Archive for the ‘Coffee’ Category

Posted on April 10, 2008 - by deCadmus

Your Politics Don’t Mean Beans

It was inevitable, really, what Farm Coffee has done:

THEY’RE ROASTING presidential candidates on Bill Hill, which is not nearly the same as grilling them.

Ashlawn Farm Coffee has introduced an Obama Blend, a “sweet, balanced” combination of “dark and light roasted coffees from Kenya, Java and the Americas,” and American Hero Coffee, “a light-roasted, highly caffeinated” brew that’s “edgy, strong,” made from beans grown in Vietnam. The latter’s redolent, you might say, of Sen. John McCain.

But what about a Hillary Brew?

That, says Carol Dahlke, Ashlawn co-owner and roaster, is … uh … in development.

In development. Hey… they aren’t trying to find a civet cat, are they?

Posted on April 9, 2008 - by deCadmus

What’s In A Name?

You can send out the press releases. You can stage million dollar opening-day events and sampling programs. Still, some folks just won’t get it right…

• The modern chain is “going back to its roots” and launching a house coffee called Pike Place Blend.
• Yesterday marked the company’s coast-to-coast free tasting, but I got a taste of Pike Place today.
• Pike’s Place was blended to have a smoother, cleaner finish than Starbucks’ other blends.
• Starbuck’s new Pike’s Place roast drips out early in Gold Coast.
• On Tuesday, April 8^th Starbucks launched its newest brew, “Pikes Peak Roast…”

For the record Starbucks’ new blend is called, Pike Place Roast™.

P.S. I really don’t intend to turn this space into yet another Starbucks-watching venue, but — much like a seventy car pile-up on the freeway — it’s just hard to tear your eyes away.

Posted on April 8, 2008 - by deCadmus

Starbucks’ Extreme Makeover Continues

Continuing its excruciatingly public extreme makeover, Starbucks does a full-court press (release) on… a new coffee blend. Oh, goody.

Sure, while most every other coffee roaster in the land releases new roasts seasonally — you know, to align with new coffee crops and all that — Starbucks’ latest blend is different, apparently. Word is, it’s not… you know, burnt. More, Howie would have us believe this is a pivotal event in Starbucks’ history, even suggesting that it’s a peek into a future that isn’t steeped in an espresso + milk monoculture:

“We’ve been so focused on espresso … that we haven’t done anything to reinvent brewed coffee,” Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz said in an interview.

Profoundly true. Not only has Starbucks done virtually nothing to reinvent brewed coffee — or even support it — their general disregard for drip coffee, press coffee and the like spilled over into the marketplace, where thousands upon thousands of competing independents likewise ignored the possibilities of unique origin coffees. Unless, of course, they could chuck it in a portafilter with decent results. It’s fair to say that only very recently, I’d say the last five or six years — or a time line roughly consistent with the rise of the Cup of Excellence auction program — that the indie retailers have promoted non-espresso coffee with particular enthusiasm. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

And then Howie slips in this dubious bit…

Mr. Schultz says he believes Starbucks has underplayed its expertise in selecting and roasting coffees, something its main competitors don’t specialize in.

It’s left as an exercise for the reader whether Schultz is suggesting Starbucks’ ground-game at origin is better than that of Peet’s, Green Mountain, Stumptown, CounterCulture, Intelligentsia, The Roasterie, Terroir, Thanksgiving, and a few hundred assorted smaller roasters, or whether he doesn’t view them, individually or collectively, as his competitors. Either way, it’s a low blow. And one that may well come back to haunt him.

Posted on April 3, 2008 - by deCadmus

Coffee & Health: More Benefits, Still

Daily Coffee May Protect the Brain. New research suggests coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body. Coffee had already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, and –according to the BBC– a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

“Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky,” said Dr Jonathan Geiger, who led the study.

“High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood brain barrier.

“Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders.”

And while we’re at it:

• Caffeine may help protect memory in women
• Coffee is tied to a lower risk of Parkinson’s
• Coffee is linked to a lower risk of Diabetes
• Coffee drinking is related to a lower risk of Liver Cancer.

Drink up!

Posted on April 1, 2008 - by deCadmus

Starbucks Achieves Critical Mass

Apparently Howard Schultz is in a buying mood. Close on the heels of Starbucks’ buyout of Coffee Equipment Company, maker of the Clover single-cup coffee brewer, the Seattle coffee giant announced its next step in coffee roasting technology and its next acquisition, also a Pacific Northwest technology venture: the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Ranier, Oregon.

