Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Yesterday’s New York Times published an article on the accelerating demise of the neighborhood French café: Across France, Cafe Owners Are Suffering – NYTimes.com. This time last year, we scoffed at the suggestion that France’s then-impending smoking ban would trigger the collapse of French café society. But sure enough, that collapse appears to be in [...]

This morning we came across an article in Convenience Store Decisions (how often have you heard that in a sentence?). The convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, has launched a new, multi-million-dollar marketing blitz this month, emphasizing the “guaranteed freshness” of their coffee: Convenience Store Decisions – 7-Eleven Promotes Fresh-Brewed Coffee. Before reading this article/press release, we [...]

Today Earthtimes.org published an article on the evolving consumer coffee market in Vienna, Austria: Vienna’s coffee makers take on the convenience cup : Health. While Vienna is steeped in a long tradition of contemplative coffee-drinking in elegant cafés, modern trends such as espresso drinks, big international coffee chains, “to go” coffee, and home espresso machines [...]

Back in the 1980s, Wendy’s fast food restaurants sponsored a highly successful advertising campaign featuring a diminutive elderly Jewish woman (Clara Peller, she quickly became a cultural icon from these spots). When presented with the hamburgers of Wendy’s competitors, she famously asked, “Where’s the beef?!” These days, it seems like we need a similar campaign [...]

Yesterday a friend of a friend (now living in Italy) posted in her blog on the variety of standard coffee offerings you can find at a typical Italian caffè: How to Order an Italian Coffee in Italy — Ms. Adventures in Italy. Also included in the post are a variety of photos, instructions on how [...]

When grumbling over tax law conspiracies, some people get steamed over corporations that avoid paying U.S. taxes by incorporating in Bermuda. Others want to start a tax revolt because they might have to pay an extra dime to drink their coffee out of something other than a paper cup: Patterico’s Pontifications » Tax Tip of [...]

This started as a small, Sonoma-based chain café and roastery. It has since grown, deservedly, due to its popularity. There are two locations in Healdsburg (the other being the roasting plant, for Phil Anacker‘s finest, plus take-out-only coffee at 419 Center St.), one in Santa Rosa, and one soon planned for downtown Napa. The locals [...]

As a follow-up to Thursday’s post where we covered the coffee pod revolutionaries, yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article on how Big Beverage is plotting the demise of any actual coffee brewing: Drink makers want America to buy coffee to go. What’s puzzling is how many usually sensible industries are getting the new coffee equation [...]

The Australian‘s IT section reported on a mobile espresso business that delivers: Australian IT – Smartphones turning coffee into cash (Vincent Blake, JUNE 06, 2006). Australians love their espresso more than almost any other nation in the world. So what do you do when you live in a sparsely-populated country with plenty of land … [...]

Looking for espresso along Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv? The online version of the Haaretz English Edition reviewed eight branches of large coffee chains (including The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) — with a bizarre emphasis on how quickly they can shuffle you out the door with a paper cup (blech!) of gourmet coffee [...]