For a tree grown in over 70 countries, from Indonesia to Brazil, it’s curious how narrow a range of conditions is required to produce quality ‘beans’ and how relatively small the total output is.
The word ‘beans’ is deliberately in single-quote marks, since the thing that gets roasted and ground to make the drink isn’t really [...]

Beer may be the oldest man-made brew, with wine a distant second. Beer recipes are at least as old as 6000 BC, but the oldest winemaking processes date ‘only’ from about the turn of the first millennium.
Their younger cousin, coffee, arose a few hundred years later, though no one knows how old the plant itself [...]

In the 1930s, physicists started discovering a whole zoo full of exotic atomic particles. There were muons and kaons and who-knows-whatelse-ons. When told of these, the famous physicist Enrico Fermi said: ‘If I wanted to remember all that I would have become a botanist.’ Ironically, later he invented the process used in atomic bombs.
I feel [...]

Congratulations. You’ve decided to enter the world of gourmet coffee. It’s a world where the coffee is the tastiest and freshest possible, where the beans have traveled from the coffee fields to the roaster to your mug as quickly as humanly possible. It’s a world where you can shop from coffee dealers from all over [...]

Good coffee isn’t as easy as percolating water through coffee grounds. Bad coffee, of course, is a cinch to make. But if you want the tastiest and freshest java for your morning wake up call, you need to take certain precautions before it even hits your coffee mugs.
First off, start with fresh cold water in [...]

All the experts agree. People who want the best flavor in their coffee use coffee grinders. Coffee grinders work so well because they unleash the bean oils and aromas right before you make a pot. It’s like opening a fresh can of ground coffee each and every time you make some joe.
Of course, besides coffee [...]

You know how hard it can be to pick out clothes to give to a friend or loved one for a present. What makes you think it should be any different when you buy a coffee gift basket as a present? Actually, buying a coffee gift basket for the java junky in your life is [...]

(ARA) Everyday, millions of Americans start their morning with a freshly brewed cup of coffee. Whether you take it with cream and sugar, or prefer it black, sipping on a blend of coffee beans is a ritual that graces household after household. But this holiday season, while entertaining or just cozying up by a warm [...]

Welcome to Black As Midnight Blog – the blog for coffee lovers!  Here you will find all the latest updates for our main site, as well as coffee news and new coffee products – we hope you enjoy!