It’s possible to make pretty decent coffee for a surprisingly low price. Some people swear by plunger coffee – which is an acquired taste (I think) – but finding a cheap grinder is perilous. Grinders are important. Hand grinders are great – but they’re labour intensive – I’ve often thought about attaching a drill to mine as an experiment – and Make Magazine has beaten me to it… but they used a pepper mill – which I think is probably not as effective as a hand grinder.
The coffee of the future will not be made by man – no, we’ll have little robot servants to make the coffee for us. The original post is in Japanese – but this video demonstrates its awesomeness.
Every website or desktop needs a collection of coffee icons. You can find a nice little collection here.
This is a series of actual ads from the 1950s. It is awesome. Here’s why they’re like they are…
“In 1957, Jim Henson was approached by a Washington, D.C. coffee company to produce ads for Wilkins Coffee. The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the commercials had to be lightning-fast — essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product.”
We had church camp over the weekend. An interesting time with some important discussions about the future direction of our church – we’re looking at a plant in a new suburb/growth area in Townsville.
That’s all by-the-by. I’ll probably talk about it shortly.
The campsite we were staying at (a Girl Guides site in Bluewater) was powered and had a shared kitchen. Which to me is an opportunity to not suffer through hand grinding beans for the stove top. I brought Sheila* with me. And made a lot of coffees (and hot chocolates).
We went through 42 litres of milk (I think that’s right – by my count it was 14 three litre bottles). Close to 1.5kgs of coffee. And by my very rough estimate made about 150 drinks. Which awesomely justifies my decision to purchase Sheila on “ministry” grounds.**
I had catered on the basis of previous camp experience (and a bit of dinner catering experience) – which left me about half a kilo wrong in my calculations – people drink lots of coffee on camps, especially at morning tea. This meant buying coffee from Woolworths – which is an ethically difficult thing to do if you’re a believer in the superiority of freshly roasted coffee. There’s stuff on the shelves that was roasted in Italy – which surely sits on ships, in warehouses and on pallets in the store before even making it to the back of the shelf. In a word, it’s stale. I am going to, in its very own posts, formulate some sort of scored index of coffee.
I spent so long yanking the portafiller in and out of the machine that I have blisters. Barista blisters.
* My hundred kilo three group Rancilio Coffee Machine – named after the tank from Red vs Blue.
** not the website where I buy my coffee – but on the basis that I’d use the machine “for ministry” it’s how I internally justify every infrastructure splurge…
Super-automatic coffee machines are not wildly appreciated in the “specialty” coffee world. There’s something nice about the manual coffee making process that appeals but this contraption is taking things to a whole new level. I guess you could call it a super-manual… It’s a coffee roaster, grinder and brewer in one beautifully gas filled unit.
Ignoring the problems with preparing your coffee immediately after roasting (due to beans needing to degas post roast), and you’ve got a beautiful and iconic piece of brewing technology.
Here are the directions…
“Take 50 green beans. Roast for 7 minutes for a medium roast, 9 minutes for a dark roast. Cool beans. Whilst grinding the cooled beans heat the water until air bubbles begin to pop. Place ground beans into water. Stir and brew for 4 minutes. Then pour and enjoy a cup of fresh perfect coffee.”
Here’s a video of the contraption in action.
I should mention that I spotted this marvel here…
Meet the mypressi TWIST. A completely portable espresso machine that produces pressure courtesy of a cylinder of pressurised air (the same type used for whipped cream guns and soda siphons) in the handle.
It’s probably not the “first” portable coffee maker – I wrote about one a while ago… but it was bike pump powered.
Coffee hasn’t always been the social lubricant it is today – in fact, in the late 1600s there were major protests against its legal status in England. Protests led by women who claimed:
The fineprint claimed that coffee caused impotence, and that cafes kept men away from their family responsibilities.
The ladies of the 1670s were pursuing their very own sexual revolution and coffee was in the firing line – and Charles II listened to their petition and shut down all the coffeehouses in England – which at that time refused service to women.
