Monday, March 26

What the internet is good for

I was doing the internet rat thing this morning, clicking on link after link, when I found this supposedly high-end tea from the 1960's for sale, called Guang Yun Beeng Cha Pu-erh Tea. The tea is sold by this company called Generation Teas, and you should check out their website.

They have all sorts of different types of rare teas, and unless you mind buying your tea a little in bulk, or you can't justify spending a decent chunk of your paycheck on something sweet to drink, I'd recommend you pick some up.

Idea: Maybe I'll start a new series of reviews on different types of teas/coffees etc, so you don't have to buy 2 pounds of green tea from China only to find out that it tastes like dirt. Let me know what you think...

Sunday, March 25

Instant laser coffee

Check out this interesting video the tech blog MAKE recently linked to. This guy uses a 2 kilowatt laser to heat up some instant coffee, and I've got to admit, it's pretty sweet. I wonder if it could be used to brew real coffee, and not that rot gut.If so, I could see Starbucks jumping all over something like this.

Wednesday, March 21

NEWS FLASH...apparently soft drinks are bad for you

There's an article released today on the website LiveScience, which goes over some recent scientific evidence which proves pop is bad for your teeth. Holy crap! Call the president or something! Anyone whose ever drank a pop probably knows that the sweet carbonated tingle on their teeth isn't strengthening their enamel.

According to the article, the latest research, published in Academy of General Dentistry (AGD) journal General Dentistry, reports that drinking any type of soft drink hurts teeth due to the citric acid and/or phosphoric acid in the beverages.

The study measured the acidity, or pH, of 20 commercial soft drinks, including Coke, Pepsi, 7 Up and their diet versions, immediately after cans were opened. Then slices of enamel from freshly extracted teeth were weighed before and after being immersed in the soft drinks for 48 hours. Many of the teeth were reported as losing up to 5 percent of their total weight.

You can read the rest of the story here

Monday, March 19

Facts are in...

If you haven't watched the video directly below, do so before reading this post.

It didn't take long to find some of the numbers behind the claims made by the Starbucks representative interviewed below. Apparently, the rumor is true. They do buy fair trade coffee. In 2006, Starbucks actually bought 18 million pounds of green (unroasted) coffee beans, which is a lot, unless you knew that they bought a total of 155 million pounds last year alone. Let's see, that accounts for about... 6% of their total beans as being fair trade.

There is a high note though. They did contribute over $36 million to charities last year, not including a total of 383,000 hours of volunteer work.

I'm sure this debate could probably go either way, which is why I'm not going to go into it too much. All of this info came from a publication put out by Starbucks themselves called their Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report. If you want to read the whole thing, check it out here.

Starbucks talks about coffee farmers in Africa

I know that Starbucks gets a pretty bad rap, but you have to give them at least a bit of credit-they did start somewhat of a coffee shop revolution. Go all over the web and you'll find blog after blog of people complaining about the company, but you never get to hear from the big guys unless it's via a news story or press release. In this video I found streamed through YouTube, a Starbucks Coffee Team leader named Dub Hay gives an interview and discusses some of the company's fair trade practices. I'd like to see some more numbers and statistics to back up the claims he is making before I'm converted to the dark (roast) side, but it is always interesting to hear firsthand the other side of the story.

Sunday, March 18

Mmmm... Caffeinated Art

Check out this great, short video of barista art.

Friday, March 16

Here's one for you coffee snobs

Think you have the kind of refined palette that could identify a fine coffee from the local diner's rot gut? Are you the kind of bean nut that can differentiate between Sumatran and Ethiopian just by smell? Well then I found the coffee for you, o great coffee snob. It's called Kopi Luwak, and it'll definitely makes you think rethink your preference for expensive coffee beans.

There is a type of nocturnal cat called the Luwak that roams around in Indonesia and eats only the best, perfectly ripe coffee cherries. After the cherries pass through the Luwak's digestive system (read: are crapped out), the locals collect the Luwak's droppings and wash them off, recovering the coffee beans still encased in their protective endocarps. Apparently, this is a process which must happen anyway, so having the coffee cherry pass through a Luwak's GI tract isn't that crazy. Before roasting, beans are just hulled as usual.

Kopi Luwak, or as I like to call it "cat-crap coffee," is very
hard to get a hold of on the world market. Annual production is super limited, so this one is left for you serious coffee people out there (although if you're really cool you probably already knew about it). This stuff sells for anywhere from $100 to $300 per pound and is chugged down by the gallon in places like Japan and Sumatra. So, the next time you're looking for an expensive cup o' joe, think twice about the one with the extra nutty aroma, except you, you coffee snob you (drink til your heart's content).

Monday, March 5

Java Wand


I can now feel good about using that word "brews" in my title image.

Here's a really cool little gadget that lets you brew a cup of coffee in the mug. It's a mini French Press filter attached to a hand crafted, glass straw that brews and filters coffee, tea leaves, herbs at your convenience.

Simply add hot water to your medium coffee grinds, brew, build flavor and in seconds sip to the very last drop.

Visit the website here

Thursday, March 1

Think you have it bad

According to Reuters, exam supervisors at a German university stuck to rules so rigidly that a man with a bladder dysfunction had to urinate in a bottle in front of 120 fellow students because they would not let him go to the toilet.

Apparently, the man suffered from a weak bladder as a result of recent traffic accident, which had left him on crutches. When the student had to go to the bathroom, the supervisors insisted he stay seated, obviously thinking it was some trickery (on a side note: that would be a great idea). After a while of arguing, including many protests from fellow students, the bladder-weak student was able to urinate in a bottle that another classmate had emptied out.

How embarrassing.

Original story here