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I was reading a Japanese book about coffee when I spotted an illustration of the cover of the Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1674 and was fascinated to find the whole text on the internet. I thought that cocoa was regarded as something of an aphrodisiac, and was surprised to find coffee given such a limp reception...

Here's one person's experience at Bouchon.

"Woman files lawsuit against Starbucks. Daughter reportedly burned by defective coffee-maker" So I guess this means no more coffee pots for sale at Starbucks?

Kathleen Purvis had an article in today's Charlotte Observer announcing that the Specialty Coffee Assoc of America will be holding their 2006 conference in Charlotte! The Charlotte Observer You must subscribe to see the article. Other exciting news for Charlotte - Counter Culture's regional sales manager David Haddock is opening a "coffee classroom" next month where they will give free coffee training and cuppings. Things are looking brighter in the Carolina's!

Hey Foodies :-) I thought some of you might be interested in having a look at my [french] website on espresso: http://www.caffecaffe.ca You will find amongst other things: tips and techniques on becoming a better barista and coffee shops to give a try (mainly in Montreal at the moment, although I have some pending recommendations from my last trip to Seattle and Vancouver). Hope you will enjoy! Martin

Hey there..... I'm kinda new to this forum, but not eGullet. I frequently make a pest out of myself in the Pastry and Baking forum, but I felt like bothering another forum, so here I am. I did a coupla searches and read some of the pinned topics on Coffee and Tea, particularly milk foaming techniques for creating latte art. There's still some things I didn't really find info on regarding this topic. I make Lattes and coffee drinks for my friends at work.....we have 6 year old Faema that seems to chug along ok, but by NO MEANS would I call myself a barista. In fact, I think I probably pull some pretty lousy espresso shots. I wouldn't dare pull any for our fussy clientele, I'd probably drive them all away. Hey, I know my limits. But....I want to change! I'd like to make a decent latte for my friends, because they always make a decent latte for me. But I don't want to ask THEM how do it 'cause I want it to be a surprise.....one day, I want to serve them their lattes and have them say, "Hey! This is pretty good!" I'll settle for that. I also want to do what they don't know how to do, and that is....some latte art. I think I can master that....but I just want to know a few things.....(besides how to pull a good shot) In order to make latte art, it is essential that you have crema on the top of your shot, right? And by crema, I mean the tan foamy stuff on the top of the espresso BEFORE the milk is added. Is my terminology right? How do you get crema? Is it a natural occurrence? Can you enhance it by how you tamp your espresso? Does the grind have to be just so? Is crema affected by how long it takes to pull your shot? Should you pull your shot directly into the cup you're serving it in, or can you pull it into a small pitcher or shot glass first? Or is latte art all about how you foam the milk? Can any of you guys help me?

article from USA Today McDonald's eyes premium coffee market Think it will be something beneficial? Think it is worth premium prices at a fast food outlet?? For you? For McDonald's?

You will earn mad cosmic karma points if you can answer this one for me. So my 95 year-old grandmother makes coffee with this big contraption she bought from Abercrombie & Fitch back in the 1940s when they were still a camping store. How to describe? A large white jar-like thing which she balances over a large mason jar and into which she places a filter, which feels something like a tightly compressed sponge. Fills the white chamber with an entire 1lb can of supermarket coffee and then cold water, leaves it to drip overnight. The result is a mason jar full of very concentrated coffee which she keeps in the fridge, waters down and heats up whenever she wants it. I have to admit I probably use twice as much concentrate as she does but the stuff tastes surprisingly decent, especially considering it comes from a can. And makes fantastic iced coffee, btw. So obviously (apart from the difficulty of finding honest-to-god 1lb cans of coffee these days) the filter hasn't been replaced since the 70s. She soaks it very lovingly after each use so it is still useable, but it clogs up on her occasionally. She really needs a replacement. I feel real sorry for the family member who had to go to Abercrombie with her last year to enquire about this item I tried searching outdoor stores without any luck. Any ideas on where I might find something like this or some way I could jury-rig a substitute? She really doesn't want to try a new method, which at 95 I find completely understandable.

Okay just finished my 4lb stash from a trip last year comprising of peabery from both UCC and Greenwell farms. Personally felt that Greenwell had a much superior product vs. UCC. Looking to restock, does anyone have any other roaster recommendations, I'm going to just do mail order instead this time round. Might give the Greenwell Special Reserve a go...

