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Internet Life recreation food and drink

Coffee and Tea

  BY DAVID HASKIN   

If you're a die-hard coffee or tea lover, you may need more of a jolt than you can get from your mug. To get a real buzz, you need Web sites. There were so many coffee and tea resources to sort through that we needed a few extra cups of the thickest brew to get to them all, and it could've been worse: We steered clear of the 200 or so sites mainly set up to sell coffee and tea, concentrating on sites that provide general information about this steaming topic.


Over the Coffee holds an astounding amount of information. Its impressive Reference Desk section includes a thorough list of coffee specialty drinks such as doppio (a double shot of espresso), a glossary of java slang such as "go juice" and "black juice from hell," a dozen food and drink recipes that use coffee, and links to a storehouse of recipes for biscuits and rolls to go with your cuppa joe. You can read up on different types of coffee beans and roasts as well as the health ramifications of coffee consumption, including an FDA report on lead leaching in ceramic mugs. Travelers will be delighted with the guide to coffeehouses in six obviously quite civilized nations, which was compiled from the alt.coffee and rec.food.drink.coffee Usenet groups. We especially appreciated the link to a site full of songs that mention coffee, including full lyrics and a search engine. The link to The Wall Of Java lets you read (and post) graffiti about the ol' wake-me-up. Not surprisingly, the quantity of links to other coffee sites is awesome, and it graciously includes links to some tea-related sites. We even found a downloadable autographed picture of Juan Valdez. (OK, we know, it's actually of the actor who plays him.) If you love coffee, this is the site for you.

A World of Tea is sponsored by Stash Tea, and it's a thorough source of information about this civilized beverage. You'll find a lengthy history of tea (which dates back nearly 5,000 years) as well as tea-related recipes (although Stash hypes its own products a bit too much in this area) and a handful of tea adventure stories. You can research teapots and the more popular teas or scan a list of tea quotes from Mick Jagger, Benjamin Disraeli, and dozens of others. The only shortcoming here is the lack of links to other sites, though they're promised.


Drew Ivan, a coffee fanatic, has created a good how-to guide for wanna-be fanatics. Besides a decent set of links, this site covers how to roast your own beans to get the freshest possible coffee and troubleshooting tips for when roasting goes awry. Drew has built an extensive chart describing the details, such as temperature, and procedures for different types of roasts. You'll also find a tutorial about the best ways to brew coffee. Even non-connoisseurs will find this site interesting.

If you've visited India, you know about Chai, the deliciously spicy milk and tea combination available practically everywhere for a few cents. Chai! is a small, attractive site that describes this delicious concoction and provides several recipes. Chai is catching on in the West. Get the lowdown on the authentic stuff at this site.

Soko Takechi and Sokyo Tiscornia are masters of the Japanese tea ceremony who live in San Francisco. Their small site lists dates and times when you can attend their classes and a bit of background about this beautiful ceremony.

The Chinese Tea Ceremony is ostensibly a photographic essay about Jan Lee, who performs the ceremony in New York. However, it outlines more of this connoisseur's thoughts about the qualities of Chinese tea than about the tea ritual itself. Still, it's an interesting and educational site, if narrow in scope.

David Scholefield's Coffee Page is a bit on the curmudgeonly side. He isn't shy about sharing his strong opinions about making and enjoying coffee. Don't ever, for example, use a drip coffee maker for making your beverage: Only a French press will do.

Let's get serious for a moment. Are you pumping yourself full of caffeine and wondering how it's affecting your body? If so, run (don't walk) to What You Should Know About Caffeine. This text-only page, part of a larger health-related site called The Virtual Health Store, provides answers to common health-related questions about caffeine. This page is a must for those getting a bit too jittery.

As we've said many, many times, when it comes to caffeine addiction, we don't have a problem. Really. We can quit anytime. But if you think you have a problem, read Ten Tips for Breaking the Caffeine Habit, brief but practical tips including alternatives to caffeine drinks.

Pour a steaming cup, sit down at your monitor, and jump to The Electric Java Hut. It's typical of many coffee sites, cultivating the atmosphere of a coffeehouse ("Look around at the usual bunch of caffeine addicts and lost artists. . ."). When we dropped by, we saw a feature on the history of coffee and a sizable set of links to pages of interest to coffeehouse habitues, such as links to sights containing poetry and art.

Coffee Talk is the Web version of a magazine for people who are so serious about their coffee that they want to go pro. Many of the articles concern the business of selling coffee, including franchising, for example. However, some articles will be of interest to non-professional coffee hounds, such as a piece about "cupping" that describes the best ways to serve coffee.

Coffee Journal is the Web version of a magazine dedicated to coffee lovers. When we looked in, there were only three articles from the current month's issue. The topics were interesting, including a lengthy article about roasting coffee at home. If the site maintainer would provide more content and more links to other sites, Coffee Journal would be a great service to coffee-loving Internauts.

The Caffeine Archive is a simple site with links to some of the better coffee resources, including coffee-related Usenet newsgroups. Besides the convenience of its links, perhaps its greatest service is providing a GIF of a caffeine molecule.

Sip by Sip: The Republic of Tea is sponsored by a tea company, but it provides some important, basic information. Besides hyping its own products, it has a brief guide to different types of teas, how to brew them, and a discussion about caffeine.

The Joy of Coffee is dedicated to selling a book of the same name. Some of the book's recipes are included here, as well as links to other coffee-related Web sites. If you're interested in one man's view of coffee's place in the world, this site is worth a quick stop.

Cyber Cafe is dedicated to the notion that "there is more than just Folger's." This page lists 25 countries and provides a brief description of the coffee grown in each. The descriptions don't describe the various roasts that can be applied to each type of bean, but this is useful, basic information.

Is there be a bigger waste of time (and bandwidth) than viewing near-real time images of coffee machines around the world? There are a number of such sites if you really have nothing better to do. One of the better known is The Trojan Room Coffee Machine at Cambridge University in England.

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QUICK CLICK!
Over the Coffee

A World of Tea

Drew Ivan

Chai!

Soko Takechi and Sokyo Tiscornia

Chinese Tea Ceremony

David Scholefield's Coffee Page

What You Should Know About Caffeine

Ten Tips for Breaking the Caffeine Habit

The Electric Java Hut

Coffee Talk

Coffee Journal

The Caffeine Archive

Sip by Sip: The Republic of Tea

The Joy of Coffee

Cyber Cafe

The Trojan Room Coffee Machine