We’ll take photos and do mini reviews along the way.

Tags: barcelona, barcelona coffee, spain coffee

Multatuli Coffee, an Ontario coffee roaster that supplies coffee to all of Parliament’s cafeterias, is also not happy that Starbucks is considered a step above them.

Read the whole story, with some amusing quotes from MPs, here.

From the post:

Simon uses the tip of an oven thermometer to flick away fragments of surface froth, exposing the coffee colour underneath.

"The customers love it," he says. "But when we’re busy I get frowned at by the boss for taking too long."

He has no formal art training other than high school, where he didn’t take to painting but loved sculpture and metalwork.

Tags: simon law, coffee art, coffee, lattee art

"Coffee brand Lavazza has received a rap on the knuckles for its Swedish ad campaign after the Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) judged it to be discriminatory.

“Intercoffe marketed Lavazza coffee. The pictures showed a woman lying on a bed drinking coffee, wearing a flight captain’s cap and a uniform shirt. The shirt is unbuttoned and the woman’s bra is visible,” according to ERK’s description of the offending campaign…

Sweden’s Ethical Council has a lower tolerance for the use of scantily clad women to advertise products than comparable regulatory bodies in other countries.

“Throughout Europe there is a big difference. If you just go over the bridge to Denmark you see that they accept a lot more,” ERK Secretary Jan Fager…

And regarding the Lavazza campaign ERK considers “that the woman is used as an eye catcher without any connection to the advertised products, and that it is insulting towards women.”

In its defence Lavazza wrote that the 2006 calendar from which the images were taken used humour and irony to recreate a 1950s feel. The company claimed that the images depicted glamour, style and a lust for life and were in no way discriminatory…"

Can you see how it would offend?

Image Source ; Tags: lavazza, marketing, coffee, advertising, advertisement, sweden

Dominican coffee exports, which registered a meager 54 thousand quintals last year, increased to 160 thousand quintals in the period 2005-2006, representing a recuperation in the order of 196.2 percent, which means that the sub-sector is certainly recovering from the crisis suffered between 2000-2003, when international prices declined to the lowest levels of the century.

Coffee sales abroad increased from 54,000 quintals during 2004-2005, to some 160 quintals during the coffee year 2005-2006.

Coffee is the 2nd greatest agricultural product that contributes to the country’s GDP.

Via Dominican Today ; Image Source ; Tags: dominican republic, coffee, exports, gdp

From the BBC:

"The shells were dropped in Ethiopia during the war with Eritrea. They were dropped so people hid them in their homes and now they sell them," Mr Azmeraw says.

… He then transforms the cylinder to channel the water, coffee and milk…

He uses old mortar shells, which stand about one metre high, to make his coffee machines.

He cuts off the pointed ends, seals them and puts holes into the aluminium cylinder. The cylinder channels the water, coffee and milk…

"Sometimes I think about the fact they were used for war but I want to change them to do something good. They could be a symbol of war but I am doing something good out of the bad."

Since he started production five or six years ago, Mr Azmeraw has sold hundreds of machines – he cannot remember exactly how many.

Each one costs about $1,300. Most of them have been sold to people in the Mekele area.

Via boing boing ; Tags: coffee machines, mortar shells, ethiopia, coffee, innovation, war, bombs

"The year is 2005 and it is time to reflect upon my life and there is no better accomplement than a freshly brewed cup of Peets. Thus begins The Year of Coffee, an honest look through the lense of Major Dickason. I secretly hope that I live something heroic or tragic though I suspect it may be a fluffy romantic comedy. Whatever is revealed will be shared here. It begins as an unflinching search for truth, but may end up as just a photo album of mugs of coffee."

And Lloyd did just that. Every day he would a picture (or two) of a cup of coffee, along with some quick comment, a glipse of the events in Lloyd’s day. On December 31, 2005 he posted the 1000th picture:

"I did not achieve enlightenment, but it did warm me up. My one-thousandth cup of 2005 was a latte from that place at the end of Mill Avenue. It was yummy, though the pastry sucked."

On Sunday he posted a video of the first 1000 cups, it takes less than 2 minutes to see them all.

And The Year of Coffee Blog continues, 1235 cups and counting.

Tags: coffee, blog, year, cup, lloyd asato, video

What is Kopi Luwak?

Kopi Luwak coffee, also known as Civet coffee or Kape Alamid, is coffee made from the poop of a Palm Civet. Kopi = coffee, Luwak = Palm Civet.

Yep, that’s right, it’s coffee that has passed through the digestive tract of the cat-sized mammal common in the Philippines & Vietnam. The Palm Civet will eat the coffee berries, and the beans pass through undigested.

The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it is believed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee’s flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are excreted still covered in some inner layers of the cherry, and locals then gather them and sell them to dealers. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors which develop through the whole process. – Wikipedia

Why would anyone drink Kopi Luwak?

That I cannot answer. And yet, it is the single most expensive coffee in the world, selling at $75 USD per quarter pound.

