Honduras COMSA Manos De Mujer

Want to support women in coffee? Here is one of those rare opportunities where all that is good about coffee intersect. Simply a trifecta of organic farm management practices; traceable to women producers in the Marcala region, a protected designation of origin (DENOMINACION DE ORIGEN CAFE DE MARCALA); and a meticulous post-harvest standard of hand sorting cherry, cherry floating to remove less dense and damaged beans, proper fermentation, and extended drying times. It starts with a concept called Finca Humana (the Human Farm) at Café Organico Marcala, S.A. (COMSA), where the well-being of humans is the core objective and educating more than 1,500 producer-members to live in harmony with nature successfully everywhere.

The trailblazing ideas for using organic matter to cultivate high-quality coffee productively is only a sliver of what COMSA teaches about the power of nature through the Finca Humana philosophy. The focus of transferring knowledge is through week-long seminars called Pata de Chucho (pawprints left by a stray dog), which aptly reveals COMSA’s dogged exploration for human productivity in harmony with nature. COMSA dedicates funding from the proceeds of coffee sales to run a cutting-edge International school dedicated to filling children’s minds with possibilities and training them to be the future leaders of Finca Humana. And COMSA has significantly increased the participation of women within the organization, which has resulted in an active women’s group that processes its community lots called Manos de Mujer.

AirAsia x Everyday Coffee Roasters

AirAsia travelmall is an online travel retail platform under airasia.com that envisions redefining the duty-free, travel retail and overseas products shopping experiences. The platform enables travelers and non-travelers across ASEAN to choose from a bouquet of products across multiple categories, such as Beauty, Fashion, Electronics & Gadgets, Health & Wellness, Kids products, Confectioneries, and exclusive AirAsia merchandise.

Now you can get a bag of our coffee while you travel across 130 destinations all over the ASEAN nation during in-flight or have it delivered straight to your hotel or home.

See our latest offerings

Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Limu

Ethiopia is regarded by many as the birthplace of coffee. It has been cultivated there since the 1500s in much the same way it is grown today. Most coffee grows wild in the shade of other trees and is known as forest-grown coffee. Different coffees grow in gardens and other crops, with minimal agricultural intervention. Some are a bit of a combination, where producers lightly cultivate and weed their forest crop to ease harvesting. In any case, most smallholders produce an average of only five bags per year.

Limu lies in the western highlands of Oromia, Ethiopia. This region is known for its abundant water supply and forests (adjacent to those pointed towards as the birthplace of Arabica coffee). Most coffee in Limu is semi-forest grown on less than one hectare. Here, hummus-rich soils are renewed constantly by the continual fall and decomposition of organic matter.

Traditionally coffee in Limu was dried in the fruit and stored by producers in their homes until taken to a dry mill for exchange. It is only with the recent development of collective wet mills in the region that washed Limu coffee has emerged. The availability of water here, in particular, enables the washed process. This process, coupled with the genetic diversity of heirloom coffee varieties, yields the characteristic flavor profile. Like the coffee from other Southern regions, such as Yirgacheffe and Sidamo, Limu is known for its citric acidity and floral notes. However, Ethiopia Limu G2 typically has a fuller body and winey acidity.

Researchers find coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of death

Adults who drank moderate amounts (1.5 to 3.5 cups per day) of unsweetened coffee or coffee with sugar were less likely to die during a 7-year follow-up period, according to a recent study.

The outcomes were less evident for individuals who took artificial sweeteners. The findings of the study were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Previous studies observing the health effects of coffee have found that coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of death but did not distinguish between unsweetened coffee and coffee consumed with sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Researchers from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China used data from the U.K. Biobank study health behavior questionnaire to evaluate the associations of consumption of sugar-sweetened, artificially sweetened, and unsweetened coffee with all-cause and cause-specific mortality.

More than 171,000 participants from the U.K. without known heart disease or cancer were asked several dietary and health behavior questions to determine coffee consumption habits. The authors found that during the 7-year follow-up period, participants who drank any amount of unsweetened coffee were 16 to 21% less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee.

They also found that participants who drank 1.5 to 3.5 daily cups of coffee sweetened with sugar were 29 to 31% less likely to die than participants who did not drink coffee. The authors noted that adults who drank sugar-sweetened coffee added only about 1 teaspoon of sugar per cup of coffee on average. Results were inconclusive for participants who used artificial sweeteners in their coffee.

Any accompanying editorial by the editors of the Annals of Internal Medicine notes that while coffee has qualities that could make health benefits possible, confounding variables including more difficult-to-measure differences in socioeconomic status, diet, and other lifestyle factors may impact findings. The authors add that the participant data is at least 10 years old and collected from a country where tea is a similarly popular beverage.

They caution that the average amount of daily sugar per cup of coffee recorded in this analysis is much lower than specialty drinks at popular coffee chain restaurants, and many coffee consumers may drink it in place of other beverages that make comparisons to non-drinkers more difficult. Based on this data, clinicians can tell their patients that there is no need for most coffee drinkers to eliminate the beverage from their diet but to be cautious about higher-calorie specialty coffees. (ANI)

Source:

philstarlife.com/self/206574-coffee-consumption-associated-with-lower-risk-of-death

La Maison Ferber

Christine Ferber is a French pastry chef and chocolatier who co-owns La Maison Ferber in Niedermorschwihr, Alsace region of France. She offers “La Fée des Confitures” (the Jam Fairy), which she produces by hand over 200,000 jars annually worldwide.

Considered to be one of the greatest pastry chefs in France and by many as the top jam maker on the planet, her jams are sought-after at the following restaurants and hotels:

• Chef Alain Ducasse
• La Maison Troigrois (3 Michelin Star)
• Hotel de Crillon
• Four Seasons Hotel George V
• The Connaught London

Christine Ferber’s french jams and marmalades are now available in limited availability at our Hilltop Studio and GrabMart.

Try it on fresh bread or toast!