Whatever happens in the caucuses Tuesday night, Michele Bachmann can claim one more Iowa political victory: the Coffee Bean Caucus from Hamburg Inn in Iowa City. Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, was the top Republican vote-getter in the informal, bean-based poll at the iconic Iowa City diner, winning 28.8 percent of the GOP vote.

Mitt Romney was second with 21.4 percent, followed by Ron Paul (18.2 percent), Newt Gingrich (13.8 percent), Rick Perry (7.4 percent), Rick Santorum (5.6 percent) and Jon Huntsman (4.6 percent). In all, 3,970 Republican beans were cast. But neither Bachmann nor any of the other candidates should celebrate their popularity in famously-liberal Iowa City too much.

Hamburg Inn voters were also given the choice of voting for incumbent Democrat Barack Obama. And they did — 6,442 times. That’s nearly six times the votes cast for Bachmann, who visited the restaurant late last month. When beans dropped for Obama are included with the Republican tallies, he wins in a landslide with 61.8 percent of the vote. Bachmann is the only other candidate to crack double digits, at 11 percent.

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The different types of coffee for single serve coffee makers include regular, decaffeinated, bold, dark and light roast, flavored, blended, organic and fair trade. Many times, coffee companies will use beans harvested from around the world to create the perfect mixture of ground coffee for use with single serve coffee.

Each single serve coffee portion is sealed and ready for use with different types of single cup coffee makers. Famous coffee companies like Gloria Jeans, Starbucks, Nescafe, Timothy's, Emeril, Green Mountain Coffee and many more have crafted special pre-portioned coffee pods and cups for use with single serve coffee brewers.

While some brewers only brew coffee, hot chocolate and tea, other brewers will combine pre-portioned coffee with other ingredients such as mocha or milk to create specialty coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos. With the many choices available for coffee types and recipes for coffee drink mixes, it's easy to create the coffee drink you want with your single serve coffee maker.

Using a single serve coffee maker is quick and easy with advanced coffee brewing technology and great tasting coffee, ready to be brewed. If you are looking for an alternative to your automatic drip coffee maker, consider a single cup coffee maker that is simple to use and brews coffeehouse quality coffee in the home and office.

There are many different brands of single-cup coffee makers, and each has its own special features and components. Most all single cup coffee makers work in much of the same way however, so understanding how single serve coffee makers work is important if you are considering purchasing a brewer.

Here's the best Single Serve Coffee Makers Brands:
- Keurig
- Tassimo
- Flavia
- Senseo
- Dolce Gusto
- Nespresso
- iperEspresso

Single serve coffee makers all have a water reservoir that holds a certain quantity of water to be heated in the machine and used to brew the coffee. Some single cup coffee makers have a very small water reservoir, while others have a much larger reservoir that can make many cups of coffee before needing to be refilled. The water reservoir should be filled with high quality filtered water in order to make the best tasting coffee possible.

Other components that single serve coffee makers have are cup stands, drip trays, and a brewing mechanism. The brewing mechanism holds a single serve coffee pod or packet. This single serve coffee pod or packet contains a pre-measured portion of gourmet coffee, hot chocolate or tea.

Once the single serve coffee pod or packet is inserted into the brewing mechanism, the brewer will prompt you with instructions for brewing. With most machines, it will be as simple as pressing a button. With other machines, there are more options such as selecting water temperature, brew strength or brew size.

When ready to brew, the heated water from the water reservoir passes through the brewing mechanism and coffee pod or packet to brew the coffee. The coffee is then dispenser from the brewing mechanism into a cup or mug that is placed on the cup stand directly under the brewing mechanism. The result is a freshly brewed cup of coffee with each brew.

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A typical New Zealand-made coffee cup begins life in the forests of Russia, after which a Finnish company coats the paper in plastic and ships it to Henderson, West Auckland, where Huhtamaki shapes it into takeaway cups.

The caffeine-loving public gets through about 180 million disposable cups a year, including ones made overseas, says Huhtamaki market manager of food service Jeff Mosen. Most of the cups end up in landfills.

The sheer waste would make our forebears turn in their graves, says Meredith Graham, education and marketing manager at recycling company Visy. "They'd say, 'Really? You buy coffee when you're out and you throw the cup away?"'