The coffee is popular in the US and Japan, and is now available online. I’ve no personal interest in trying it, but if you do – go for it.

Tags: coffee, kopi luwak, cat coffee

The last batch of coffee, which we unfortunately didn’t write about, wasn’t as good. It started well right after roasting but didn’t last well as we continued to finish our half pound. Since we don’t get fresh coffee every day, it’s good to have one that can last a week.

The flavour of the coffee is not very strong. Perhaps it’s a little on the more flat side as opposed to many others we have tried that have distinct flavours.

About Flores:

The island of Flores was never really part of the Dutch East Indies. It was discovered by the Portuguese in the mid 15th century and was settled by them soon after. The Portuguese influence lasted for over 100 years before the Dutch drove them out. However Portuguese missionaries remained and today most of the population is Christian, unlike the rest of the country which is predominately Muslim. The island itself is a fantastic place- from the Komodo dragons in the east, to the volcanic lakes of Kelimutu and the friendly port city of Larantuka…vast jungles cover the island and many of the roads are narrow and allow limited access to the hinterland. The arabica produced on the island displays mellowness reminiscent of that found in Java.. Several large plantations produce beans for export, however again the small hold producers grow beans with unusual and very favorable qualities. – Source

His list includes Ritual Coffee Roasters on Valencia St and Quetzal Internet Cafe on Polk Street.

Check out the full set of recommendations.

Tags: san francisco, coffee, cafes

Boris Mann gives us a preview of lovely coffee experiences to expect from Italy:

Tags: italy, coffee

So, never having been to Europe, and wanting good coffee… any suggestions?

Do you know of good cafes we should seek out? Any advice is welcome.

Of course, we’re going to keep a coffee diary of all the places we go to and our coffee experiences. Looking forward to it!

Video info from the contributor, brengibble:

Digitized from a 1984 VHS tape. This is one of the famous Coffee Achievers tv spots, meant to encourage people to DRINK COFFEE. You can see how we here in the 21st Century have to laugh ourselves senseless at the idea that paid ads were necessary, and not even for a particular brand of coffee, just the product in general. Appearing in this ad: David Bowie (Jay Leno in 1985: “Come on! To David Bowie, a cup of coffee is merely a sedative at this point.”), Kenny Anderson, Kurt Vonnegut, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, and Cicely Tyson.

From YouTube

But it goes to show, if you don’t respect your employees you can’t expect any loyalty from them. And if your employees don’t care about and don’t enjoy their job your customers will probably not have a very good experience. It’s just bad for business.

There seems to be a lot of talk about the lot being overpriced and the coffee over-hyped, but the people who have tried this coffee say they love it and the fact that the price ended up being as high as it was says a lot about how much they wanted to get a hold of it.

We are really looking forward to trying a cup and we are lucky to live a short walk away from Artigiano, where they will be offering this coffee by-the-cup, brewed with their new Clover.

Here are some links with more information and opinions:
Portafilter.net
Godshot
Tonx
Richard
Laughing Meme

First, something negative that I hadn’t expected: the coffee. It sucks, all over the Redmond campus. I would never have thought that a company managed like Microsoft would be incapable of providing decent coffee to its employees. But it’s true. This stuff is gut-wrenching bad. Coffee-addict-repulsing bad.

Read the rest at Doug’s World.

Roast Master Michael Hartkop wanted to create a truly organic roasting method and with the help of his brother David they built Helios.

Helios uses a 10 foot solar collector to focus the sun’s rays onto a drum roaster. This is enough to reach temperatures of 600 degrees Farenheit. The mirrors automatically track the sun, using solar power for the electronics, making roasting possible all day long. Of course, this only works on sunny days, so roasting during winter in the Pacific Northwest is a bit of a challenge.

They have a nice list of single origins and blends, but they seem to be out of stock right now. I’ll give them a try in a few months, when the sun comes out again.

Oh, it was not fun, let me tell you. We went to what looked like the most “main” in terms of coffee at Disneyland, the Blue Ribbon Bakery on Mainstreet.

Now, the first clue here is that the cafe is sponsored by, and served by, Nestle. Oy. I was in for it there. Well, I decided to get an Americano, and Ianiv a plain old drip coffee. Can you tell which is which?

Well, the one on the left was the Americano. And you can see me trying below. What you don’t see is the grimace on my face. Oh my. I have to say it was as bad as any coffee from a random gas station that was brewed 4 hours ago kind of thing. And it was watery. So watery. Skimping on pennies for sure. Ianiv’s was a tad more horrible, and perhaps even more watery. Lovely.

Folger’s explanation is that the turtle could be the result of flooding from Hurricane Katrina. The coffee was already ground, I wonder how it is stored in those warehouses to allow a little turtle to get into the packing line.

She is not planning to sue the company and that things could have been much worse. Worse? How?
Buy fresh coffee from someone who can actually cares and can keep control of the product’s quality.

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen