My relationship with coffee is complicated and hard to explain!

I love the smell of coffee, love iced coffee and frappuccino but won’t go near hot coffee! Why am I writing  a post about coffee then? Well that is meant to say that even if you are not a coffee person, there are so many other ways to enjoy coffee, especially good quality coffee.

Before we can get to the different ways to enjoy coffee, I thought it would be best to start with the way to make the perfect cup of coffee. Once you have made your coffee to perfection there is a world of options on how to enjoy it. One of my favorites is coming in an upcoming post

The perfect way to brew coffee in a French press

Why a French press?

For two reasons

• the coffee grounds are fully steeped and saturated at the beginning of brewing.
• this method retains the natural oils of the coffee that are normally absorbed by the paper filter.

You will need

• Boiling water
• Good quality coffee (I used Puro organic)
• A deserving mug or cup 🙂
• Sugar (optional)
• Milk (optional)

Use a kettle to boil your water.

Pour some of the boiling water into your cup or mug and into the French press to warm them up. Then discard the water

Allow the rest of the boiling water to sit for a couple of minutes after boiling before adding it to the press.  Don’t fret too much about temperature, but most coffee geeks recommend 180-200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Add 7 grams of coffee per 125ml of water into your French press

Pour a third of the hot water into the French press, slowly covering all of the coffee grounds as you fill it up. Allow them to stand for a minute, this will allow the coffee granules to swell

Add the rest of the water, let the coffee steep for 3 more minutes.

That is a total of 4 minutes.

After the time has passed, press the plunger down slowly.  Pour the coffee into your cup or mug. You do not want to leave the coffee sitting on top of the grounds, as that will make it bitter.

Enjoy it black or add milk and sugar if desired

Enjoy!

A few weeks ago Puro fair trade coffee contacted me and offered to send me a sample of their coffee to review. Puro Fairtrade Coffee is a brand from a company called Miko who has been roasting coffee in Belgium for 212 years now. It was created in 2005.

I expected to get a small bag of coffee but instead they were extremely generous to send me this wonderful package.

The package contained  samples of 3 blends of coffee, hot chocolate, brown sugar, an elegant cup a book marker and a little rose.My kids were hyper excited to try the hot chocolate and that is the one we started with. Both my kids gave the chocolate two thumbs up.

When it was time to try the coffee, there were 3 blends to choose from:

Puro Organic

Grown in Peru and Honduras. This coffee is made up of 100% of the finest Arabica. It combines soft notes of sweet chocolate with tangy citrus.

Puro Noble

Grown in Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, Congo.This coffee is made up of 80% of the finest Arabica and 20% Premium Robusta. It is Rich and lively, medium roasted with hints of fruit and hazelnuts

Puro Fuerte

Grown in Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, Congo.This coffee is made up of 50% of the finest Arabica and 50% Premium Robusta. It is a fragrant full body dark roast with a touch of spice

What is Arabica and robusta coffee?

To clear up the terminology. Arabica  is a species of coffee originally indigenous to the mountains of the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia. It is also known as the “coffee shrub of Arabia”, “mountain coffee” or “arabica coffee”. Coffea arabica is believed to be the first species of coffee to be cultivated, being grown in southwest Ethiopia for well over 1,000 years.

Arabica is said to produce better tasting coffee than the other major commercially grown coffee species, Coffea canephora (robusta), because robusta cherries contain twice as much caffeine as arabica. Caffeine itself has a bitter taste, making robusta more bitter. Arabica on the other hand contains less caffeine than any other commercially cultivated species of coffee.

So, what do you think of the coffee?

I tried the coffee myself and gave some of it to my coffee loving friends to get their feedback.

I opted to start with  Puro Organic as that coffee is described to have chocolate and citrus notes. That combination happens to be one of my favorites. The coffee definitely has a personality and vibrancy. The flavor is rich and even though I could not taste the chocolate and citrus tones I loved the layers of flavor this blend offered. It ended up being my most favorite of the three. Despite the fact that I don’t usually drink hot coffee, I really enjoyed starting the day with a cup of Puro organic coffee. It seems that my morning cup of tea may have some serious competition.