Eventually, 11 days later, the men posted a response, sanity prevailed and Charles II relented.
If you drink as much coffee as I do you know there’s nothing more appealing than that stale coffee smell on your breath as you arrive at work. Well, now, thanks to this dental floss, you can carry that scent around with you all day… because that’s what we all want.
Ever wanted a robot army? Me too. You can start building one (or purchasing one) by buying some from this guy – heaps of them use bits and pieces of coffee paraphernalia.
Johann Sebastian Bach was pretty awesome. Awesome enough for me to own this shirt.
While I’ve always appreciated Bach for his robust theology and amazing musical ability – it was not until the weekend that I learned that Bach was a coffee snob. He wrote a cantata describing his love for the bean. The Coffee Cantata. Here’s a rough English translation of some of the lyrics:
Recitative Schlendrian
You wicked child, you disobedient girl, h! when will I get my way; give up coffee!Lieschen
Father, don’t be so severe! f I can’t drink my bowl of coffee three times daily, then in my torment I will shrivel up like a piece of roast goat.Aria Lieschen
Mm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!
The piece was a moral treatise on the place of coffee in daily life. The protagonists were a father and a recalcitrant coffee addicted daughter who would not forgo her daily java. The father demanded she do so lest she forfeit the right to marry and she relents… seemingly. Although in a sub clause of sorts she indicates she’ll only marry a fellow coffee snob – sage advice indeed.
The uplifting final movement brings the father, daughter and narrator together to sing a song expounding on the benefits of coffee and proclaiming it “natural”. Hurrah.
Here’s a performance from YouTube:
There’s a bit of a movement in the coffee scene to truly distinguish cafes as a “third place” – a safe haven from home or the office. It’s a nice idea. It’s in keeping with the traditional Italian cafe culture – which you can read a bit about here – in this article.
Here’s a nice little “pay it forward” aspect of coffee culture:
It is not uncommon for a contented patron to pay for two cups of espresso when he gets to the cashier—one for himself and one as an offering to humanity, or to the guy lucky enough to be next in line. This extra coffee is commonly referred to as a caffè sospeso, or a dangling espresso.
And here’s what Italians apparently think of my predilection for cappuccinos…
“There is, however, one rule that holds true throughout the peninsula: a cappuccino is only a breakfast drink. No self-respecting Italian would be caught dead sipping on a cup of hot milk with a splash of coffee anytime after the mid-day meal.”
Some clever little cookie decided that “spam” was a label too ubiquitous to be applied to all junk email, and so bacn was born. It’s like bacon and is a lunchmeat enthused pun. Of sorts. It’s a catchall label used to describe solicited advertisements, newsletters and well targetted email campaigns.
Microsoft this week announced that something like 97% of all email traffic is spam. They don’t make the bacn distinction as far as I’m aware. But I do. So I’m choosing to allow spam comments that fit into the bacn category – like two shirt sites that commented on my last post about SnorgTees – that’s nice. It shows initiative. And NerdyShirts even offered a 10% discount.
You could buy this topical masterpiece…
Or an Eastery theme – this one’s called “The Last Supper“…
Rizzo Tees offered no discount – but proferred a link to their site claiming Snorg was an “inspiration”… here are some of their shirts. Starting with one particularly on topic…
I can relate. I lost 20 subscribers yesterday. Gone. Who knows where… not that I’m checking.
And a ninja shirt….
And one about coffee for good measure (provided you get the size right…boom boom…)
See… not only will a well placed and relevant spam comment get noticed – it’ll earn you a post in these parts.
This one is mostly for those of you reading here in Townsville. Although little sister number 3 has already put her hand up for some hand delivered service on our next southern sojourn.
I have a few kilos worth of green beans, a new breadmaker, a new heatgun and four days of “leisure” time coming up – if anybody would like to purchase some roasted coffee for a fraction of the price you’ll pay in stores – let me know in the comments.
