Tag: Coffee

Coffee bar

A long time ago – in 2006 in fact – I contemplated making icecream reviews a regular feature on this blog. The idea never had legs. I never really found a worthy icecream contender. 

Turkish Delight Cadbury icecreams were good. They would have scored a mention had the feature continued. As would the Drumstick Sundae line. Other than that there aren’t any particularly regular icecreams featured on the Campbell itinerary. 

Until now. Weis Coffee Almond and Cream bars. Mmm. Fantastic. The. Best. Weis. Bar. Ever. And that’s a big call – the mango Weis bars are pretty spectacular. But these were great. Robyn gave them the thumbs up. They’re now on the menu. If you like coffee they should be on yours too. They’re no doubt as good as these things.

February 24, 2009

Totally cool recipe

I need to try this while it’s still summer. Frozen iced coffee. On a stick. I would think the Vietnamese filter is negotiable. Main ingredients – coffee and condensed milk. Sounds good.

February 20, 2009

Instant gratification

Those of you who don’t read the links in my daily links post may have missed my sneering references to Starbucks and its decision to start selling instant coffee. $1 a pop. In store. Coming soon.

This is a terrible mistake. Instant coffee – no matter how good the science behind it – is still dehydrated coffee being rehydrated. It’s got none of the elements of a good cup. Wikipedia has a breakdown of the process.

People in America can now get free samples via the Starbucks website. Yay for them.

I can’t understand why people drink instant coffee – other than that it’s instant if you’ve already got boiling water.

Here’s some startling US facts about instant from the Consumerist:

“The instant coffee market is bigger than you might think — accounting for 40% of the global coffee market. It’s less popular in the US than overseas, taking up only 9% of the US coffee market as opposed to 60% in Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United Kingdom.”

Starbucks is cutting stores and staff all over the world. And this is their solution. Budget, low quality coffee for those feeling the economic pinch. The launch has received coverage from the Times Online.

“Starbucks said last month that it would cut 6,700 of its 167,000 staff and shut about 1,000 under-performing outlets, as its after-tax profits for the three months to the end of December fell 69 per cent.”

Here are some more instant instant coffee facts… and a nice little quote about why this has “bad idea” written all over it.

“In the US, instant coffee is synonymous with cheap and tasteless. The global instant coffee market is worth $17.7 billion, just $700 million of which is sold in America. Instead, Americas drink brewed, or filter, coffee – 65 billion cups of it a year.”

“Starbucks, best known as the home of the $4 latte, is gambling its luxury brand by entering the instant coffee market. As John Quelch, a Harvard Business School professor, said: “Instant, soluble coffee has long been an unspeakable wasteland. Conventional wisdom would be that no premium brand should go near it.”

Update: From a second Times Online story.

“Starbucks reckons that 80 per cent of UK households have instant coffee, an £800 million market. Darcy Willson-Rymer, its UK manager, said that its new coffee would sit at the “premium, even super-premium” end … “We’re competing with instant coffee, but we’re comparing it to ground coffee.”

February 18, 2009

48 shades of brown

Nick Earls is a pretty good writer. I enjoyed his books. Other than the title this post has nothing to do with Nick Earls.

Back when I was redesigning my old blog I was looking for the quintessential coffee colour. You can see the results here. That would have been much, much easier if I’d had this little web tool to help me. All you have to do is upload a picture and it gives you a colour palette complete with hex codes. You can download the palette as a photoshop palette file too. Very useful.

Here’s my colours of coffee series screenshots. The last image does arguably feature the titular 48 shades of brown too. Though some could be better described as shades of black or red.

coffee1

coffee2

coffee3

February 17, 2009

People say she’s crazy she’s got diamonds on…

The soles of her coffee machine? Well, that’s one way to solve these economic blues.

What do you buy the coffee lover that has everything? How bout a Swarovski crystal encrusted coffee machine? Why? I don’t know.