I found that the Fuerte and noble blends were too strong for my taste. Maybe that was due to the fact that I am not much of a coffee drinker. My coffee loving friends loved the Fuerte and the noble better than the organic. They loved the roasted bitter taste these two blends have.

Where can I get Puro Coffee?

If you are wondering where you can get Puro coffee. Puro does’t have their own cafes and you won’t find them in supermarkets, nevertheless, if you drink coffee, then they will have probably enjoyed their coffee without realising it! Every National Trust site uses puro coffee, restaurants like Gourmet Burger Kitchen and The Real Greek, large offices such as Innocent Drinks (the smoothie company), hairdressers like Headmasters and golf clubs like Wentworth all serve puro coffee. You can find out more about where to buy puro coffee here 

What does fairtrade mean?

Fairtrade products are grown by small farmers or plantation workers, who are meticulous about their business and generally pick their crop with great care. They have often grown up knowing nothing else but coffee, with their forefathers teaching them the tricks and trades of the industry so they have become agricultural masters. They talk passionate about their beans, their way of life, and their families. Fairtrade  aims to help producers in developing countries to make better trading conditions and promote sustainability ( the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time). It advocates the payment of a higher price to exporters as well as higher social and environmental standards.

What I really loved about Puro and what made me say yes to the review is that alongside Fairtrade, they have a passion and a mission to communicate the threat to rain-forests and the need to preserve it. You see, after oil, coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world. It is sometimes referred  to as green gold, so imagine the amount of coffee consumed every day all over the world. By putting messages on their cups and sharing their stories and videos with their clients and consumers, Puro hopes to help make a difference. They want to show other companies that people and planet are just as important as profit.

You see,rainforests once covered 14% of the earth’s land surface but now they cover a mere 6%. Experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Within the next quarter of a century, nearly half of the world’s species of plants and animals could be destroyed or severely threatened due to rainforest deforestation.

Puro aims to assist in every small way in halting the deforestation of our planet and they have teamed up with the World Land trust to assist in making it an economic reality. The World Land Trust conserves biodiversity by protecting threatened habitats and, in cooperation with local partners and communities, helps to ensure that they are managed sustainably. Puro now has reserves in Brazil, Ecuador, and Guatimala.

Money from each bag of Puro coffee sold goes towards buying and protecting areas of rainforest vital for biodiversity in coffee producing countries. To date, consumers of Puro coffee have enabled the following:

9105  acres of rainforest to be bought and protected,
14 new species to be discovered and named by science (1 tree, 12 orchids & 1 frog)

The new species of orchids was discovered within the Puro Coffee Reserve in Ecuador, by Lou Jost and published as a new species previously unknown to science in April 2011. Located within Chocó, Colombia. A 124 acre Puro reserve is the only protected location in the world of the critically endangered and close to extinct Golden Poison Frog

Their efforts to give back to the planet does not stop there. Miko has 9000m2 of solar panels on the roof of their building to generate their own electricity. They have a webcam in the rainforest that shows streaming wildlife footage from the breathtaking Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest.They even have a section on their website called coffee recycling to give you ideas on how to recycle used coffee. Add the used coffee to your plant pots,use it as an exfoliant, try it on furniture scratches or as a deodorizer.

On Puro fairtrade coffee’s facebook page, they share amazing pictures and info about animals and plants in the rain forest. Like the cute pygmy marmoset(which is found in the Amazon Rainforest and is said to be the smallest monkey in the world) and the  Baobab tree. It’s also known as the upside-down tree, because its branches look like roots. It’s found in Madagascar and the chunkiness of its trunk is explained by its ability to hold up to 120,000 litres of water, which helps see it through periods of drought.

I love sharing these pictures and information with my kids so that they can learn more about this wonderfully beautiful planet we live on.

The next time you are out to buy coffee, think about giving a little back to our lovely planet and give Puro coffee a try. I just know you will enjoy it and do stay tuned for my iced coffee recipe that I made using puro coffee. It is coming very soon

Disclaimer

Please rest assured that even though the products were sponsored, it does not have any bearing on the content of this post. Opinions stated are objective and genuine.