1/31/2012

Air, coffee's worst enemy!

How Ironic when you think about It; but then again, who really thinks about this other than us here at liQuid heaVen...

Simply, factually stated: AIR is the worst enemy of COFFEE.

Yet, stroll down any isle of any store that sells coffee and what do you see?

Carry this one step further if you will. You all drink coffee and you all have bought coffee, or sent for it via the internet. 

You have received coffee just like it is in every isle in every store that sells it. In a 'wide mouth' open bag, be it paper or foil. In a large red plastic 'wide opening' can like that of Folgers, or a big blue metal 'wide opening' can like that of Maxwell House. Or the 'wide mouth' coffee packages in various materials and the list goes on and on.

Once opened you are dreaming that afterwards by closing that can or bag you have trapped air OUT! Contrary mon ami…....YOU HAVE LOCKED AND SEALED IT IN. You opened it, forced in air by scooping or spooning and closed the bag or can sealing in unwanted air!

Ask yourself this question, If AIR is the WORST enemy of coffee, and it most certainly is, why do ALL manufacturers package their product in wide unnecessary opening packages?
Simple. They either don't care or have not given any thought as to why they have to emulate what their competitors are doing. Which by the way, is wrong!

Let’s look into the psychology of this ‘wide mouth’ packaging design that these coffee manufacturers are employing. Does it approach sustainability? I say not! Immediately K Cups comes to mind when I say how much waste is created by packaging. The K cup is the chief offender in packaging waste in our industry. The public does not think nor believe they are affected by packaging design. Well, they most certainly are.

Here at liQuid heaVen our top notch Research and Design staff have come up with the ultimate FRESH FOREVER® packaging of the best coffee on earth. We do not follow in any footsteps; we blaze a trail in uniqueness while maintaining sustainability in packaging.

Both staffs outlined goals. First and foremost liQuid heaVen’s coffee packaging must be Food Contact Acceptable. It must resist and be tolerant of Temperature while having a high degree of both tolerances and clarity. Both Research and Design were emphatic that the package be both Chemical and Impact Resistant. It’s Rigidity must be high and lastly, and most importantly, it must be made from clean and pure FDA Approved material and above all be Recyclable.

The extraordinary team here at liQuid heaVen have achieved all this and look forward to announcing it to the world.

All of our coffees and teas will be sealed within an FDA approved package that assures that liQuid heaVen products will remain Fresh Forever®

1/29/2012

Can Coffee Really Thwart Type 2 Diabetes?

THURSDAY, Jan. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Your morning "cup of Joe" may do more than deliver the jolt you need to get going -- it may also help you stave off type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.
But, before you pour yourself a second cup know this: The study authors said their research was done with cell cultures and there's no proof yet that coffee has any ability to keep type 2 diabetes at bay.

Past research has suggested a link between coffee and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, and now Chinese researchers behind the new study think they may know why that may be so. They found three major compounds in coffee that may provide potentially beneficial effects: caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and caffeine.

"These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of coffee consumption on type 2 diabetes mellitus may be partly due to the ability of the major coffee components and metabolites to inhibit the toxic aggregation of hIAPP [human islet amyloid polypeptide]," Ling Zheng, professor of cellular biology at Wuhan University in China, and colleagues wrote.

Human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) is a substance normally found in the pancreas, according to background information in the study. Sometimes, however, abnormal protein deposits (toxic aggregation) arise from hIAPP. These abnormal deposits (amyloid fibrils) are found in people with type 2 diabetes, the study authors said.

The researchers wondered if blocking formation of these deposits could help prevent or treat type 2 diabetes, the more common form of the blood sugar disorder. The next step would be to find a substance that might prevent these deposits.

In 2009, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that people who drank the most coffee seemed to have the lowest risk of developing type 2 diabetes. That study reported that with each cup of coffee consumed daily, the risk of type 2 diabetes dropped by 7 percent.
So, the researchers behind the new study conducted laboratory experiments to see if compounds found in coffee could inhibit the production of the abnormal protein deposits associated with hIAPP.
Caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and caffeine -- the three most common components in coffee, the study authors said -- helped reduce the abnormal protein deposits, but caffeic acid appeared most effective.

"Our results suggest that caffeic acid had the greatest effects in the major components of coffee. The rankings for beneficial effects of coffee compounds against the toxic hIAPP aggregation are caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and caffeine," Zheng and study co-author Kun Huang, professor of biological pharmacy at the Huazhong University of Science & Technology in Wuhan, explained in an email interview.

