Tag Archive 'coffee_beans'

California-grown coffee?

Posted by on 03 Dec 2010 | Tagged as: Beans

The LA Times today published a curious article on attempts to commercially grow coffee in the continental U.S. (California, in fact): Market Watch: Jay Ruskey perks interest with California-grown coffee – latimes.com. Started as a project in 2002 with an eye towards replicating Kona‘s successful specialty coffee industry in Hawaii, two of the biggest challenges [...]

[view full post]

Kona coffee gets an article worthy of its pedigree

Posted by on 03 Oct 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade

A friend of this Web site, Andrew Hetzel, called it the best article about Kona coffee ever written. That’s a pretty tall order. But this piece, which came out a couple days ago, makes a compelling argument: Hana Hou: The Magazine of Hawaiian Airlines – Adventures in Coffeeland. It’s at least good enough to make [...]

[view full post]

Where Are My Coffee Varieties 2: Washed or Natural?

Posted by on 21 Aug 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Local Brew, Restaurant Coffee

Four years ago we posted about our disappointment over high-end restaurants that offered plenty of options for tea but only one for coffee. It’s as if these celebrated houses of distinguished taste decided that coffee had all the nuance and variety of unleaded gasoline — and it showed in the product they served. And when [...]

[view full post]

Trip Report: W Café @ Longmarket St. (Cape Town, South Africa)

Posted by on 20 Jul 2010 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Foreign Brew

Mention the name “Woolworths” to an American, and they’ll think “Woolworth’s” [sic] (again with that possessive thing). Woolworth was founded in 1879 as one of America’s first five-and-dime stores — even if it has become known as Foot Locker since the turn of the millennium. For those who remember Woolworth as a discount dimestore, the [...]

[view full post]

Australia deconstructs good coffee; Seattle calls anybody who likes coffee “a barista”

Posted by on 19 Jul 2010 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues

In the news today, researchers in Australia have decided to take a deconstructionist’s approach towards creating the ideal coffee: Australia Looks To Produce The Ultimate Cup Of Coffee | Gov Monitor. The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) performed experiments to determine how picking coffee cherries at different stages in their maturity might affect [...]

[view full post]

Worst Coffee Trends – Bad Coffee Trends – Esquire

Posted by on 02 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Barista, Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Machine, Quality Issues, Roasting

If the title of this post seems like the product of a copy-editor undergoing a seizure, it is intentional. It echoes the title of a new article on Esquire‘s Web site verbatim: Worst Coffee Trends – Bad Coffee Trends – Esquire. To thicken the plot, do note that this is the second article in a [...]

[view full post]

The next coffee crisis

Posted by on 21 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Fair Trade, Robusta

One of the long running jokes among the (these days: masochistic) fans who follow Italian soccer is that — at least according to the Italian sports media — teams tend to go from “crisis” to “crisis” several times in a given season. If a top-caliber team doesn’t win for two straight matches, sono in crisi [...]

[view full post]

Intelligentsia Coffee’s CEO talks beans

Posted by on 05 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting

Saturday’s Chicago Tribune published a pretty good piece on Intelligentsia CEO, Doug Zell: Intelligentsia Coffee’s CEO talks beans – chicagotribune.com. While Doug gets a little loopy (our opinion) in abusing the ever-popular wine analogy for coffee — e.g., espousing such shoehorned ideas as coffee pairings — he’s been a pioneer and leader in areas such [...]

[view full post]

Organic coffee: Why Latin America’s farmers are abandoning it

Posted by on 04 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade

Last week the Christian Science Monitor published an article highlighting the economic pressures on Latin America’s organic coffee farmers: Organic coffee: Why Latin America’s farmers are abandoning it / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com. Just as Fair Trade designed their program to attract coffee growers through the promise of financial incentives, once they made [...]

[view full post]

Hawaiian Islands erupt with new coffee regions

Posted by on 24 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: Beans

Today’s SF Chronicle features an article on some of the lesser-known coffee growing regions of Hawaii: Hawaiian Islands erupt with new coffee regions. For each of the islands of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii (the Big Island), they offer info on the coffee growing history of the island, what’s brewed from there today, and [...]

[view full post]

Older Entries »