Enter a new co-operative effort between the country's biggest takeaway coffee seller BP, Visy, Huhtamaki, Coca-Cola and public recycling cheerleader Love NZ, to encourage people to recycle the cups.

Many people wrongly think they can recycle the cups already, says Love NZ manager Lyn Mayes, but in fact, only Christchurch and Auckland (except Waitakere and North Shore) have facilities to process wet-strength paper (the plastic-coated stuff used for hot and cold drinking cups and Tetra Pak cartons) from home recycling bins.

By definition, most people drink takeaway coffee when they are out, and recycling receptacles for coffee cups at public places and events have been relatively few and far between. The campaign – complete with specially stickered recycling bins announcing that they can now take coffee cups – hopes to change that and will begin collecting cups at Auckland's Chinese lantern festival in February, carrying on to Wellington and elsewhere as recycling arrangements allow.

The ultimate goal is to join the dots between between caffeine-hungry punters, the few companies that can sort wet-strength paper in New Zealand, and buyers for the paper fibre overseas.

New Zealanders may have arrived late to the espresso party, but for the past two decades they been drinking enough flat whites, long blacks and cappuccinos to make up for lost time.

The cup problem is "screaming out for a solution", says Zeke Alley, head of purchasing at pioneer Wellington coffee roaster Cafe L'Affare. Cafe L'Affare's wholesale business alone gets through tens of thousands of cups a month, making it Huhtamaki's biggest cup customer after BP.

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There's good news on the horizon for coffee lovers, with research suggesting that it can reduce the risk of developing endometrial cancer by up to 25 per cent. Originating in the lining of the uterus, endometrial cancer is one of the most common invasive gynaecological cancers.

In the US, where the research was conducted, the National Cancer Institute estimated that more than 46,000 new cases of the cancer would be seen in 2011 and 8000 people would die of the disease. High levels of oestrogen and insulin are associated with an increased risk of the disease but researchers involved.

In the Nurses' Health Study from the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health have discovered that high-coffee-consuming women have lower levels of these hormones, compared with those who drink little or no coffee.

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Controversy, confusion and myth seem to attach themselves to certain food and drinks, especially in matters concerning health. Misleading media reports and conflicting research studies help perpetuate the situation and add to the confusion.

Most food and drinks can be enjoyed without the need to feel guilty. Our favourites can usually be incorporated into our diets without sacrificing health so long as moderation rules the day. Nearly anything we consume has a benefit as well as a risk, and excessive consumption of anything should be avoided. But enjoying at least a bit of what you like the most is a good thing.

COFFEE AND THE FACTS
The truth about coffee surprises many people. You may have read reports that coffee can exacerbate or increase the risk of serious problems such as breast cancer, high cholesterol and heart disease. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to deny yourself a favourite drink. By adopting a sensible approach and following some logical rules of thumb, there's little reason why you can't enjoy one or two daily cups of coffee.

Surprisingly, and despite the negative hype, coffee can actually be beneficial to health while complementing an active lifestyle. In limited amounts, coffee's potent ingredient, caffeine, is a good energy booster; a cup prior to a workout can increase your endurance and help you run a little faster or pedal a bit longer than you might have otherwise. Besides helping you gear up for the gym, caffeine also helps ease post-workout muscle pain.

Coffee in moderate amounts can be beneficial in other ways. It is known to help reduce the effects of gallstones and Parkinson's disease, as well as reducing the risk of diabetes. So you need not feel guilty about your morning pick-me-up.

EARLIER AND IN MODERATION
As with all food and drinks, it's important to enjoy coffee in moderation. The amount and time of day you consume caffeine are important when it comes to its health implications. Too much caffeine is linked with insomnia, palpitations and anxiety. In a particularly sensitive person, it has the ability to cause an irregular heartbeat.

It's worth remembering that caffeine stays in the blood stream for much longer than you might imagine. Even though you may only feel the "buzz" for a couple of hours, caffeine stays in the blood stream for about eight to 15 hours. If you're prone to stress or sleep problems, it's best avoided, particularly from the afternoon onwards.