Because decaffeinated coffee contains even higher levels of caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid than caffeinated coffee, the beneficial effect may be even stronger for decaffeinated coffee, they added.
The investigators pointed out that this work has only been done in cells, so it's not clear if this is how coffee might help prevent diabetes in the body.

A U.S. diabetes expert was guardedly optimistic about the study's conclusions.

"Scientifically, this is a very nice paper, but it has its limitations," said Dr. Vivian Fonseca, president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association. "This was done in cells, not in animals or people. We also don't know if the [abnormal deposits arising from hIAPP] are the most important thing in the development of type 2 diabetes, or if it's something that develops later."
In addition, Fonseca said, the study that found a link between a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and coffee was an epidemiological study. That means the study couldn't prove cause and effect, only that there was an association between those two factors. It could be that people who drink coffee have other habits that lower their risk of diabetes.

The bottom line, said Fonseca, is it's way too soon to make any recommendations about drinking coffee to prevent diabetes. But, he added, "if you want to prevent diabetes, there are some very straightforward things to do. You can walk for 30 minutes most days of the week, and reduce calories a little bit and reduce your weight a little."

Zheng and Huang also pointed out that their study looked strictly at coffee. "Our study does not imply that the cream and sugar served with coffee will be beneficial for type 2 diabetes," they said.
The study was funded by grants from various Chinese governmental agencies.

Results of the study were published recently in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

1/06/2012

Helicopter dropped coffee cups to warn campers

SEATTLE — As scores of heavily armed officers scoured the woods south of Mount Rainier, hunting for the man who gunned down a national park ranger on New Year’s Day, Natalia Martinez Paz and three friends were enjoying a glorious long weekend of snowshoeing and camping.
It wasn’t until coffee cups dropped out of the blue Monday morning sky that they realized the danger they’d been in.

A Bellingham-based U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter crew searching for 24-year-old Benjamin Colton Barnes spotted the campers as they slept under their tarp near Reflection Lakes, not far from where Barnes headed into the woods after killing Ranger Margaret Anderson. Unsure whether the group could understand what they said over a loudspeaker, one of the pilots reached for a paper cup from a drive-thru espresso stand, swilled the rest of his coffee, scribbled a message and dropped it down.

“A ranger has been shot. Shooter at large,” it read. “Call on cell if able to Pierce Co sheriff.”

As the campers gathered their gear, the chopper dropped another cup: “Take road to falls and sheriff deputies. We will keep an eye on you. Do not drive from Paradise w/o armed escort.”

As promised, the heli­copter escorted them down a road — flying just ahead of them — to a team of camouflaged searchers armed with assault rifles. Just as Paz’s group arrived, the search team received a radio call: Barnes had been found dead, face-down in a stream, Paz wrote in a posting on the nwhikers​.net message board.

Paz’s group, which included her partner, Brian Vogt, noticed planes and helicopters flying over the area Sunday afternoon, including one that hovered over their tarp. They figured someone was missing.

But the next morning, while they were still in their tents, another helicopter came just overhead — and stayed. A garbled message came through a loudspeaker, and the group thought they heard it say “ranger shot and killed, shooter at large,” Paz wrote.

The helicopter’s pilots, Chris Rosen and David Simeur, said on Thursday that they had been concerned the gunman might make a target of the campers because of the survival gear they carried. When they flew over the campers’ tarp using their heat-sensing technology, they knew the campers were alive.

Vogt released a statement on behalf of the campers, thanking law enforcement and noting the tragedy of Anderson not only being killed, but being killed in a place that carried so much meaning for Anderson and her husband.
“We were shocked to find out the full extent of this tragedy once we were out of the park,” the statement said. “It wasn’t clear to us at the time how much had been done to keep an eye on us and protect us.”

1/01/2012

Happy Healthy and Prosperous New Year in 2012 To Everyone!

     I look forward to establishing liQuid heaVen as amongst the most requested on the world wide web in this New Year of 2012. 
     We will ship our exquisite coffee and teas around the world to all who want the best coffee and teas on earth, or should I say from earth as that is where the beans originally come from.  We have one more rung on our ladder of climb to success and that is establishing a 'to die for' espresso. 
     We have taste tested many Arabica beans from all over the world.  We have narrowed our discriminate search down to the final three.
     Roasting to my and our cuppers satifaction is the last hurdle. If I may tempt you, wait, just you wait till you taste our Plum Tea.  Hot or cold it is 'knock your socks off' quality that you will crave!