Tag Archive 'kopi_luwak'

(Old) news of the week; ”Coffee mania” floods Kyiv

Posted by TheShot on 11 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Starbucks

What a strange newsweek it’s been in the coffee world. The best way to characterize it?: What’s old is suddenly new again.
Tuesday we had Starbucks’ latest cry for attention/help/suicide prevention with their mysterious “04.08.08″-on-a-lame-paper-cup campaign. Essentially, the publicity stunt announced the launch of their “new” Pike Place Roast and a “new” return to the old [...]

[view full post]

What’s New: Restaurants brewing up gourmet blends

Posted by TheShot on 18 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Restaurant Coffee

Earlier this week, the SF Chronicle ran a piece on the escalating coffee wars among area restaurants: What’s New: Restaurants brewing up gourmet blends. With the likes of the SJ Mercury News running front-page stories this week on the coffee war between McDonald’s and Starbucks, hopefully places that sell $18 hamburgers might try to outdo [...]

[view full post]

More coffee fads from animals’ digestive enzymes: Please make it stop!

Posted by TheShot on 14 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends

The apocalypse must clearly be upon us. And it’s not just that oil slick out in the San Francisco Bay, either. In the news today is yet another reported “coffee connoisseur” obsession with coffee beans processed through the digestive enzymes of some mysterious Asian mammal: Monkey business yields gourmet Taiwan coffee | Lifestyle | Living [...]

[view full post]

How do you know when your fancy restaurant still doesn’t “get” coffee?

Posted by TheShot on 29 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Restaurant Coffee

The post title is the question of the day. If I may paraphrase an old quote from a previous post — where we asked, “How does the fool who knows nothing about wine impress his guests?” — the answer is: by buying the most expensive coffee they can find — along with a good story [...]

[view full post]

When $600-a-pound Coffee Meets the Slow News Day

Posted by TheShot on 13 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Starbucks

Anthropologists really should take a closer look at the story of $600-a-pound coffee passed through Indonesian civet droppings, known as kopi luwak. This ‘news’ story has been repeatedly recycled across TV, newspapers, bloggers, and other media throughout the country for several years now — propagating like a Nigerian bank scam e-mail. And just like a [...]

[view full post]

Towards a segmented quality coffee market

Posted by TheShot on 27 Apr 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade, Quality Issues

The April 2007 issue of Coffee Talk primarily focused on the annual SCAA conference next month. The most interesting article comes from George Howell, president of Terroir Coffee Company, who wrote about the state of the world’s quality coffee supplies: Towards a segmented quality coffee market [PDF file, page 8].
With the growing public awareness of [...]

[view full post]

Coffee craze has everyone a bit nuts

Posted by TheShot on 28 Aug 2006 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends

Yesterday’s Washington Post ran an article that pretty much embodied everything I despise about coffee: Coffee craze has everyone a bit nuts - Family Times - The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper. It’s the focus on all the sizzle and none of the steak. Apparently, few of us want to hear about what it takes to [...]

[view full post]

Trip Report: Alvin’s Scrumptious Coffees & Teas

Posted by TheShot on 14 Mar 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Local Brew, Roasting

Alvin Azadkhanian is something of an SF institution amidst the ever industrialized approach of coffee roasting and serving. This unassuming storefront/café has a few plastic sidewalk tables & chairs out front under awnings and a few simple diner tables inside. They sell everything from Bodum Santos vac pots, La Pavoni Europiccola machines, many organic roasts [...]

[view full post]

Rare Indonesian coffee bean picked from civet droppings

Posted by TheShot on 01 Jan 2006 | Tagged as: Beans

Once again, the news media has exhumed stories about the ridiculous and ridiculously expensive Kopi Luwak bean:
Chron.com | Rare Indonesian coffee bean picked from civet droppings. According to this latest article, we can apparently blame this foolishness on many of our money-to-burn California compatriots hard up for interesting Christmas gift ideas.
This freak show novelty appeals [...]

[view full post]