I don't know why it took me so long to discover the wonderful electric kettles that are out there. I use one made by Black & Decker (of all companies!) and it's perfect for the office. The base plugs in but the kettle itself detaches from the base so you're not encumbered. I got mine at Target but I'm sure they're widely available. Before, we had a spare coffeemaker that a couple of us tea drinkers (I drink loose-leaf green tea from MellowMonk) were using to heat water for tea, but it never got the water hot enough. We even have one of those 180-degree spigots that dispenses extra hot water. But that's not hot enough, either. (What people use it for, I have no idea. Instant noodles, maybe?) So this electric kettle is a godsend. Instead of a teapot I use an over-the-cup strainer that's about 2 inches deep, so the tea leaves have room to swirl around during infusion. I just thought I'd share. --Rich

Browising in my local Mediterranean foods specialty market last weekend, I noticed this brand of coffee that looked interesting I know the preparation style for Turkish coffee and believe there's a similar traditional style in Greece (dark roasted coffee heated in an Ibrik with the water to steep it and served with the grounds settling to the bottom of the cup). I was surprised to see one kilo bags of green beans on the shelf below the roasted coffee. At $3.99 per kilo for the green beans it's a mighty attractive price but I'm curious as to what beans might be in this blend (assuming it's a blend - not even sure of that). Also - is pan roasting or oven roasting at home a practice that people of Greek or other eastern Mediterranean origin still do here in the US?

www.wetsugar.com great name, it's simple sugar individually packaged iced coffee & tea what do you think? Does it have legs?

I was at my local Starbucks the other day, and was greeted at the entrance with a displace of Black Apron Label beans, or something like that - the specific blend was called Kona or Rona (I think). What surprised me was that Starbucks was selling it for $45 a pound (CAD)! $45 is more than I pay for my coffee, that's for sure. They claim it's some special find that only special buyers (like Starbucks...) can get in on. Anyone seen this, or even tasted it? They don't brew it in the stores, and even the half pound was far too much, despite my intrigue. I asked the guy at the cash about it, he said they did a tasting, and he enjoyed it. "Very drinkable, no aftertaste" or something like that (does that mean the rest of the Starbucks coffees are only somewhat drinkable?). Simon

Does it make any diference to you what you drink espresso out of? Thin wall, thick wall cup? Material? Are these aesthetic differences that don't effect the taste of the coffee? I tend to prefer plain white, but I found some Tognana cups -- porcelein, colorful designs. Anyone familiar with them? Good, bad, indifferent?

Okay - c'mon you guys. I know you won't let me down. In the restaurant at culinary school, they used to serve a coffee course at the end of the meal, which involved flaming liquor poured down a long spiral of citrus peels into cups of coffee. I've seen it done, but never done it myself. I'd like to reproduce it for the chef's table at the restaurant i'm at now, but i'm a little skittish to try it without some direction. Can anybody post a technique? Thanks!

I post this mostly in jest but because I just had a rather amusing experience. I typically drink one quad shot latte per day and if I'm drinking straight coffee, rather than espresso, rarely exceed two mugs per day. Sure.... I know I'm hooked and if I stop drinking it for awhile, which I do on occasion, I'll get a minor caffeine withdrawal headache on the first day of abstinence. I suppose that the more significant fact is my devotion to the glorious bean. I talk about it, write about, ponder coffee and espresso related issues on a regular basis, and accept it as an integral part of my daily experience. Despite the fact that I roast at home and make excellent espresso drinks in my kitchen, I stop at a favored local espresso café several times each week, in part to show my support and also because it's a part of my social ritual.. The combination of a busy schedule and some temporary financial impediments has restricted me to making and consuming drinks only at home for the past two weeks. So.... Sunday afternoon I'm busy puttering in the kitchen and there's a knock at the door. I open it to find the smiling face of the espresso café owner, who hands me a stack of "free espresso drink" cards and says "We've missed you - is everything okay?". I laughed because it's a bit like the local drug dealer giving you a free sample or two when they think you're contemplating entering a rehab but on further consideration... I was genuinely touched and felt it appropriate to share the tale here. It's only by chance that she even knows where I live (her sister lives in the neighborhood) but I was blown away by this act of kindness and caring. She may have surmised that my reasons for not appearing were in part financial but her actions went far above and beyond the call of duty. I suppose this whole notion deserves a separate thread in General Food topics.... what has some restaurateur, grocer, café owner or other food/beverage person perhaps done for you as an an unsolicited act of kindness that startled you and affirmed your faith in people's fundamental goodness? I'll start a separate thread there on the topic but felt that I should share here first.

I just got a used Rocky (doser) and after using it a few times have a few questions. I use it for French Press coarse grind currently, so I put a mini pie pan under the machine to catch the ground beans. Is there a minimum quantity of beans I should grind at one time? Does a certain amount of the beans from a grind stay in the machine and then come out the next session, or does all the grind get dumped? How do you folks go about cleaning your machines of the grind residue. Each time? Am I going to want a dosserless model down the line? Any recommendations for green beans to buy to roast for the French Press, for a Mokka, and for Vietnamese Iced Coffee? I likely will be using a popper as a roaster first (as soon as I can find one).