I’ll sell roasted beans for $5 per 250 grams (including a fancy zip lock bag) – and I’m happy to offer this as a regular service if you like them.
I will grind it for you if you like – but suggest if you want coffee pre-ground you get them in much smaller batches.
Discussion is ongoing on yesterday’s post about protectionism and misguided “buy local” campaigns. I didn’t mention the “sustainability” side of that debate – which is probably valid. It doesn’t make sense for major grocery stores to ship produce from North Queensland to warehouses in Victoria then back to North Queensland for sale – at that point I will join the brotherhood of sustainability and cry foul (fowl if we’re talking about chickens…). I didn’t mention it because it’s not the problem I have with “buy local” campaigns – which is that they don’t do what they claim to do, namely “protect local jobs”.
Buying local works to protect Australian farmers. There’s no denying that. But the insidious campaigns stretch further than the farm gates But we have plenty of other primary producers whose cause is harmed by drops in demand for our resources overseas (which are in part due to drops in demand for all sorts of product on a global level – particularly from the US).
But that’s just rehashing the point I’d already made yesterday. In a slightly more coherent form.
There were a couple of points raised in the comments that are worth rehashing – particularly if you haven’t read them.
“Buying coffee grown in Australia at a local coffee store, rather than coffee grown in Costa Rica at Starbucks.” – Stuss.
Ahh, a subject close to my heart. The argument I’d make at this point is that Australian made doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality. You might feel nice paying three times the price you’d pay for foreign grown produce for local stuff – but in some cases you’re paying more for an inferior product. Coffee is a great example. If you want premium quality Australian coffee you’ve got to pay a premium price – and it still won’t be as good as stuff grown in the ideal conditions.
Her next point in a subsequent comment touches on the whole fair trade debate.
“There are ethical implications in buying goods made elsewhere. A big reason why companies shift that manufacturing off shore is that it can be done cheaper. Much, much cheaper. Which means the people doing the manufacturing aren’t getting a lot of money for the job. On one hand, it is good that some of these people are getting the employment at all. But on the other hand, sometimes these people are being exploited, and not receiving a fair wage. Or they are coming away from their villages and subsistence farming lifestyle to work in the factories and losing traditional skills. Which one outweighs the other?”
Those sweatshops employing and exploiting workers for the sake of fashion are a different matter, that’s an ethical question not a question of economics – and therefore not within the scope of this rant.
I don’t see how buying local and doing these overseas people out of the jobs they’ve won that are often literally putting food on the table – particularly when following through the argument using coffee farmers as an example – is doing the coffee farmer a service. In the case of agriculture – and particularly for argument sake the case of coffee – we’re not talking about farmers leaving subsistent living, we’re talking about third and fourth generation farmers who have been exporting coffee since coffee exporting began. Aussie Joe who decides to plant his coffee plantation in Atherton – where conditions aren’t as good as conditions elsewhere and thus the coffee flavour isn’t as rich – is doing a disservice both to the palate and to the global coffee market.
The fundamental economic principle of supply and demand means that if there’s an oversupply of a poor quality version of a particular variety of product and a largely uneducated audience the price of the good stuff either has to significantly alter or die out (or become an “exclusive” product for the rich and famous). Throwing in a “buy local” campaign artificially inflates the price of local coffee and punishes the foreign growers. It’s not a level playing field. And it’s an incentive for businesses that should probably fail. Because their product is inferior.
Amy made a similar point about rice but from a sustainability rather than quality standpoint in the comments on the last protectionism post…
“I don’t think it is okay to buy Australian grown rice, because rice is totally unsuited to our environment and therefore needs far more resources than an imported product.”
I wonder what the typical elements in the purchase equation are? You could no doubt express it as a funky Venn diagram – in fact I’m sure it’s already been done somewhere… but I’d say price, sustainability, ethics, and quality are all in the mix. Are there any others?
