Posted by TheShot on 16 Mar 2011 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Local Brew
Taking up the space that was formerly Daniel Creamery and its cheese production, the Summit has tall ceilings in a wide open space converted for café and art space use. The main seating area is littered with rectangular tables and chairs with plenty of wall outlets and laptop zombies — making you feel like you [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 16 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine
A little over two years ago, we lamented the state of populist retail home espresso by reviewing what we thought was one of the better options at the time, the Nespresso C180 Le Cube: The Home Espresso Machine Blues: Rating today’s state of consumer espresso machines. Besides having a name that sounded regrettably familiar to [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 07 Sep 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Local Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
For the better part of a year, a running gag from the casual coffee lovers who know me is to ask, “So have you tried McDonald’s espresso yet? How does it rate?” Mostly they ask as a curious, sick joke — knowing that I subject myself to the worst kinds of coffee punishment. But now [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 26 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Restaurant Coffee
Foodie rag gone online, Saveur.com, recently published a series of coffee-themed articles in conjunction with the SCAA. One of the articles lamented American restaurants’ continued one-dimensional treatment of coffee: Nothing ‘Regular’ About It – Saveur.com. “‘Regular’ coffee?! The appetizer alone rated five adjectives,” writes reporter Jim Munson. We’ve expressed this very same lament here a [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 26 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Fair Trade
According to today’s Globe and Mail (Toronto), Kraft’s Maxwell House coffee will soon be airing new Canadian television ads that may do less to promote their coffee than to assuage consumer guilt: globeandmail.com: Selling good feelings, one cup at a time. In short, the idea is for Maxwell House — who, when it comes to [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 04 Nov 2007 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Home Brew, Machine
Today’s New York Times Magazine published an article on the declining design aesthetic of the espresso machine: The Pod People – New York Times. As the author puts it, “Cape Canaveralesque control centers that have replaced those great machines.” And she blames the meteoric popularity of Starbucks, which inspired a great wave of ensuing greed [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 29 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Quality Issues
On Friday, The Republican (Springfield, MA) reported on a recent, local case of daughter-mother domestic abuse: Counseling ordered in ‘poisoned coffee’ case – Breaking News – MassLive.com. On the surface, the story is your typical police blotter fodder. But peel back a layer, and it raises all sorts of questions about what really goes into [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 24 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Fair Trade, Quality Issues, Robusta
Corporate spokespeople frequently speak volumes more in what’s left unsaid than in what they say. Take yesterday’s Reuters news release from The Big 4‘s Kraft Foods. Kraft’s flagship coffee, Maxwell House, has desensitized American coffee taste buds for decades. Kraft has just recently decided to use 100% arabica beans in Maxwell House’s cans of unholy [...]
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