“This baby’s hot,” says Schultz with characteristic zeal, “and it’s going to help us differentiate Starbucks from everyone else that is attempting to be in the coffee business.” Howard Schultz paces the length of the counter at the Starbucks coffee house at Seattle’s Starbucks Support Center. Clearly, he’s catching his stride.

“We’re talking zero carbon footprint, roasts coffee quicker than one of our espresso pours, and –wow!– can it spread that great coffee aroma!”

Howard pauses; he looks momentarily soulful. “We want to have the courage to do the things that support our core purpose, our reason for being. This is all about our core.”

“And besides,” adds Schultz, “who else has a nuke?”

Posted on March 30, 2008 - by deCadmus

C.A.F.E. Through Rose-Colored Glasses

It’s hard to peer into Starbucks’ notoriously opaque coffee sourcing standards. In a Sunday article in the Seattle Times — Changing the Way Costa Rican Farmers Grow Coffee - and Live — writer Manuel Valdes offers a glimpse, through the eyes of Rodrigo Vargas of Santa Eduviges — one of Costa Rica’s largest family-owned coffee-farming operations.

Vargas is one of the hundreds of farmers — large and small — in Costa Rica who have benefited from Starbucks’ arrival after an influx of cheap beans from Brazil and Vietnam saturated the market and sent prices tumbling in the late 1990s, creating a crisis for coffee growers.

As Starbucks’ presence grew in Costa Rica, Vargas’ relationship with the Seattle specialty coffee-shop chain tightened. He replaced 25 percent of his coffee plants with better breeds of arabica beans to keep up with Starbucks’ growing demand and quality standards.

By 1998, he sold 1.2 million pounds of coffee to Starbucks. In 2002, Vargas visited Seattle, met CEO Howard Schultz and sat courtside at a then-Schultz-owned Seattle Sonics basketball game.

Should you unwittingly get the impression that Starbucks’ coffee growers were all new-found members of the Seattle jet-set, chomping cigars and playing poker with Howard, the article further suggests that Starbucks still must wag the occasional disapproving finger at their naughty kids coffee suppliers…

Much like his boss, Yeiner Chacón’s life revolves around coffee. As head agronomist for Santa Eduviges, he knows coffee. He’s a fan of Café Practices, but he no longer deals with the certifiers that visit the farms.

“I almost killed the last guy,” Chacón says half-jokingly. But his attitude reflects the disagreements farmers have with the standards.

…snip…

But eventually, farmers began to see the benefits of the program.

“The plants are healthier; they produce better,” says Oscar Andres Quiros, a CoopeTarrazú member.

Well of course… it’s for their own good, after all.

But the most nettlesome quote from the entire rosy article is this beauty — a standard company talking point that is unquestioned and unrefuted by the author:

Peter Torrebiarte, Starbucks’ point man in Latin America, says any farm certified by Café Practices meets other certification-program standards, including those of Rainforest Alliance, which companies such as food conglomerate Nestlé use.

First of all, I don’t know that I’d use Nestlé as a standard for good practices in certification and corporate social responsibility. Second, the whole “one certification is as good as any other” line is tired, wrong-headed, and the basis for corporate greenwashing of the worst sort.

The article — and make no mistake, it’s a towering, sugary puff pastry — comes on the heels of Starbucks’ announcement of an expanded relationship with Conservation International, with whom it has partnered to develop a new mark for its coffee. Starbucks’ stated intent is to reinforce and expand its “Coffee and Farmer Equity” (C.A.F.E.) principles and practices.

That’s good, because those practices need some propping up. In September, 2007 the Sacramento Bee penned a stinging investigative report; an exposé on Starbucks’ failures to meet its own C.A.F.E. standards — standards for fair wages, environmental protection, decent housing and working conditions — in the production of one of its vaunted and pricey “Black Apron” exclusive coffees. A coffee that Starbucks offered at $26 a pound, and that put a mere 66 cents a day in the pocket of the farmers who produced it. A coffee grown on land recently deforested and replanted to better support coffee production.

My worry is that the new mark that Starbucks and Conservation International create will prove a meaningless stamp of approval; one with lots of marketing upside, and little to show for it in terms of environmental or social impact in coffee-growing communities. Starbucks has won an enviable position in the specialty coffee marketplace; they are the $12 billion gorilla in the room. With that sort of purchasing and marketing power, everything they do — unwitting or not — creates a benchmark, a measure by which all other coffee companies will be judged.

