For coffee lovers!

How to brew great coffee at Home??

There are 4 critical things to brewing great coffee. They are

1) Proportion

Accurate measurement is the most important step in brewing good coffee. As a general rule, use 10 grams (2 rounded tablespoons) of ground coffee for each 6 ounces of water (0.17 liters).

2) Grind

It is important to use the right grind for your coffee maker. The length of brewing cycle and type of machine will determine the approximate grind. Too fine a grind or too long a brew time will make the coffee bitterness due to over-extraction. Too coarse a grind or too less brew time produces watery coffee.

3) Water

Coffee flavour is greatly influenced by the water that is used. If tap water has any unpleasant taste, it will be transferred to the coffee, so use of filtered or purified cold water heated to just off boil(195-205 F/91-96 C) is recommended.

4) Freshness

For best results, make your coffee fresh each time you serve it. Coffee can be kept warm over a burner for about 20 minutes before the flavour is affected. The principle cause of flavor loss after brewing is continuous heating. Once brewed, coffee held in uncovered, heated containers (a glass pot on a warming burner like in most gas stations!!) will retain optimal freshness for no longer than 20 to 30 minutes. Continuous heat will break apart the organic materials, and the coffee will develop a sour or bitter taste with smoky overtones. Heat will evaporate the water, condensing and cooking the flavoring compounds that remain.

Thermal containers are a better way to hold coffee. They are insulated and airtight, preventing evaporation, and will retain the aromatic compounds of the coffee. Because the coffee is not subjected to continuous heating, the coffee can be held for as long as 45 minutes before flavor characteristics will begin to change and dissipate. If your brewing equipment cannot brew directly into a thermal pot, immediately transfer the brewed coffee to a thermal container.

How do I know this? well folks for the benefit perpetually broke coffee lovers like me who cant afford frequent visits to the nearby Starbucks cafe, i just tipped a starbucks waitress 10 bucks and convinced her to let me know the secret of starbucks coffee!! So all tipe mentioned above comes from the world's best coffee makers!!

As for me I just finished a grande cup of Starbucks coffee - Guatemala blend! Blew a freaking $11.60 hole in my wallet (Including the $10 tip to the waitress!!)

to know more about history of coffee goto
http://www.starbucks.com/ourcoffees/coffee_edu2.asp?category%5Fname=History+of+Coffee

To know more about coffee growing regions goto
http://www.starbucks.com/ourcoffees/coffee_edu4.asp?category%5Fname=Growing+Regions

And also to know more about brewing great coffee you could visit
http://www.virtualcoffee.com

Hope this helps...signing off then!!

-feeling sick, anxious, tired, bored and totally disinterested with life right now
-wanna break away from routine and set out to explore the world.
-want to spend time lying in solitude under the sun on a virgin beach with shallow water, warm breeze, cold drink and doze off to sleep...........
these are the things i feel like doing right now!!

Lets do it!!

whats is with Indian Women and sex?

Recently I was talking to a girl and casually mentioned something about sex and guess what happened? she looked at me like i was from Mars or some entirely diffrent planet. Fortunately she wasnt very close to me cause if she was she would have probably forced me to go on my knees and beg to the great lord for mercy!

I mean seriuosly dont understand this! do most women dont know about sex or just act ignorant about it or do they think it turns men on if they act ignorant?

We are in a world where it is an accepted fact that "even the queen has 2 legs" then why this taboo? It is understandable to feel uncomfortable talking abt sex to parents but to friends i think should be totally fine. It is probably because of this ignorance or the attitude to not discuss abt it that the number of sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise in India. On one side there is westernization and sexual liberation happening is most major cities in India and on the other side there is this attitude soo many ppl have, both put togeather i think is leading to an environment where ppl do have sex but are too shy/shameful to admit it!

Root cause analysis
From the knowledge I have of having interacted with Americans (of approximately my age) whom we can consider much more sexually liberated than us, I understand that they not only feel comfortable talking about sex but also are not ashamed to say "they have done it". So why are Indians shy to admit it?

