Posts Tagged ‘coffee’
A New Column! And It’s All About Coffee…
I am a bit behind on this announcement, but last week my new column for The Kitchn launched. And what is it about? Take a wild guess…
Coffee!
Titled “Smart Coffee for Regular Joes” the column is going to take on the coffee world, looking at the ins and outs of how to make coffee, exploring coffee culture in other countries, and celebrating the drink that so many of us love.
“Coffee isn’t just a drink, it’s a cornerstone of our everyday. A building block of our routines and our social interactions. Coffee fuels us.”
Read the first installment of the column and follow along in the discussion. What do you want to learn about in the coffee world?
2,592 Reasons to Hate Coffee Pods
Well, actually I didn’t write that many. But I did go on an anti coffee pod rant this week.
“If you’d had asked coffee specialists that this was going to happen, they would have told you, ‘That’s ridiculous,’” Mark Pendergrast, author of “Uncommon Grounds,” told the Seattle Times. That’s because coffee pods are ridiculous, but just like with so many other things, we’ve traded convenience for taste. In the process we’ve ended up with a product that’s really bad for the planet. For example, all of the K-cups (the name for the Keurig pods) sold in 2013 could wrap around the Earth 10.5 times.
Coffee pods. Wrapped around the earth 10.5 times. Think about it.
You can read the full rant – which includes all the environmental, economic and quality reasons not to drink single-brew coffee – on Foodie Underground.
Image: Mother Jones
Everything You Wanted to Know About Coffee in Europe (Infographic)
Just in case you needed a good infographic of all things related to European coffee drinking, there’s this infographic. Although I do wonder where all the Scandinavian countries are… because if anyone knows how to drink coffee, it’s the people in the Nordic lands.
The Changing Coffee Scene in Paris
Call a spade a spade: most coffee in Paris isn’t good. But thankfully that’s changing. I had the chance to have some in depth chats with roasters and baristas in town over the last couple of months to talk about that change, culminating in an article for Roads & Kingdoms. An excerpt:
The tide is turning in the French capital, though, with a flood of new craft roasters and cafes that all believe in good coffee. The French, however, are sensitive to change, especially in a city that’s known for its deep-rooted traditions, and while this expanding coffee scene is welcomed by many, it also comes with a side of criticism. For some, local craft roast might be the sign of a city looking forward, yet for others it’s the sign of a city undergoing an irrevocable transformation in food culture.
The Paris Roaster That’s Making Coffee Blends Named After Wine
My latest on Sprudge, all about one of my favorite Parisian roasters Cafe Lomi and their Burgundy and Bordeaux blends.
If you know anything about Paris, you know that it’s not acclaimed for its coffee culture, and what makes Café Lomi special isn’t just the fact that it serves good coffee, it’s the fact that it’s on a mission to educate people about coffee.
“Today the trend is acidic coffee,” says Cafe Lomi founder Aleaume Paturle, “but the French don’t like that.” With a history of importing from its colonies, and largely serving robusta beans, paired with the tendency towards supermarket coffee purchasing, Paturle points out that the French coffee palate is for a darker stronger brew. While cafes in Australia, England, the United States and especially Scandinavia might be serving lighter, fruitier roasts, that doesn’t always work with the French crowd. “For me, it shows a lack of personality to not adapt to the French,” says Paturle. “It’s up to us to adapt to the customer.”
That means that Café Lomi roasts on both angles of the coffee spectrum. You can get lighter more acidic tastes as well as the more well-rounded, full-bodied brews. But for a culture that for so long hasn’t embraced the nuances of coffee, there’s a learning curve in understanding beans, which is why Paturle has launched two particular blends that are seemingly very French: Lomi Blend Bourgogne and Lomi Blend Bordeaux.
Yes, that’s a wine reference, because if there’s anything the French know, it’s certainly wine.
Read the full article here.
The Paris Coffeshop for Freelancers: Cafe Craft
I am a big coffee drinker, and while in the first few weeks of the New Year I have made an effort to tone things down, normally I am a at-least-one-French-press-everyday kind of girl. It’s therefore totally normal to be thrilled about one of my new gigs for 2014: a contributor the coffee site Sprudge.
Yes. An entire website devoted to coffee.
My first piece was about a cool place in Paris that is set up for freelancers that need some desk space every once in awhile (hello: me!).
Drag your Macbook along with you to a cafe in Paris and you’ll probably end up being hard pressed to get any work done. While there are a handful of cafes that tolerate their space being used as a workspace, the hole-up-for-five-hours-and-get-a-coffee-buzz-that-only-a-freelancer-knows concept doesn’t really fly here. And yet…
As the French capital, Paris draws all kinds of people, from around France and from abroad, and amongst those people are plenty of creatives, students and entrepreneurial spirits that don’t always fit in the 9 to 5 category. This city is an iconic epicenter of art and culture, after all. While a more traditional work culture has been the dominant one, slowly but surely startup and freelance culture is starting to grow, and with it, the need for temporary workspaces.
Enter Cafe Craft, a cafe that calls itself the “premier café dédié aux créatifs indépendants.” If your French is rusty: “the first cafe devoted to independent creatives.” And that’s exactly what you get. Desk space, fast and free wifi (often an anomaly in this city) and most important, a plethora of outlets to charge your computer. You can literally sit here all day, and as long as you’re willing to pay for it, no one is going to hassle you or give you a nasty Parisian glare.
Read the full article on Sprudge
The Secret Diary of a Foodie, Part Three
While madly searching for food trucks, a good greens blog and love – we get another look into the secret life of a foodie. (Part 1 and 2 in case you missed them.)
Saturday September 1, 2012, 7:33 p.m.
Dear Diary,
This summer has been hectic! The Barista ended up being a total nightmare (you just can’t date people that bring PBR to dinner parties). Finished the coffee roasting class and then debated on building my own roasting machine in the backyard, but decided instead to focus my efforts on developing a new artisan salt business. Have been bottling up all kinds of infused salts, and everyone loves them so much, I figure I can totally sell them at farmers market. Or at least via my new salt blog. Who eats regular salt these days anyway? Boring.
The Real Impact of Your Cup of Specialty Coffee
Dukunde Kawa or Kilenso?
I was at Coava Coffee Roasters for an afternoon meeting and having to choose what beans I wanted my iced Americano to be made from. Here, roasting is taken seriously, and on any give day you have your pick between the two blends of the day, always sourced from specific cooperatives on the other side of the world. I went with the Rwandan one, liking the taste, but also, for a variety of reasons – including once having a roommate from Rwanda – because the cooperative was on my radar.
Coava is of course different from the majority of coffee shops. Most times we stand in line, decide whether or not we should go for the soy latte today because we’ve been feeling a little dairy intolerant lately, opt for the extra shot and go on our way. But our coffee choices aren’t insignificant. Far from it, in fact.
blog.annabrones.com 