Starbucks has manufactured a great opportunity to raise the bar. I hope they’ll use it.

Posted on March 28, 2008 - by deCadmus

Wayback: The Web Is Not Walden Pond

From the Bloggle Archives, circa March, 2002. I wrote this as an antidote to what struck me as a surge in misplaced web design ideals; ideals that, in fact, turned out to be the beginning of ‘Web 2.0,’ for all that’s worth. I think it’s as relevant today as it was six years ago…

The Web is not Walden Pond… and attempts to make it so through increasingly stark simplicity are well-intentioned, but badly aimed.

Simplicity often belies the truth. The truth if the web is that it is the most mind-boggling array of unstructured information that has ever been. And it’s growing exponentially, and it will not stop. It is increasingly the de facto body of reference for all of us. It will inexorably be the sum total of explicit knowledge on our planet. How do you simplify that? By making it “…as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

As simple as possible…

Consider the works of Matisse and Picasso. Not your style? Try Keith Haring. Simplicity is alluring. A line-drawing can evoke far more than it actually reveals, by distilling the subject to its most essential form. It’s not coincidental that great art illustrates this… there is more than a little art to conveying the very essence of something.

…but not simpler.

Mere simplicity can dilute meaning. Consider Starbucks coffee stamps… at-a-glance labels that would tell you what the coffee in the bag is all about. Starbucks coffees are — very simply — Bold, Mild or Smooth. Does it really suffice to say that Sumatra, an earthy, dry-processed Indonesian coffee with loads of body and a caramelly finish is bold? Or smooth? It’s both, and then some, isn’t it?

On the other hand, consider Google. Google’s apparent simplicity belies the complexity that lurks behind its interface… it is arguably the web’s largest, most relevant and most capable search engine. Would Google be so effective if not for its extraordinary clarity of purpose?

Design — be it product design or interface design — can be simplified to the extent that it is no longer meaningful, or useful. Simple can be obscure. Simple doesn’t scale. Simplicity does not make a very good design goal. Instead, simplicity is most effective as a method to achieve a different design goal… clarity.

Posted on March 27, 2008 - by deCadmus

Woman Dunks Car, Saves Coffee

From the dubious priorities department…

Dateline: Oakland, California –

Authorities said the car went into the water a little after 6:00 a.m. after its driver lost control when she reached for her cell phone near the intersection of Alameda Avenue and Fruitvale.

The 22-year-old female driver, on her way to work at a nearby Brinks office, was able to knock out a window, climb out of the floating vehicle and swim to safety. Onlookers said she came ashore still cradling her coffee cup.

In other news, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says,

“We are doing everything we can to differentiate Starbucks from everyone else that is attempting to be in the coffee business.”

Umm… is that really want you’re wanting to say?

Posted on March 26, 2008 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes from All Over

• NYTimes: Tasting the Future of Starbucks
  Tasting Clover-brewed coffee at Starbucks with George Howell. (Mr. Howell is not an easy mark.)
• Coffee’s Benevolent Mr. Bean
  Profiles Stumptown’s Duane Sorenson. (No mention that Stumptown is ditching the Clover in the wake of Starbucks’ acquisition of the brewer.)

Posted on March 26, 2008 - by deCadmus

Intelligentsia Coffee’s Rwanda Golden Cup Melange

Rating: Rating:

While I’d talked up Rwanda’s Golden Cup competition last September, I’ve only late come to realize that I hadn’t actually tasted any of the coffees from this competition. That couldn’t stand, of course. And so this week the coffee delivery man brought me a package from Intelligentisa Coffee.

Intelligentsia’s greenie, Geoff Watts, was fortunate enough both to jury the competition, and to buy a number of lots… this coffee being an all Bourbon melange of coffees from three districts: Nyamasheke, Huye and Gakenke.

Just ground, this blend’s aromas are clean and sweet, with brown sugar the dominant note. On brewing the sweetness continues with a bit of apple pie spice. In the cup, mango and caramel flavors are accentuated by a shimmering acidity, and buttery, syrupy body. The finish is long, and sweet, and leaves a taste of candied pecans on the tongue.

Sweet. Balanced. Lyrical. This is Zen poetry in a cup.

Recommended, and available at Intelligentsia Coffee.