The logical answer to that question would be that our Indian society in general does not accept leave alone appreciate pre-marital sex. However here in the United States sex is accepted as a part of life. married or not a girl and a guy when in a relationship are considered to have sex. period. no cuss no fuss!! A girl and a guy are still expected to be "chaste" during their wedding. Its been that way in India ever since the instituition called marriage was found! I am not sure when that was but sometime before Christ was born would be a good guess!
Frankly speaking it was that way in the United States too until the last few decades.

So why is that the people in the United states changed their attitudes about sex but where as other parts of the world did not? but before we get into i was wondering Men and Women have come a long way from the time of the early man to the current situation. So it is reasonable to assume that everything men and Women do has a reason. so why is it that there evolved a "no pre-marital sex" rule?

One reason i could think of is that in the old times before contraceptives were invented/discovered it would almost be impossible to have sex with multiple partners as the chances of getting a woman pregnant was very high. It would also be difficult to say who fathered a child esp. since a new born child needed considerable care and protection as diseases were widespread and mortality rates were high. Moreover because of the seemingly different roles men and women had to play in everyday lives they were physically separated for most part of the time hence it made it almost impossible for the either sexes to meet and socialize. Another reason valid particularly for people in India is the existence of child marriage where children were married when they were less than 10. so basically the had sex when they were old enough to know what it is!

But what happened? things changed (atleast in the west) where as contraception was discovered and pppl changed their attitudes abt sex and understood that it was nothing more than a physiological need of a Human Being.

Things didnt change much in India though where still age old customs was followed How can it be? sex is the need of a prefectly normal human being. Its altogeather natural to feel an attraction for a person. how can anything that contradicts laws of nature ever be right? what about bachelors and spinsters? are they supposed to die as a virgin? Even scientifically sex brings about a lot of harmones which are good for both the body and the mind. If something is good for you why would you want to refrain from it just because of ancient customs which dont make any sense anymore?
I am not for adultery or dishonesty in a relationship. I do certainly feel that when one is in a relationship you have to be totally committed to it. What I am for is to make sexual relationship between couple acceptable independent of their marital status!!

So my advice to fellow Indians....throw out the chastity belts you have in your minds and go out and have fun..but be sure to be safe!!

Life's (should be) like that!!

Sitting beneath the sun, on this beautiful summer day, beside lake Zurich I was enjoying the cup of coffee along with the double chocolate mint brownies. Tired of shopping in the Bahnhofstrasse in the shops of Chanel, Hermes etc., it just felt like being in heaven at the Sprungli Café just overlooking the Lake at the end of a 2km stretch of shops of the Bahnhofstrasse. The coffee served was delicious just the kind of coffee i liked..strong and full of flavour and aroma and whats best you get a bottomless cup of coffee!

I was looking at what i had just bought..50ml of Eternity by CK, a light blue Linen shirt and black shades by Giorgio Armani, a black pure wool suit and crocodile leather wallet by Hugo Boss etc., when the hot looking waitress with never ending shiny long legs, wearing a light brown skirt, well above her knees (obviously!!) and a cleavage showing low neckline white "lacy" cotton top asked me if i wanted some more coffee. i was about to begin a conversation with her when something more sexy appeared on the road in the background, a marlboro red 612 Scaglietti (for the benefit of those who dont know..its Ferrari's latest sports car, V12 which goes from 0-60 mph in less than 4 seconds). I quickly asked the waitress to fill my cup without taking my eyes off the 612 which quickly zipped past the street out of my view. I looked at the waitress again, she was serving coffee to a couple sitting to my right, she really didnt look that attractive especially after looking at the 612 and decided she was not worth asking out!!

I then focussed my attention to the work at hand, the double chocolate mint brownie. It was delicious and had a rich chocolate topping with some mint filling. After finishing the brownie i devoured some more junk food till i could eat no more. I then just streched and looked at the world pass by me. God this was heaven! At the moment it felt like i had everything one could ask for, gr88 job, money, power, bachelor life..god this is heaven on earth!
"beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep beep" rang the alarm as I got up on a Monday morning sighing! Damn i wish i atleast had dreams like this more often!!!

My schedule!

