But what are free radicals, and why do we need protection from them?

Unlike fish, the human body needs air to survive; in other words, we cannot exist without oxygen. We breathe it in, and it is transported, via the blood stream, to every cell in the body. Put simply, this essential ingredient can become unstable and produce ‘free radicals’

So we generate these ‘baddies’ as a natural by-product within our cell structure but, at the same time, the body is exposed to outside influences such as cigarette smoke, air pollution, and ultra-violet rays, in daily life. Therefore, our bodies are suffering a double attack, from both internal and external forces.

In the light of this information, we are constantly searching for the magic ingredient to ward off health problems brought about by these renegade ‘free radicals’. In high doses however, antioxidants can actually produce a reverse effect, promoting pro-oxidation, or free radical production, but as long as antioxidants are sourced from natural products, and included as part of the daily diet, there will be no problem with over- dosing, and the body will be well protected.

Coffee beans contain chlorogenic acid, which is a potent antioxidant, and a 200 ml. cup of arabica coffee can provide up to 200 mgs. of chlorogenic acid. It’s the roasting process that actually activates the antioxidants, and beans roasted for ten minutes to produce a medium to dark roast are the most beneficial.

The addition of a small amount of sugar and milk are said to boost the antioxidant properties as well. The process of de-caffeination seems to have little effect on the beneficial effects, which is good news for those who suffer from high blood pressure or insomnia.

Drinking coffee has an effect on weight loss, but not all kinds of coffee have the same impact, and coffee affects different dieters in different ways.

The caffeine in coffee is a benefit to dieters who drink coffee regularly. A clinical trial at the University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, found that habitual drinkers of caffeinated coffee tend to have a milder response to stress.

Among people who have to have their morning coffee to wake up, emotional stress results in less release of the stress hormone cortisol. Since cortisol is associated with deposits of belly fat, drinking coffee on a daily basis results in less belly fat and lower weight.

Among people who drink decaf or who usually don’t drink coffee at all, drinking coffee had the exact opposite effect. A sudden jolt of caffeine, if you are not used to it, raises blood pressure and increases the production of cortisol.

In the Swiss clinical trial, blood pressure in drinkers of regular coffee increased to an average of 130/74 in response to an experimental emotional stress. But average blood pressure in non-coffee drinkers and decaf drinkers rose to 151/83 under the same conditions.

The sudden rise in blood pressure was due to cortisol, and this is the same cortisol that encourages deposits of belly fat.

If you are not used to caffeine every day, caffeine causes weight gain. But if you can’t get started without your morning cup of coffee, caffeine in coffee assists weight loss. This effect is even more pronounced for high-caffeine coffee drinks like espresso.

Guest Post

Coffee is a universal drink consumed all over the world. There are many whose daily chores always start with a hot cup of coffee. Nowadays, modern cafes have promoted Coffee as an essential element of social networking amongst people of different strata. Apart from homes, even in workplaces and offices, there is always an informal exchange of one’s’ thoughts and feelings around a coffee machine.
In India, people of different regions consume both coffee and tea as their regular daily beverages. Coffee is predominantly consumed in the South India and the North Indians prefer tea. There is a traditional method of preparation of Coffee in the orthodox South Indian homes. This method has been in vogue for centuries and those who are addicted to the “Filtered Coffee”, as it is known, will not accept any other type of coffee including the commercially available “Espresso” in the coffee shops.
The coffee recipe of these particular South Indian homes goes like this – they purchase the coffee beans from the shops, mostly the local variety grown in the ‘Coorg’ district of India. These beans are roasted and ground in small home coffee grinders. Some people also mix a small percentage of what is known as “chickaree” beans, before grinding, to get a specific flavour to the coffee.
The ground coffee powder is stored in the homes and brewed as a ‘decoction’ in small filters with hot water. South Indians prefer the coffee to be quite ‘strong’ and the filtered liquid is mixed with boiled milk and sugar to get the famous “South Indian Filtered Coffee”. The coffee is served in a small stainless steel tumbler. If you happen to visit a typical South Indian home, remember to ask for their special “Filtered Coffee” and you can enjoy the drink with its rich flavour and aroma.

It turns out that it’s milk and sugar (and their substitutes) that cause ‘coffee breath’…

“We expected coffee would cause bad breath, but there is something inside this magic brew that has the opposite effect.”

In the laboratory, a team at Tel Aviv University monitored the bacterial odor production of coffee in saliva.

“Contrary to our expectations, we found some components in coffee that actually inhibit bad breath,” explains Prof. Rosenberg, leader of the research team.

The findings were presented last month to members of the International Society for Breath Odor Research in Germany by Yael Gov, a researcher in Prof. Rosenberg’s laboratory.

Purified coffee extract can be added to a breath mint to stop bacteria from forming, stopping bad breath at its source, instead of masking the smell with a mint flavor.

Coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the bloodstream, reducing vascular risk factors for dementia.

A team of Swedish and Danish researchers have uncovered an intriguing link between drinking one to five cups of coffee a day and dementia.

Reported in the New York Times, the study tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 with Alzheimer’s disease.

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia.

The altitude at which a coffee is grown plays a major role in determining the quality of the bean.

Because there is less oxygen, coffees grown at higher altitudes take longer to mature than plants grown at lower altitudes.

This allows the flavors to develop more fully and produces beans that are delicate and flavorful.

Higher-grown coffee beans usually have a higher density than low-grown beans,
which enhances the complexity of the coffee flavor profile.

Most coffees from Panama and Central American are graded by altitude. (2,000-5,000 ft)

Altitude Bean Type:

* above 1.600 meters Strictly Hard Bean
* 1.350 – 1.600 meters Hard Bean
* 1.200 – 1.350 meters Semi Hard Bean
* 1.000 – 1.200 meters Extra Prime Washed
* above 600 meters Prime Washed