Putting the X in X-Mas
Filled with the Christmas spirit, I arrive at Hallmark.com. My mission: find the ideal card to send to my coworkers and other business folk who’ve made my work a delightful experience this year. My objective: a card that 1) conveys a warm and joyful, yet not...
The God Shop
I’ve had a bit of a mental paper jam, in that it appears I’m not to write anything of particular substance without first I should relieve myself of a play that’s been taking space in my head for the better part of two years, now. And so — tadaa! — I’m writing a play.
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Albert Freakin' Einstein
The Roasterie: Super Tuscan Espresso
Rating: [rating:4.5/5] 40 Sardines. The American Restaurant. Blue Bird Bistro. The Classic Cup, Le Fou Frog, Yaya’s EuroBistro… great Kansas City restaurants, all. Each offers a wonderful dining experience. And each serves coffee from The Roasterie. Not...
Ethiopian Shanta Golba Natural Process Sidamo
Rating: [rating:4/5] You make your picks, you takes your chances… that’s how it goes when you bid on coffee at auction. Will the coffee be everything that you found in the auction sample? Will it be shipped carefully and travel well? Will it arrive —...Simple Cyphers Every Muggle Should Know
If you’re a fan of the Harry Potter series — and I am — this last run-up to a book release has you sort of twitchy. Spoilers — or potential spoilers — lurk around most every corner, and sometimes in seemingly innocuous places. Simply...
Coffee Notes from All Over
Where’s the next battleground for coffee supremacy? Place your bets on India… Today, there are about 750 cafés across India, two-thirds of which are owned and operated by Café Coffee Day, a company that plans to have 1,400 cafés across India in...
Exiled from the Forbidden City
You have, no doubt, heard by now that Starbucks has closed its store in the Forbidden City. You may also have heard that Starbucks’ exit was fomented by a massive online campaign in China, sparked by a — wait for it — a blogger. Who knew bloggers had...
Bourbon Pointu: A Roaster’s Nightmare?
One more quick point (hah!) on Bourbon Pointu. It would appear that this coffee’s pointu (or, pointed) appellation is well earned. I’ve roasted any number of long-bean coffees, but this is something else, again. (Click the image1 to get a zoomified look.)...
Found! The Forgotten Coffee of Réunion Island
The tiny island of Réunion1 is little more than a dot in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar and southwest of Mauritius. For nearly 200 years that dot was the foundation of a singular exclamation point in coffee history. A peculiar varietal was cultivated at Réunion...We now continue our regularly scheduled blather…
Bloggle has been down for — ack! 10 hours — following the move of its home to a new datacenter. Hopefully all bother of inserting tab A into slot B is now complete, and regularly scheduled programming may now resume.
Coffee Notes From All Over
In which the proprietor dumps a bunch of coffee-related stuff into a single post. Enjoy. Cuppa Joe to Go, Hold the Cup — In Edmonton, the DaCapo Caffe won’t give you a paper cup for your takeout coffee. Co-owner Antonio Bilotta, 31, says he’s tired...This just in…
Springfield, Vermont wins! Woohoo! (I think.) An update:1 Springfield, Illinois thinks we cheated. While Illinois *does* know from vote fraud, Vermont’s governor is unperturbed. In a statement issued Tuesday, Vermont Gov. James Douglas called his state’s...
Green(er) Mountain Coffee Roasters
Green Mountain Coffee gets a little greener still with the ribbon-cutting today of its new biodiesel fueling center. I’m currently waiting to see if Vermont’s legislature can get its act together and pass new legislation supporting clean diesel in the...A ticket to the world…
In the very early 90’s my brother Ken and I sysop’ed a Bulletin Board System (aka, a BBS.) It was a simple dial-up affair (I should be clear… *all* BBS were simple dial-up affairs back then) and ours consisted of a single (anemic) IBM PC, two phone...
Winning the Hearts and Minds of Terroirists
If a recent article in the New York Times‘ Style Magazine is right, then everything you think you know about terroir may be wrong. The article — Talk Dirt to Me — takes aim at some long-held thinking about the stuff that makes a wine’s flavor...Flattery will get you every nowhere.
Your blog posts are insightful. I will take them into deep thought and consideration. Your point of view is very smart and intellectual. Oh, goodness. I feel validated. Uplifted. Warm and fuzzy. I… Gosh, I… I wonder. Why are you linking to a web site...
