Friday, October 30, 2009

Coffee Health Benefit: Slower Liver Damage Progression

According to Reuters, drinking coffee on a daily basis may slow liver damage from a hepatitis C infection. Patients who are diagnosed with hepatitis eventually have to deal with liver problems, chronic inflammation and scarring of liver tissue known as cirrhosis of the liver. Without a proper functioning liver, the body has trouble breaking down fatty acids and removing toxins from the body. Liver cancer is a possibility for people with hepatitis C. Cirrhosis of the liver is also caused by excessive, long-term alcohol consumption, although this study only dealt with hepatitis C cases.

In the study, 766 people were monitored. Patients who drank three or more cups of coffee reduced the rate of liver damage by 53% over a four-year period. Why does coffee have such a positive effect on this particular disease? With myriad antioxidant compounds, the key to slowing liver damage through coffee is unknown at this point, although curiously enough, drinking tea does not have the same health benefits as drinking coffee in this particular case. It is something specific to the coffee bean that is slowing the disease. Aside from being high in antioxidants, coffee also has an effect on insulin levels, which could be related to the benefits for hepatitis patients.

In addition to drinking copious amounts of coffee, eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and drinking herbal teas, such as red clover and dandelion, which act as blood cleansers, can support liver functioning and slow cirrhosis of the liver.

Source:
          Examiner

Monday, October 5, 2009

Coffee & tea event to boost beverage market

An upcoming specialty coffee and tea convention will seek to support the growth of the GCC’s beverage market besides addressing several industry issues, its organisers said.

The inaugural Specialty Coffee & Tea Convention, an event specially designed for the region, will be held at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai from November 10 to 12.


The convention will incorporate a special conference with the theme “In Pursuit of Sustainable Quality: From Seed to Cup,” covering global trends in coffee and tea consumption, regional investment opportunities and other pressing industry issues on quality, sustainability and corporate responsibility.
'The 2009 conference will gather influential figures and leading industry authorities who will spearhead a thought-provoking conference that will give participants a broader and objective perspective of the present and future prospects of the industry,” said Anselm Godinho, managing director, IC&E, organisers of the event.
“With a diverse mix of participants including retailers, franchisers, distributors, trainers, specialists, hotel professionals and several other representatives from various industry segments, the 2009 Conference will also provide an excellent opportunity for industry players to discover new business leads and forge synergistic partnerships,” he added.
'Over the years, we have witnessed a growing consumption of beverages across the UAE and the rest of the GCC,” Godinho continued.
“The Specialty Coffee & Tea Convention 2009 seeks to nurture this trend by creating a definitive platform that tackles and addresses the distinct challenges of the coffee and tea trade, while promoting sustainable strategies for growth.”
Key topics discussed during the conference will include global trends in coffee consumption, opportunities and threats; improving the quality of coffee – service and the product; promoting the health benefits of coffee; the state and future of coffee in the GCC.
The event will also discuss topics on differentiating tea - history and trends; local investment opportunities, franchising and setting up in the region; assessing consumer liquidity – supply and demand; and corporate social responsibility and fair trade focus.

There will also be networking activities and workshops on espresso fundamentals, basics of cupping, roasting and specialty tea. – TradeArabia News Service

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Coffee or Tea?

Every fall, school and life seem to pick up speed and overwhelm college students with stress, anxiety and all-nighters. Exhaustion becomes the norm that underlies all activity and it comes to replace the boundless energy we once had in the summer, just a few weeks ago.

Soon enough, our small talk in between classes will be consumed with the depths of exhaustion and its various cures, such as deciding whether to have a jolting cup of java or a cup of tea, pinkie-lifting tranquility.

The benefits of caffeine culture for college students include the ability to combat slumber and ride out the misery of sleep deprivation. As an increasing number of UC Irvine students join the ranks of those relying on caffeine to add some pep to their step, the question is whether they are putting their faith in coffee or tea.

Tessa Zelaya, a third-year social ecology major and Starbucks barista, says, ‘I drink coffee for the taste. Tea is just too watered down. I need caffeine to speed up my day, so I’ll drink around four cups.’

She adds, ‘At Starbucks, I’ve noticed that people are a lot more health conscious from the shift in orders. There are more espresso drinks instead of frappuccinos; especially non-fat lattes.’

‘Tea is healthier and lighter,’ said first-year biological sciences major Kevin Ergina. ‘It helps me urinate and it’s more tasty than coffee. Caffeine is something I try to stay away from.’


People are increasingly realizing that those caffeinated beverages they drink all night to help them finish their assignments are affecting their health, and they need to focus more on the beverage itself and less on the jolt. This critical awareness has sparked the debate over the health benefits that coffee and tea offer and spawned countless research studies.

The Journal of the American Medical Association did a report on a team of Japanese researchers who were able to link green tea consumption with decreased mortality from all causes, including cardiovascular disease. Green tea is high in polyphenols, which are compounds with strong antioxidant activity that in test-tube and animal models show anticancer and heart-protective effects.

The researchers followed 40,530 healthy adults from the ages of 40 to 79 in a region of northeastern Japan, where most people drink green tea. They monitored these adults for up to 11 years. Those who drank five or more cups of green tea a day had significantly lower mortality rates than those who drank less than one cup a day. There were also fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease.

But the results showed no such association with deaths from cancer. Nor was consumption of oolong or black tea linked to any decrease in mortality. Those teas are more oxidized in processing, which not only darkens the color of the leaves and changes their flavor but also reduces their polyphenol content.

Habitual tea drinkers’ reduced cancer risk might stem from tea’s high antioxidant capacity. Tea might protect the heart by relaxing blood vessels, inhibiting clots and reducing cholesterol levels. And researchers speculate that the fluoride and estrogen-like substances in tea may bolster bone density.

Coffee is more complicated. It has received both gold stars and black marks in the medical literature. It, too, contains antioxidants, although they have not been studied as well as the polyphenols in tea. However, evidence for the health benefits of coffee is growing.

In the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a group of investigators from Finland, Italy and the Netherlands report that coffee seems to protect against age-related cognitive decline. The scientists studied 676 healthy men born from 1900 to 1920 and followed them for 10 years, using standardized measures of cognitive function.

Their conclusion: the men who consumed coffee had significantly less cognitive impairment than those who didn’t. Three cups a day seemed to provide maximum protection.

Population studies like those help form hypotheses about relationships between dietary habits and long-term health. But scientists still have to test our suppositions in controlled conditions and measure the effects of coffee and tea on various systems of the body.


A joint study by the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham & Young Women’s Hospital has found that there is no long-term link between coffee consumption and increased blood pressure in women.

The BBC Health reports found that coffee has been linked with a number of the risk factors for coronary heart disease, including increased blood pressure and high blood cholesterol levels.

However, no relationship has been found between coffee drinkers and the likelihood of developing coronary heart disease. Research has found that coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, kidney stones and colorectal cancer.

A couple of cups of coffee a day is safe, but much more will raise the risk of other problems and side effects, including jittery hands, disruption to the sleep cycle and palpitations, not to mention stained teeth.

Yet it’s difficult to suggest a safe limit for coffee intake because of the huge variation in caffeine content of different brands and an individual’s sensitivity to the drug. People with high blood pressure and pregnant women are advised to limit their caffeine consumption.

For the rest of the population, there’s no evidence coffee does any long-term harm. Caffeine does have a mild diuretic effect, however, so try to include plenty of non-caffeinated drinks throughout the day as well.

Caffeinated and decaf coffee each contain antioxidants and other substances that may help regulate blood sugar, which may explain the apparently reduced diabetes risk. Certain compounds in coffee also appear to help prevent bile from crystallizing into gallstones. Also, caffeine may cut the risk of Parkinson’s by boosting supplies of the brain chemical dopamine, at least in men.

Although coffee often seems more ubiquitous due to the Starbucks culture, consumption of tea is quickly growing as well. One may argue the ceremony factor: tea requires patience to make, and the process is more enjoyable than the rush of making coffee.


Kombucha tea has become popular, but there aren’t any clinical findings to verify its health effects. Kombucha mushroom tea, also known as ‘Manchurian tea’ or ‘Kargasok tea,’ is not actually derived from a mushroom, but from the fermentation of various yeasts and bacteria. A starter culture is added to a mixture of black tea and sugar, and the resulting mix is allowed to ferment for a week or more.

However, research can only go so far. Dr. Soheyla D. Gharib of the Center for Wellness and Health Communication at Harvard University Health Services notes the old adage: ‘everything in moderation.’

Most students say research studies are unlikely to change their behavior, though the results may sit in the back of their minds.

‘I’m just annoyed with it all,’ said fifth-year mechanical aerospace engineering major Paul Zelaya. ‘It’s the 21st century, and we figured out how to get to the moon, but we’re still debating about whether or not we should be drinking more coffee or tea.’

Tiffanie Ramos, a second-year psychology major, says, ‘It’s not a religion. It’s just a drink.’

The Source:
               NEW UNIVERSITY

Comment:
This is just a suggestion to researchers at the Center for Wellness and Health Communication at Harvard University Health Services. I think they will also include in their studies the difference of health benefits between various type of coffee beans like the jamaican blue mountain coffee, green mountain coffee, mountain green coffee, coffee green mountain and other coffee beans including ordinary coffee beans. My point here is to identify which among these coffee beans can give more health benefits to coffee drinkers. This undertaking may give justification to the high prices of jamaican blue mountain coffee, green mountain coffee, mountain green coffee and coffee green mountain provided that the result of the study will reveal that these expensive coffee beans will also provide more health benefits. However, if the study will reveal the other way around, then the only advantage that green mountain coffee, mountain green coffee, coffee green mountain and jamaican green mountain will give to us to justify their high prices is just the world class taste that these coffee beans posses.

Coffee and Tea Convention to throw light on regional investment opportunities and global trends

(Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, Green Mountain Coffee, Coffee Green Mountain and Mountain Green Coffee not specified)

WAM Dubai, 24th Sept. 2009 (WAM) -- Organisers of the Specialty Coffee and Tea Convention 2009, the first international specialty coffee and tea event crafted for the Arab World, have announced that the Convention will incorporate a special conference with the theme "In Pursuit of Sustainable Quality: From Seed to Cup," covering global trends in coffee and tea consumption, regional investment opportunities and other pressing industry issues on quality, sustainability and corporate responsibility.

The Convention, which has been organised as a major complementary initiative that seeks to support the significant growth of the GCC's beverage market, will be held at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai from November 10 to 12, 2009.

Renowned international experts and professionals led by Jose Sette, Head of Operations of the International Coffee Organization (ICO), will speak at the conference. Sette will deliver the keynote address and will conduct a presentation titled "Outlook for the Middle Eastern and World Coffee Markets," during which he will illustrate the recent trends in coffee prices and highlight production and consumption, with a special emphasis on the evolution of coffee consumption in the region and the impact of the economic downturn on the global coffee sector. Ric Rhinehart, Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), will serve as the 2009 Conference Chairman.

Anselm Godinho, Managing Director, IC'&'E, organisers of the event, said:"The 2009 Conference will gather influential figures and leading industry authorities who will spearhead a thought-provoking conference that will give participants a broader and objective perspective of the present and future prospects of the
industry. With a diverse mix of participants including retailers, franchisers, distributors, trainers, specialists, hotel professionals and several other representatives from various industry segments, the 2009 Conference will also provide an excellent opportunity for industry players to discover new business leads and forge synergistic partnerships." "Over the years, we have witnessed a growing consumption of beverages across the UAE and the rest of the GCC. The Specialty Coffee '&' Tea Convention 2009 seeks to nurture this trend by creating a definitive platform that tackles and addresses the distinct challenges of the coffee and tea trade, while promoting sustainable strategies for growth," added Godinho.

Key topics discussed during the conference will include Global Trends in Coffee Consumption, Opportunities and Threats; Improving the Quality of Coffee - Service and the Product; Promoting the Health Benefits of Coffee; The State and Future of Coffee in the GCC Region; Differentiating Tea - History and Trends; Local Investment Opportunities, Franchising and Setting up in the Region; Assessing Consumer Liquidity - Supply and Demand; and Corporate Social Responsibility and Fair Trade Focus. There will also be networking activities and workshops on Espresso Fundamentals, Basics of Cupping, Roasting and Specialty Tea.

Serving as a major highlight of the Specialty Coffee '&' Tea Convention 2009 is the first-ever National UAE Barista Championship, which will determine the UAE's representative to the World Barista Championship in London, UK in 2010. Preliminary rounds of the competition will be held on November 10 and 11, while the final round will be on November 12. The inaugural National UAE Barista Championship is the only barista competition in the region accredited by the World Barista Championship, the world's biggest and premier coffee competition.
WAM/TF


The Source:
               W A M
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Comment:
Will the National UAE Barista Championship event take into consideration the use of special and world class coffee like Jamaican blue mountain coffee, green mountain coffee, mountain green coffee, coffee green mountain and others? If the organizer of this event will not direct all participants to use a single kind of coffee bean, then participants who wants to win in this event will surely use green mountain coffee, mountain green coffee, coffee green mountain and jamaican blue mountain coffee because of its world class taste..
Photobucket

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee

I am dedicating this blog to all coffee drinkers, coffee lovers and to my family. I am wishing that someday, i will be able to taste Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, or even the Green Mountain Coffee. These two are the best coffee in the whole world and the most expensive coffee. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is grown in the Blue Mountain of Jamaica wherein the climate has help the coffee beans to grow in the most perfect way which greatly affects the taste of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee.

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