Posted by TheShot on 29 Dec 2009 | Tagged as: Add Milk, Café Society, Foreign Brew
Two years ago, when we first encountered this café chain on Via Garibaldi in Torino, Italy, we had no idea how few of them exist. For one, turns out it was the only one in all of Italy. For another, there is only a dozen of them in the world. Oddly, four of them are [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 17 Nov 2008 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Quality Issues, Starbucks
Not a day goes without us coming across a story about how the sky is falling on retail quality coffee. For example, ABC News laments, “How do you save on coffee in tough times?” Today the Chicago Tribune ran a semi-humorous column titled “Brother, can you spare (buying) a double latte?” Each one of these [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 18 May 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Foreign Brew
Yesterday we returned from our recent travels in Northern India. Whereas many Asian cities such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, etc., have culturally enlightened us in the past, none of them have enamored us the way Delhi has. Unfortunately, our infatuation with India has nothing to do with the local coffee, but more on [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 21 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: Beans, Foreign Brew, Roasting
Yesterday’s Independent (London) interviewed Giuseppe Lavazza, the “crown prince of the world’s biggest independent coffee company” — a.k.a. Lavazza: The family that grew rich on the other black stuff – Business Analysis & Features, Business – The Independent. The coffee story from Lavazza is that, at least in Italy, espresso is not a commodity but [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 23 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Beans, CoffeeRatings.com, Foreign Brew, Roasting
Occasionally this Web site can be the source of a real life story, and the story of Caffè Mokabar is a good one. For a little background, after a couple weeks of espresso research in Piemonte, Italy last October, we were most duly impressed with Caffè Mokabar among all the coffee roasters we encountered. So [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 30 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Foreign Brew
It’s been a long time coming. After three years of laziness, I found a clean way to add non-SF espresso bars to the online database without having them muck up the SF sorts and ratings. It’s not a lot, and there are still a few kinks to work out, but it’s progress. And the timing [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 06 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting
Here’s an appropriate story, given my current location in Alba, Piemonte — about 40 miles from Torino. Earlier this week, Reuters published an article on Michele Mastrantuono, one of Lavazza‘s official coffee tasters: A day in the life of an Italian coffee taster | Lifestyle | Living | Reuters. Mr. Mastrantuono performs quality control on [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 22 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Home Brew
A Peninsula people-watching Mecca, typically filled with large crowds throughout the day and skirmishes over available outdoor tables. It’s been that way here since I first entered this place 15 years ago. They have large indoor and outdoor seating areas, local art, occasional musicians, and obligatory patrons in bike shorts. One of the most indelible [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 17 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Starbucks
Today’s Globe and Mail (Canada) surveyed the rise of coffee consumption among India’s growing middle class: reportonbusiness.com: Tea-drinking India warms to coffee house culture. We mentioned this trend a year ago, and today apparently one coffee company — Café Coffee Day — owns two-thirds of India’s coffee houses. This is a luxury that Starbucks doesn’t [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 21 Feb 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Home Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting
Today’s The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) posted an article on home coffee roasting: Coffee fans toast what they roast | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA. What I particularly liked was that they use the term I do for fresh roasted coffee: fresh baked bread. Too often, restaurants, cafés, stores, and, well, coffee drinkers treat roasted coffee [...]
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