But if you simply have to have your caffeine fix, a good rule of thumb is to drink no more than 200mg of caffeine, the amount contained in about two cups of coffee, and to avoid drinking caffeinated drinks late in the day; otherwise you may be over-stimulated and have trouble winding down and falling asleep at night.

HEALTHIER CHOICES
The most health-conscious way to enjoy coffee is to drink it black; it's the sugars, syrups, milks and creams that make it unhealthy and add a lot of calories. Far from being a good source of calcium, dairy products including milk and cream actually strip calcium from bones, while sugar promotes obesity and numerous other health problems.

While caffeine is sometimes portrayed as unhealthy, that doesn't mean that decaffeinated coffee is the healthier option. One concern about decaf is related to chemicals _ especially methylene chloride and ethyl acetate _ used in the caffeine-removal process for some coffees. Though the amount of chemical residue left in the coffee is fairly minimal, these chemicals are the source of some health concerns, so regular coffee with caffeine is generally the better, more natural choice.

How coffee is prepared can also affect your health. If you're partial to brewing your coffee by the filter method, bear in mind that filters made from unbleached paper do a better job of filtering out cafestol and kahweol, two chemicals that have been linked to higher cholesterol levels.

TWO RULES
Whether you're an everyday drinker or just enjoy a cup every once in a while, remember these rules of thumb: Coffee is better and healthier the closer it's served to its natural state, without cream or sugar. And sticking to a limit of one or two cups a day will allow you to enjoy coffee's beneficial properties without jeopardising your good health.

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Office Coffee Making Machines have become a necessity in the work places everywhere. Coffee helps to make office workers and employees perked-up, invigorated and refreshed to face their workloads and everyday challenges. That is why the coffee break is one of the most awaited privelege that they await.

One of the leading brands of Coffee Making Machines nowadays is the Lavazza Espresso Point Matinee. It is a breakthrough in the espresso brewing technology. Any body can prepare a perfect cup of espresso or cappuccino with just a simple touch of a button.

The patented Lavazza Espresso point system uses pre-packaged cartridges filled with Lavazza's best espresso roasts. By just simply inserting the cartridge in the slot provided, and pushing a choice button whether regular, medium or long. And in a matter of seconds your espresso is ready. Another important feature of this coffee making machine is the built-in steaming wand which allows you to froth milk easily. It also has a built-in tank that holds nearly 1 gallon of water to minimize frequent refills.

Because of the big boom in the coffee industry in Europe, there are numerous office coffee suppliers in London. Among them are A& M Services International Tea and Coffee Merchants, A Angelique Coffee Merchants (Shops and Retail Outlets), and Coffee Board of Kenya.

There are also leading companies that supplies coffee making machines in London like the Red Cup Coffee Making Machine Company, Darlington Coffee Suppliers, Chinalife, Bethnal Green and Nespresso Club.

Coffee suppliers and distributors of coffee making machines in London as well as in the whole parts of Europe, USA and Canada  even as far as Asia and Africa work together to provide the homes, offices and commercial establishments with the delicious coffee and coffee making machines. From now on, coffee drinkers will be sure of having their delicious brewed coffee in a single touch of a button.

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Sugar and robusta coffee futures clawed higher Monday in a short-covering surge sparked by optimism euro zone talks to address the debt crisis may finally gain some traction. But US cocoa beans slid to a 2-1/2-year low as the impact of the harvest in the prime West Africa growing region trumped the buoyant mood of the latest news in the European crisis.

ICE March raw sugar futures rose 0.30 cent to trade at 23.20 cents a lb at 12:09 p.m. EST (1709 GMT). London's March white sugar futures on Liffe added $2.80 to trade at $601 a tonne. New York's March arabica coffee contract lost 1.00 cents to trade at $2.3155 a lb at 12:11 p.m. That was off a session top of up 5.85 cents at $2.384. London's January robusta contract added $53 to trade at $1,981 a tonne.

"Coffee and sugar seem to be getting a benefit ... from the macro strength of outside markets," Country Hedging Inc senior analyst Sterling Smith said. "Prices are firmer ... on slightly more positive macro-economic sentiment over the eurozone debt situation," said Barclays Capital in a commodities note.

World stocks rose on Monday from last week's seven-week low and the cost of insuring euro zone government bonds against default fell broadly as investors grew more hopeful that euro zone leaders would unveil fresh measures to resolve the two-year-old debt crisis.

Smith said the question remained whether the Europeans will again disappoint. "We may have another day or two of firmness," said Smith, adding there are "some doubts about the sustainability" of this rally.

Liffe robusta coffee futures rallied more than 5 percent to a six-week high on fund short covering, triggering selling from the world's top producer Vietnam, said dealers. "It's still early days in Vietnam, the crop's late because of the wet weather they had in October. The market is finding some fundamental reasons to go up; Vietnamese want higher prices and secondly people don't want to buy from Vietnam until they see the coffee," a London-based coffee dealer said.

Raw sugar futures bounced off last week's 5-1/2 month low, with dealers eyeing developments in India where the government is expected to publish the notification, detailing the parameters for the exports, on Tuesday.

Commodity house Czarnikow said in a report published on Monday it expects rising Indian sugar demand could curb future exports from the world's second largest producer which is bullish for the market's longer term price outlook.

"Indian sugar consumption has grown over the past decade at an annual average rate of 3.5 percent. Czarnikow sees good potential for higher rates of consumption growth in the future due to population and economic growth," said Czarnikow analyst Peter de Klerk.

Last week news the Indian government decided to allow 1 million tonnes of white sugar exports sent global sugar prices lower. However, Czarnikow said appetite from mills to take up licences could be weak as domestic prices have been rising while world market futures have been falling.

"We have good crops from the northern hemisphere coming on line and the threat of India, Thailand, Europe and Russia et al make it hard for a sustainable rally to materialise," said Thomas Kujawa from Sucden Financial.

Cocoa futures on the other hand could not make any headway given the bearish weight of the ongoing harvest in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's top producers of cocoa beans. Cocoa arrivals at ports in top grower Ivory Coast reached around 342,975 tonnes by Nov 27, exporters estimated on Monday. While that is down about 1.5 percent on last season, dealers have noted that farmers are holding back beans, and production estimates are high this season.

March cocoa on ICE fell $17 to end at $2,364 a tonne, the lowest settlement for the second position contract since May 2009. London's March cocoa futures lost 20 pounds to finish at 1,516 pounds a tonne, having touched a contract low of 1,513 pounds.

"It was a part of the macro picture this morning, the weak dollar lifted it here," one veteran cocoa dealer in the United States said. "We ran into the strong hedge flows here of West African cocoa. The trade looked at that as a selling opportunity."Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon are all getting into the full swing of their cocoa harvest.

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Soft commodity futures finished mostly easier on Wednesday in light trade, with arabica coffee on ICE losing ground after a two-day surge ran out of steam, raw sugar down and cocoa slightly higher. Analysts said most major players in the softs complex were already gone until the new year.

Coffee is seen as having the bullish fundamentals given lingering problems in major producer Colombia, while more losses are seen in a bountifully supplied cocoa market. "I think we're in a holiday market now," said The Price Group senior analyst Jack Scoville. Volume traded in soft commodities on ICE Futures US ranged from one third to over 50 percent under the 30-day average, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.

New York's March arabica futures fell 2.90 cents to settle at $2.199 per lb. March robusta coffee on Liffe slipped $19 to finish at $1,868 a tonne. Dealers said differentials in Vietnam remained very firm due to delays in the harvest in the world's top robusta producer. Prices are likely to dip, however, when the flow picks up. Sugar futures also declined, but dealings were modest as well with many players on holiday through the New Year.

"We are still range bound and despite all the bearish doom and gloom the downside momentum has noticeably waned in recent sessions," broker Nick Penney of Sucden Financial said in a market note ICE March raw sugar futures were off 0.17 cent to close at 23.32 cents a lb.

Liffe March white sugar futures dropped $4.50 to close at $603.70 per tonne. US cocoa futures bucked the day's weak trend in commodities and moved quietly higher, following through from Tuesday's 5.5 percent surge. London bean values ended the day up 2.5 percent. "I think we found a short-term bottom with the rally that we had.

One can actually draw a line in the sand right around $2,050 on the idea that maybe we'll trade sideways for a while," said Hector Galvan, senior market strategist for RJO Futures in Chicago. New York's March cocoa contract was up $59 or 2.7 percent to close at $2,244 per tonne. London's March cocoa on Liffe rose 35 pounds or 2.5 percent to settle at 1,435 pounds a tonne.

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cCoffee climbed to a one-week high in New York on forecasts for declining output in Brazil and Colombia, the biggest producers of arabica beans. Sugar and orange juice also advanced, while cotton declined.

Brazil’s coffee crop, which follows a two-year cycle, will be “considerably” smaller in the next season than in the previous high-yielding year, according to Volcafe, a unit of commodities trader ED&F Man Holdings Ltd. Colombia will produce 8.5 million bags in the year that started Oct. 1, according to a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2 million less than a June estimate.

“With very little stocks at the hands of producers, there is little incentive to sell,” Kona Haque, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd. in London, wrote in a report yesterday. “Macquarie no longer expects a large 2011-12 arabica surplus, but more balanced conditions instead.”

Arabica coffee for March delivery gained 1.5 percent to settle at $2.228 a pound at 2 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, after touching $2.2405, the highest since Dec. 13. The commodity has fallen 7.4 percent this year.

“New estimates for the Brazilian production in the 2012-13 crop keep being released, and none of them see a number much higher than 55 million bags,” Rodrigo Costa, a coffee-market specialist, wrote in an e-mailed report today for Sao Paulo- based Archer Consulting.

A bag weighs 60 kilograms, or 132 pounds. Arabica beans, grown mainly in Latin America, are favored for specialty beverages such as those made by Starbucks Corp. Robusta, used in instant coffee and espresso, is harvested mostly in Asia, Brazil and parts of Africa.

Raw-sugar futures for March delivery rose 1.7 percent to 23.49 cents a pound on ICE. Orange-juice futures for March delivery gained 0.2 percent to $1.645 a pound in New York. Cotton futures for March delivery fell 0.3 percent to 86.8 cents a pound on ICE. The fiber is down 40 percent this year. In London futures trading, robusta coffee and refined sugar rose on NYSE Liffe.

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Coffee futures were down for a fourth day on Monday, trading at the lowest level since December 2010 as inventories monitored by ICE Futures U.S. climbed for the seventh straight week, underlining concerns over ample global supplies.

On the ICE Futures Exchange, Arabica coffee for March delivery traded at USD2.1378 a pound during European afternoon trade, slumping 0.67%.

It earlier fell by as much as 1.25% to trade at USD2.1238 a pound, the lowest since December 10, 2010.

Coffee futures have declined in eight of the last nine trading sessions, losing nearly 10% since the start of December as strong competition from low-cost producers in Central America and East Asia have dominated sentiment in recent weeks. Stockpiles of coffee monitored by futures exchange operator Intercontinental Exchange have jumped 20% since November 1 to 1.53 million bags.

Coffee prices came under further pressure after a strike scheduled to begin Monday at Brazil's biggest port in Santos was called off ahead of a labor-court hearing later in the week, easing concerns over a disruption to shipments from the South American country. Santos is Brazil's main exit point for agricultural exports such as coffee, sugar and orange juice.

Brazil is the world's largest producer and exporter of Arabica coffee. Arabica is grown mainly in Latin America and brewed by specialty companies. Despite the sharp drop in recent sessions, global financial service provider Commerzbank expects coffee prices to rebound amid concerns over crop conditions in Colombia, the world's second largest exporter of Arabica beans.

In a report published earlier the lender said, 'The ongoing harvest problems in Colombia this year should thus slow the latest sharp fall in coffee prices. In November, the coffee harvest in Colombia was down 13.7% year-on-year for the eighth time in a row."

Meanwhile, agricultural commodity traders awaited the outcome of a conference call of euro zone finance ministers later in the day about the draft text of a new fiscal plan agreed earlier this month. Talks were also to include the size of individual loans to the International Monetary Fund.

Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange, cotton futures for March delivery jumped 1.05% to trade at USD 0.8722 a pound, while sugar futures for March delivery fell 0.6% to trade at USD0.2296 a pound.


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