Coffee Snobs Move on to Homemade Roasts
Posted by TheShot on 21 Nov 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Home Brew, Roasting
The Northwest Indiana Times ran a story today on the growth of those freaks of coffee consumption, home roasters: Northwest Indiana News: nwitimes.com - Coffee Snobs Move on to Homemade Roasts. Home roasting has been around for a while. In fact, a long, long while. Its most recent resurgence has come about over the past decade or so. However, home coffee roasting was pretty much the norm for centuries up until commercial coffee roasters arrived on the scene in the 20th century.
Even so, it’s about time the mainstream media acknowledged the existence of true coffee snobs. Last month I got into a debate with syndicated columnist and “The Wine Guy”, Brian Goodell, that coffee snobs did, in fact, exist. It’s just that wine snobs are little like the Wampanoag around Plymouth Rock, thinking that the Pilgrims who just got off the Mayflower are just an aberration.
However, there’s one comment in the article I have to question: “America’s most finicky coffee drinkers tout their caffeine connoisseurship in many ways.” Caffeine connoisseurship? Excuse me? Why do unimaginative writers always insist on resorting to lame jazz riffs on the word “coffee” by interjecting the word “caffeine”? This is akin to calling a “wine snob” an “alcohol connoisseur” — which takes on a wholly different meaning.
Also in the news today from the Associated Press: Coffee roasting how-to.
UPDATE: November 24, 2006:
This story has also been recycled by other news agencies: Their cup of tea: home-roasted coffee - The Boston Globe.
5 Comments »
on 22 Nov 2006 at 3:04 pm -05:00T 1.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » It’s more than just coffee — it’s a bowl for the soul said …
[...] InsideBayArea.com published an article today by a self-employed writer (and cooking class instructor) who named some of her favorite coffeehouses around the country: Inside Bay Area - It’s more than just coffee — it’s a bowl for the soul. Yes, she unimaginatively resorted to the ever-popular, ever-tedious caffeine riff (calling coffeehouses “caffeine dens”). But she claims to have sampled a lot of coffee drinks. [...]
on 29 Nov 2006 at 6:59 pm -05:00T 2.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Decaf Coffee Is Not Caffeine-Free (And Particularly If You’re At Starbucks) said …
[...] Ignore the stating-the-obvious article title for a moment. Even ignore my latest tirade against unimaginative writers who use the caffeine riff as a synomym for coffee. [...]
on 11 Dec 2006 at 11:55 am -05:00T 3.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Coffee: Drink or lifestyle? How about both? said …
[...] Today’s The Star Press also offers a capsule on Muncie’s four best coffee options: Caffeine addicts sing the praises of Muncie’s growing collection of shops | The Star Press - http://www.thestarpress.com - Muncie, IN (pardon my gagging over the title: another cliché caffeine riff that plagues so many unimaginative writers). In case you should ever find yourself lost in northeast Indiana. [...]
on 06 Jan 2007 at 2:21 pm -05:00T 4.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Personal History: My Two-Year Journey Into the Caffeine Desert said …
[...] In the end, the caffeine angle is an amusing one — given that espresso, my coffee beverage of choice, is one of your better options. Culturally, at least in America, we errantly behold espresso as if it were an intravenous drip of pure caffeine. Writers and editors constantly riff on espresso as a euphemism for the most potent infusion of caffeine your veins can handle. Pulling an all-nighter? Six cups of coffee won’t do, but six espressos will keep you awake from now until Christ’s second coming. (For example, last year, San Francisco magazine even resorted to calling me a “caffeinista”.) Yet if made properly — i.e., without all the water-soluble muck that comes tumbling out into your typical over-extracted American espresso — it has less caffeine than your average drip coffee. [...]
on 11 Jan 2007 at 5:01 pm -05:00T 5.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Mysterious ‘Meth Coffee’ launches in San Francisco said …
[...] Now it’s no secret that I’ve been ranting a lot lately about how caffeine addiction has been made synonymous with a love of coffee — in ways where we wouldn’t presume that a wine aficionado is naturally an alcoholic. (The hideous wine analogy rears its ugly head yet again!) But come on… “Meth Coffee”?! I just read today that bath soap qualifies as an instrument of caffeine delivery: A New Type of Java Jolt: Caffeinated Soap. Is the Dove Unscented Meth Beauty Bar up next for a little Fight Club-like marketing? [...]