Back when the commercials sucked worse than the coffee…

Of course, if he tried this today, “Harvey” would be in the emergency room with 3rd degree hot coffee burns to the groin while being served his divorce papers… On the other hand, if the coffee was so bad that instant was an improvement, maybe ol’ Harv had a point…

(via Boing Boing)

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2.8

Joffrey’s “Jamaican Me Crazy” Coffee

Awhile back, Joffery’s Coffee and Tea was looking for bloggers interested in “beta testing” one of their coffees. Since I’m an unrepentant coffee blogger from way back, I naturally signed up.

Their sign up process asked whether I normally drank flavored or unflavored coffees (unflavored), and whether I preferred pre-ground or whole bean coffee (whole bean, naturally).

So of course, I recently found a care package from Joffrey’s in my mail box, containing a packet of their pre-ground “Jamaican Me Crazy” coffee, flavored with caramel, vanilla and coffee liqueur — I guess I needed a change of pace? lol…
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Tasting Starbucks’ Pike Place Roast

I had the chance to try Starbucks’ new “Pike Place Roast” tonight.

Not bad.

And considering that I’ve seldom ever had a cup of brewed coffee at Starbucks that was more than marginally drinkable, that’s a tremendous improvement.
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Caffeine blocks cholesterol, Alzheimers

The BBC reports that a new study in the Journal of Neuroinflammation indicates that caffeine helps prevent high levels of cholesterol from causing dangerous substances to leak across the blood-brain barrier.

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Talk is cheap, good coffee costs money

Yeah, I know I love to kick Starbucks, but hey — they make an inviting target. It’d be almost impolite to not abuse them.

But still, the news from their annual shareholders meeting actually sounds kind of promising.

They’ve bought the much discussed and semi-mythical Clover, and will be deploying it in all stores. The whole idea behind the Clover is that it can deliver (in 30 - 60 seconds) a full-on properly brewed cup of varietal coffee. Which is pretty great in concept, although early reports were that it took a fair amount of tweaking to get each specific origin brewed correctly — and what are the odds that the baristas-who-can’t-be-trusted-to-grind-and-pull-a-real-shot will learn and take the time to use it properly? Still, it should be a dramatic improvement over what passes for brewed coffee at most Starbucks these days.

As much as I wish they’d also announced that they were buying Reg Barber and would soon be returning to the land of real espresso, they’ve apparently decided that the solution to crappy automated espresso is to turn to even more automation, and to that end they’ve teamed up with Thermoplan AG to produce the next generation of cyborg pushbutton espresso. Hopefully the only way to go from here is “up”.

Other announcements include a new signature roast, new loyalty programs tied to Starbucks Cards and increased ethical sourcing.

All in all, it could have been better, but at least it’s a sign that they know that what has to be done is to improve the coffee & espresso — not a word about rolling out new foods and snacks, new gimmicky confection drinks, or anything of the kind.

That’s good, ‘cuz “it’s the coffee, stupid”.

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2.8

In Defense of Coffee

In this day and age, it seems like everything that you enjoy comes complete with a Greek chorus of whiners telling you why you should avoid it.

Coffee is no different. Despite Starbucks opening new stores every 60 yards on any paved road, every wanna-be-self-helper tells you why you should give up caffeine, give up coffee, etc.

That’s what makes it particularly refreshing to see Lifehack have a go at what’s right with coffee.

Their list of coffee’s benefits includes:

1. Better health through antioxidants
2. Improved alertness
3. Resilience to shifting schedules
4. Improved socialization

Not bad for the devil’s drink.

link

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2.8

I’ll take “Grande Latte” for $100, Alex

A fragment of conversation while making a bit of after dinner coffee the other night…

“That’s a grinder, right?”

um hmmm.

“And what’s that thing?”

This? It’s a portafilter.

“No, the thing on the front of the grinder, with the handle.”

Oh. Doser.

“And that’s a tamper?”

Yep.

“So what are you attaching the portafilter to?”

That would be the brew group.

“Okay”

(While pulling the next shot…)

“Let’s see… That’s grinder, doser, portafilter, tamper, and brew group?”

Is the question ‘Name five things you will no longer find at Starbucks?’

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2.8

Fear & Loathing at Starbucks

A leaked Valentine’s Day memo from Howard Shultz, the chairman and founder of Starbucks Corp. suggests that their success may not have been as sweet as your average Pumpkin Spice Latte…

For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista.

(ummm… That’s La Marzocco, Howard…)

For me, this has got to be the ‘Bucks’ number one issue — with a bullet.

No matter how good they are, the full-auto machines just do not produce as good of a shot of espresso as a barista who actually uses a little care, and freshly grinds, hand tamps and pulls a shot on a good semi-auto machine like the La Marzocco.

The training just can’t be that hard. I’ll grant you that it takes a great deal of care and practice to be a world class barista, but that’s miles above “competent”, and frankly competent is good enough.
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Consumer Reports Hearts Mickey Dee’s

Dear God, this is one of the signs of the apocalypse, isn’t it?

Apparently Consumer Reports picked McDonalds as having the best coffee, at least in comparison to Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks.

God knows, I’ve said enough bad things about Starbucks, but the day you can’t beat out McDonald’s coffee, it’s time to hang it up and admit you know far more about selling milk than brewing coffee.

As for Consumer Reports, I won’t be joining them for a mug of joe anytime soon, but I would be willing to try some of whatever they were smoking that day…

(Via Slashfood)

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2.8

Brugo - double tippy sippy cup

If you need a complicated $20 mug to get your coffee at the right temperature, Brugo may be just the mug for you.

Available in about 12 eye-watering colors, the Brugo mug will (if you set the dial on the top correctly) allow you to spill some of your hot coffee into a cooling chamber in the lid to cool down to drinking temperature, while keeping the rest of it toasty warm.

This is all in support of what Brugo calls the “Perfect Temperature Zone”, or “PTZ”. The site is full of multimedia showing graphs of how long it takes properly brewed coffee to come to this temperature and how fast it falls below it.

Or you could just brew (or order) reasonably-sized cups of coffee, which cool down to the right temperature quickly, and drink them before they get too cold.

I’m just sayin…

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2.8

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