February 13, 2009

Will it blend: coffee

Will it Blend is the viral marketer’s dream. Who’d have thought getting the managing director of the company to blend cool stuff with this magic blender would capture the attention of hundreds of thousands of regular viewers. 

Now, Will it Blend’s Blendtek blender takes on the high end coffee grinder market. 

February 13, 2009

Pour quality – putting the art into latte art

Coffee photos are my current favourites. This one here featuring a “naked portafiller” is very nice. Does anyone have a spare angle grinder? A naked portafiller for my machine would cost $70 otherwise.

This one’s from Flickr user Tonx’s coffee photos.

There’s shots from barista competitions, cafes and a variety of other coffee related events. And some Latte Art. Including this one. My favourite. There’s a series of “making of” ones for this too so I’m pretty sure it’s legit. Or a seamless photoshop job. They’re worth checking out.

February 10, 2009

Author Profile: Honoré de Balzac

I haven’t actually read anything by de Balzac. But he’s my new favourite author. The man is a legend. A prodigious talent. Not because he’s famous for writing a series of 100 novels and plays about French life post Napoleon. But because he famously drank up to 50 coffees a day. And none of the namby pamby “french press” stuff. He was on the hard stuff. The hardest stuff. Spiscious Turkish Coffee. That’s pretty much coffee sludge.

Here’s a description of his work habits from his wikipedia entry:

“Balzac’s work habits are legendary – he did not work quickly, but toiled with an incredible focus and dedication. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He would often work for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle.”

And here’s some info on his coffee addiction from a Neatorama profile of famous people and their addictions:

“The famous French author would drink up to fifty cups of coffee every single day. And not stuff watered down with milk and sugar and the like – nope, Balzac liked thick, black, Turkish coffee. If it was unavailable in liquid form, or if he didn’t want to wait for it, he simply popped a handful of beans into his mouth and chewed (yuck). It may have kept him up all hours so he could write fantastic and prolific works of literature, but it didn’t do him any favors in the health department: he suffered from stomach cramps, high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. Some reports say it was the coffee that killed him – ulcers ate completely through his stomach and he died from a combination of that and caffeine poisoning.”

February 10, 2009

Coffee mug

Also awesome, also from ThinkGeek. This one’s $7.99.

February 7, 2009

Cafe economics

Hands up if you’ve ever thought “opening a cafe would be fun”. This little article was just about enough for me to put my hand down to that question. Here’s a failed cafe owner elaborating on the costs of pursuing your cafe dream. 

“A place that seats 25 will have to employ at least two people for every shift: someone to work the front and someone for the kitchen (assuming you find a guy who will both uncomplainingly wash dishes and reliably whip up pretty crepes; if you’ve found that guy, you’re already in better shape than most NYC restaurateurs. You’re also, most likely, already in trouble with immigration services). Budgeting $15 for the payroll for every hour your charming cafe is open (let’s say 10 hours a day) relieves you of $4,500 a month. That gives you another $4,500 a month for rent and $6,300 to stock up on product. It also means that to come up with the total needed $18K of revenue per month, you will need to sell that product at an average of a 300 percent markup.”

“Coffee was a different story—thanks to the trail blazed by Starbucks, the world of coffee retail is now a rogue’s playground of jaw-dropping markups. An espresso that required about 18 cents worth of beans (and we used very good beans) was sold for $2.50 with nary an eyebrow raised on either side of the counter. A dab of milk froth or a splash of hot water transformed the drink into a macchiato or an Americano, respectively, and raised the price to $3. The house brew too cold to be sold for $1 a cup was chilled further and reborn at $2.50 a cup as iced coffee, a drink whose appeal I do not even pretend to grasp.”

“But how much of it could we sell? Discarding food as a self-canceling expense at best, the coffee needed to account for all of our profit. We needed to sell roughly $500 of it a day. This kind of money is only achievable through solid foot traffic, but, of course, our cafe was too cozy and charming to pop in for a cup to go. The average coffee-to-stay customer nursed his mocha (i.e., his $5 ticket) for upward of 30 minutes. Don’t get me started on people with laptops.”