Folks,
this has more or less been my schedule for the past 3 weeks...I am getting bored and tired of it but just dont see how to change it. After all said and done...i have to agree I am after all a lazy guy!
9.00 am - Wakeup
9.30 am - Have Breakfast - (Coffee and Waffles...mostly)
10.00 am - Take a shower..get ready to goto office
11.00 am - arrive in office..work, check mails etc.
5.00 pm - go back home..if there is no other work to be done and by work i dont necessarily mean value added office work!
5.30-6.30 pm - Everybody Loves Raymond
6.30-7.30 - Seinfield...mostly else do some reading
7.30-9.00 - either cook or read something...The Seven Minutes...one of the most lousiest books i have read to date...dunno why i am still reading it!!
9.00 - Dinner
10.00 pm-1.00am - depends i generally either watch TV, or a movie or goto Youngs..i do almost anything other than sleeping.
1.00am - time for probably my 4th or 5th coffee for the day..have coffee do some reading, eating, talking etc.,
2.00-2.30am - time to goto sleep..thinking i am not going to waste tommorow and will do something constructive and also will get up at 8.30 am...
Tommorow never dies!!

The right choice??

Yesterday i was flabbergasted when i heard "The dick" (VP, USA) say :-
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice," Mr. Cheney told a crowd of 350 people in Des Moines, "because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
I mean what the f$&@..first they screw up and do not take any action the 8 months preceding the 911 attacks despite repeated warnings from the CIA and the FBI and several other leads indicating that Al-qaida was planning to attack a large attack in US soil..then they attack Afganisthan and Iraq..which is altogeather a diffrent story i am not going to even get into..but what astonishes me the most is that Bu$h and "the Dick" are actually running for re-election and campaigning, asking ppl to vote for them for the way they handled the country after 911?? gosh...if they hadnt screwed up there would have been no 911 at all!! the way Bu$h is learning nursery rhymes when the country he supposedly leads is under attack(as shown in farenheit 911 and also "the rise and fall of the WTC, an american icon" in the History channel) is something I will never forget..
This is not to say Kerry is a great leader...but me like many others beleive in "anybody but Bu$h". I wonder what Bu$h has done in 4 years for the economy, Jobs, Helth care...or what he plans to do if re-elected. I think it is important to address these issues..i till date havent heard Bu$h talk about trying to reduce health care costs or increase the jobs...
"God bless America...if Bu$h gets re-elected God will be the only one who might be able to do something"
It was interesting to read what one blogger had written abt "the Dick":-

I think Cheney's comment was spot-on. Look at what he said:

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice," Mr. Cheney told a crowd of 350 people in Des Moines, "because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

"We" made the wrong choice four years ago, and we were hit hard. Let's hope we get it right this time.

Roadgeeking

Hi all,
i am into a new thing altogeather..roadgeeking!! wondering what it is? check out
www.kurumi.com
and you will know what road geeking is all about! i have been truly fascinated by the US interstates and recently have been reading about them about how they were constructed and in the process came across this site and realized i was a roadgeek myself. i think maps are great sources of information and real fun to read. its even better to read them if you are travelling. here is some interesting conventions about the US interstates...all even numbered interstates run east to west and odd numberes interstates run north to south. the 3 digit interstates(3di) are generally near cities and the last 2 digits belong to their parent road..eg: I264 springs from I64. the 3 dis are generally loops or spurs or bypasses. spurs have a odd number and loops and bypasses have even numbers(though this is not strictly followed) there are lot more interesting facts which can be read in kurumi!! If any of you come across something else do lemme know...Id appreciate that!
happy roadgeeking

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talking about bad ads...the top in my list is the biore 20,000 ad which everytime is aired manages to get into my nerves..i mean what the heck? the whole damn ad doesnt make any sense..everytime i look at a Ad and think ads cant get worse than this the Advertising world surprises me by coming up with something even worse!! phew...whats the funda..i dont think anybody would have liked the Ad!
God save the world...the worlds getting more and more crazy..which reminds me of something i recently read..it said
"you know the worlds crazy if the best rapper is a white man and the best golfer is a black"
funny aint it?
more later...i have decided to write more often now on..