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Is this how you feel? ;)

The baristas of cleanhotdry.com have created a desktop wallpaper featuring espresso pulled and consumed from Vancouver cafes. Clean, simple, elegant - show your love for Vancouver coffee!

You can download the wallpaper in various sizes here.

Tags: vancouver, vancouver coffee, espresso, wallpaper

Here is an interesting article about how to optimize your intake of caffeine. Some highlights:

small hourly doses of caffeine (.3mg per kg of body weight [approx 20 mg per hour; thanks digg!]) can support extended wakefulness

Caffeine may increase the speed with which you work, may decrease attentional lapses, and may even benefit recall - but is less likely to benefit more complex cognitive functions, and may even hurt others

The beneficial effects of caffeine may be most pronounced in conjunction with sugar.

How do you consume your caffeine throughout the day?

Tags: caffeine, optimize

Check out this 2008 illustrated coffee calendar by Mike Rohde. It features several unique drinks from various areas of the world. You can see all the illustrations in this Flickr page, and if you like them you can buy the calendar from Cafepress.

Japan’s Tsukioka Co. has created edible gold blocks to go in coffee. The "Kin Kirara" (Sparkly Gold) are thin, pure gold word and character blocks - Happy Birthday would set you back about $4

Via coolhunting

I don’t think I ever expected to find caffeine associated with sunflower seeds. Meet Sumseeds:

"Premium Sunflower seeds SUPERCHARGED with CAFFEINE, TAURINE, LYSINE and GINSENG"

Just odd, if you ask me…

Via strange new products ; Tags: sumseeds, caffeine, sunflower seeds, sunflower caffeine

The Mugnum is a coffee cup with a handle shaped like a handgun grip:

Via BoingBoing

Simon Law is a barista in Australia at Cottesloe’s John Street café, and he’s in line as an artist of his own right, using some interesting techniques to turn coffee into art:

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

Sammy Lin is a barista in New York who serves up fresh ideas with his coffee - the art of your choice. Every day Sammy creates 700 masterpieces for his customers - anything from a swirl to the Mona Lisa.

The article in NY Post:

WHEN one of Manhattan’s most reputable Italian eateries installed a Chinese barista, heads turned. Gone was Lorenzo, the restaurant’s traditionally Italian barista, replaced by a young man who had been raised drinking jasmine tea. Yet six years later, Bottega Del Vino’s Sammy Lin is gaining notoriety as the city’s finest cappuccino artist.

Sammy Lin knocks out over 700 lattes, espressos and caps a day at the East 59th Street restaurant. But this is no ordinary coffee. Having created the "perfect creamy foam" as his canvas, he sets about designing intricate artworks atop his offerings, tailored to his customers’ quirks. Be it a monkey, a Chinese symbol, an umbrella or some detailed flora and fauna, Sammy brings a little extra to your daily fix.

Formerly a music teacher raised in Fuzhou, South China, Sammy was working the coffee machine within days of arriving in Manhattan. "I got a lot of complaints at first," he laughs. "I learned from Lorenzo. He taught me everything about the steam, the grain, and the foam. The customers taught me the rest."

Just how does Sammy decide who gets what? "It depends on how much time I have, and on the customer. My favorites are the flower and the leaf - I can make them in five seconds, whereas a monkey face takes 20 seconds. It also depends on the type of coffee they want. A latte has a brown foam in which I carve a white design, a cappuccino is the other way around."

And we had to ask - what’s his most memorable design request? "To make the Mona Lisa smile! Leonardo couldn’t do it, but I can!"

I would love to see some of his designs. I would be tempted to just stand there all day seeing what people ask for.

Tags: sammy lin, coffee art, latte art, cappuccino art, artist, art, coffee, new york, manhattan, barista, Bottega Del Vino

It all started on January 1st, 2005 when Lloyd Asato decided to document every cup of coffee he would drink that year:

"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, 2020 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

This is a scanned 1985 ad from the Italian computer magazine Microcomputer for an espresso maker you attach to your Commodore 64. Where can I find something similar for my laptop? :)

Via BoingBoing

Tags: coffee, espresso, commodore, computer

Cappuccino Art, brought to you by the Elysian Room

We were married on April first. During the planning process, we found ways to infuse almost every aspect of the wedding ceremony and the reception with elements of who we are.

One such element, obviously, is coffee.

Our coffee-themed elements included:

• Our wedding favours: chocolate covered coffee beans (Java Beans) from JJ Bean
• Our wedding cake: hazelnut sponge cake with chocolate ganache and espresso flavoured butter cream (the strongest flavour, as per our direction)
• Wedding breakfast: no hotel coffee for us! Coffee delivered with breakfast from Trees

We took the coffee theme just about as far as you can take it, and those guests who know us appreciate that we connect with our wedding so closely. It was really "us".

Plus, we have to say, it was really delicious :)

Tags: wedding, coffee, wedding favors, chocolate, wedding cake, blogaholicswed

This post on BoingBoing links to a few self-portraits taken using a shiny french press. My press has the dull black plastic top, so you’ll be spared from seeing my face, after I woke up, before I drink my coffee. I think she’s had too much coffee already :)

Today’s Userfriendly strip makes fun of flavoured coffee. Quite funny.