It seems the real cost was almost to the couple’s marriage – which the writer said was saved by a “well timed bankruptcy.

February 6, 2009

Today’s linkage February 6th

Best of the interweb

  • Coffee – My coffee page.
  • Tarzan Turnbull swings into a jungle full of trouble – Annabel Crabb on Turnbull#039;s fiscal stimulus opposition:
    quot;Swinging through the trees, Tarzan Turnbull alighted before the dispatch box and, giving his chest a vigorous, if figurative thump, performed his most dazzling feat of machismo yet.quot;

    quot;His colleagues quickly caught the crazy-brave spirit.

    quot;When somebody holds a gun to your head, maybe it#039;s a bit silly, but I say – #039;Well mate, pull the trigger#039;,quot; offered Joe Hockey, always a man for frankness in a crisis.

    The Prime Minister won#039;t hesitate to pull the trigger, either.

    The genius of his $42 billion gambit is that it is a sophisticated quot;Vote Yes, Or The Puppy Gets Itquot; device.

    Anyone voting against it will need to explain to forlorn local kiddies why they don#039;t get a school library, or to sad-eyed single parents why $950 won#039;t be coming their way after all.quot;

February 5, 2009

Things I use: The Evolution of a coffeesnob

coffee-evolution

That’s a graphical illustration of the typical path of the home consumption of a coffee snob. If you’ve skipped any of those stages good on you. The path from International Roast to roasting international beans at home is one filled with pitfalls and dangers.

The best way to traverse this is with the help of others. I’ve found the forum at coffeesnobs.com.au to be particularly helpful in my own personal coffee (r)evolution.

The forum was most helpful during the rebuild of Sheila, my Rancilio beastie.

I’ve collected a bunch of links to particular discussions that I think are vital to such a process.

1. Choosing a Grinder
2. Corretto
3. Buying used coffee equiptment – I’ve bought two grinders from this part of the forum, and been happy with both. I only bought the second because upgradeitis set in. Mostly because my other one was fine for home use, but I now roast beans for other people and take my machine to parties.
4. Plunger tips
5. Stovetop tips – you can get crema using a stovetop
6. Coffeesnobs glossary – helpful guide to finding your way around the forum.

This is something I would like to do when I have some spare time – but I also don’t want to electrocute myself. The Panasonic SD-200 breadmaker I use for roasting is annoying because you can’t just switch it on and make it spin. This modification adds a switch that just turns the motor on and off.

Other good coffee sites/articles:

“Ingredients for perfect espresso”
Knockbox – a forum moderated by the aforementioned Ministry Grounds (where I buy my green beans) Neil Atwood, good Australian alternative to coffeesnobs.
Home Barista – a world wide forum – mostly US centric. With a great “How tos” section
Whole Latte Love – full of reviews and stuff. Including this article on “rituals of espresso” that’s pretty helpful.
Coffeeparts – a great parts wholesaler who are more than happy to provide helpful customer service. I’ve bought a bunch of parts and paraphernalia from them.
Crema Magazine – an Australian coffee journal.
Cafe Grendel – a great coffee blog.
The Knockbox – another coffee blog run by an evangelical Christian who home roasts.

February 4, 2009

Bookmarks for January 4th

Best of the interweb:

February 3, 2009

Caffeink

This new printer is going to give caffeine addicts a new quick fix. Struggling through the onset of a caffeine headache? Just eat that document you’ve just printed.

That’s right. This technology uses used coffee grounds as ink. That’s a printer that would be pretty sustainable in our household. Currently we put our coffee grounds in the garden. It’s a labour intensive printing process – but ink is pretty expensive and apparently bad for the environment. 

Found via Slashdot.

February 3, 2009

Shirt of the Day: Caffeine

 

http://www.digitalmilitia.com/caffeine-shirt.php?ref=pdm

Cool shirt from Digital Militia  – a website that offers a range of your favourite products in molecular form. That’s caffeine in the image above.

February 2, 2009