A well-known coffee company once used a woman named Mrs. Olsen to do its pitch in television commercials. While her presence proved effective for the manufacturer, HOMETOWN COFFEE can only agree with the first seven words of Mrs. Olsen's oratory - "There's no secret to brewing good coffee."

She's right. Once you understand how brewing and grinding processes affect flavor in your cup, the rest is common sense.

First, lets take a look at what happens during brewing. Soluble ground coffee flavor components are added to water to create a beverage that is approximately 99 percent water and 1 percent soluble solids. The proper extraction level for specialty coffees is 15 to 18 percent, meaning that percentage is extracted into the brew. A 12 percent extraction would not allow the coffee to exhibit its full flavor potential and would be "under-extracted." A 22 percent extraction would highlight the bitter and less flavorful aspects of the brew and would be termed "overextracted." Extraction levels of coffee drops when more coffee is used. The lower the extraction rate, the higher the aromatics and better the taste. The main priority in brewing coffee is to avoid over and under extraction. A good rule of thumb is to use approximately one ounce of coffee for 20 fluid ounces of water. Time, temperature and grind are variables which determine extraction rate.

With most coffee making systems, the amount of time the water contacts the ground coffee is regulated by the brewer itself. The only way the coffee maker can be controlled is to adjust the grind - a finer grind will extract more quickly than a coarse grind. A French press system allows you to adjust time to match the grind for a perfect extraction. (Too fine a grind, however, can cause pressures during the plunging operation that may break the carafe.) Water should be just below boiling,around 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit. Any water that has its own flavor can taint the taste of coffee. To minimize this reaction, use cold, rather than hot, tap water for brewing. Hot water heaters have a significant impact on the taste of the water, because heat intensifies water's mineral tastes. If your cold tap water has taste or is hard, use spring or distilled bottled water. As a note, boiling coffee will always lead to over extraction.

Do your customers a favor and explain the extraction process if they ask for an extra fine or Turkish grind and do not have a brewing method to match. Correct water/coffee contact is in the following chart.

Hometown Coffee Company uses special European Flavorings to add special flavors to some of our coffees. The flavoring is applied directly to the freshly roasted coffee beans, just prior to packaging protecting the delicate flavor and providing optimum freshness of the coffee.

Due to the complexity of the flavorings and the competition in the industry, the ingredients of the flavorings are confidential. Each indivdual flavor used by Hometown is custom blended to our taste objectives. Each of our products has passed several quality tests including; FDA, Kosher Certification and industry standards.

Our flavorings DO NOT contain; sugar, alcohol, calories, sodium, nondairy creamer hydrogenated fats or oils.

Different coffees contain varying levels of caffeine depending on their botanical variety, brewing method and the amount of coffee used. The high grown Arabica beans naturally have less caffeine than Robusta beans grown at lower altitudes.

• brewed Robusta coffee (6 oz.) -- 120-200 mg.
• brewed Arabica coffee (6 oz.) -- 60-100 mg.
• can of cola (12 oz.) -- 60-100 mg.
• brewed tea (6 oz.) -- 60-100 mg.
• an average chocolate bar -- 80 mg.
• brewed decaffeinated coffee (6 oz.) -- 1-5 mg.

A coffee must have 97% of its caffeine removed to qualify as decaffeinated in the United States. Each six-ounce cup of coffee ,therefore, contains less than 5 milligrams of caffeine. Decaffeinated coffees tend to cost more than their non-decaffeinated counterparts because of the additional labor, equipment and materials expenses required for caffeine removal. Coffee beans are decaffeinated before they are roasted thus having the least effect on the flavor of the coffee.

Decaffeinated usually involves the use of a solution containing water and coffee flavor elements plus a decaffeinated agent. There are primarily two methods of decaffeination; direct and indirect contact. In the first, the beans come directly in contact with the decaffeinating agent, after being softened by steam.

In the later method, a water / coffee solution is normally used to draw off the caffeine. After being separated from the beans, the solution containing the caffeine is then treated with a decaffeinating agent.

In both methods, the agent is removed from the final product.