I am going to be roasting with a popcorn popper. What kinds of green beans should I use for a french press (coarse grind), Mokka fine grind), and Vietnamese Iced Coffee (fine grind). Should I start out experimenting with an inexpensive green bean, then graduate to something better? And how about sources for green beans. I can get a few pounds of Columbian from a commercial roaster here through a friend, but I don't think he routinely sells his green beans.

Notes on an attempt to cold brew w/o a Toddy I am an avid Toddy brewer but I want to find a way to cold brew coffee away from home. I also have a slight aversion to the bulk of the plastic Toddy tub and the need for special filters. I assume that if the Toddy process is based on Latin American traditions, I should be able to replicate the results without special equipment. I decided to try to cold-brew coffee in a French press, which is unused 23.75 hours each day, and a wide-mouth mason jar, and compare the results with the Toddy. The Toddy is a plastic tub with a thick, tight-fitting, carpet-like filter disk and rubber stopper in the bottom. Water is poured over coffee and allowed to steep for 10-12 hours. With the stopper pulled, the highly concentrated coffee slowly drains into a carafe. The concentrate is then mixed/diluted with hot water for regular coffee, water and ice for a cold cup, or milk and sugar syrup and a little vanilla for an iced latte. While I find the hot coffee weak and lacking teeth, the cold drinks are smooth and silky without any bitter acid taste. For the experiment, I used the same coffee proportions and brewing method described by Toddy, except I halved the amounts. I put a ¼ pound of Illy medium roast, medium grind coffee in the bottom of each, then poured one cup of cold water over the grounds. I gave each a little swirl to make sure all of the grounds were wet. After five minutes I added 1 and ¼ more cups of cold water and let the three units sit on the counter overnight. The next morning I drained the Toddy into its carafe by pulling the stopper. It took about 15 minutes. I plunged the French press, which was surprisingly stiff, and decanted the concentrate in just a few minutes. For the mason jar, I placed two paper filters over the open top, screwed the lid ring down, and inverted the jar over a funnel into a second jar. (In the interest of full disclosure, the paper filters were in the vicinity of ten years old.) Nothing happened. The grounds completely stopped up the paper. I then took off the double layer and replaced it with a single sheet. I little coffee flowed through, but not much before it stopped too. I then took the ring off and poured the whole mess into a gold-cone filter and finished it draining in about fifteen minutes. I was a little surprised with the results. I expected each to taste the same anticipating that the Toddy was bit of a gimmick. It was not. Both the French press and mason jar coffees had some of the bitterness of hot-brewed coffee poured over ice--although not nearly as much. The Toddy was smooth and silky. There was also a noticeable amount of sludge in the bottom of the mason jar brewed carafe but none in either the Toddy or French press. Outside of the filtering method, the main difference between the Toddy and the French press and mason jar is the amount of agitation the brew experienced during decanting. The grounds in the Toddy were relatively undisturbed while the French press grounds were pressed and inverted. The mason jar grounds, however, were vigorously disturbed being inverted twice and dumped into a cone filter. Ultimately, in a side by side tasting, the French press and mason jar were nearly identical, thus even minor agitation must disrupt the filter process. The Toddy filter clearly worked better than the paper filters/gold cone and had similar “no-sludge” results as the colander-like French press. This was a bit of a surprise too; I expected the paper filters to work better and more grounds in the FP. The grounds themselves must be filtering some of the acids, other compounds, and finer grounds in the coffee before the concentrate flows through the Toddy filter (which must replicate the same action). The gold cone must be more porous than the FP or serious agitation must really stir up fine particles. Next time I will try to use the FP but pour very slowly and NOT plunge the grounds. For now, I suppose I’ll have to order more Toddy filters.

There was an article in today's NY Times about coffee drinking in Columbia and the Columbian coffee grower's federation's plans to bring Juan Valdez cafes to America, beginning with DC and New York. Anybody have a notion of whether this could be something to look forward to?

Hello everyone I have been reading the forum over the last 2 weeks and really enjoy it, I am starting with my friends a new Gourmet retail website, we started winelibrary.com a few years ago and we are really getting into the gourmet life, so we were like "Why Not"........so the reason I am posting is We are curious what customers are looking for in the GOURMET TEA market, being into wine it seems that they have so many things in common. I really have been blown away with the level of knowledge in this forum.....the major questions is 1) Is selection more important then price ? 2) Will people buy tea and coffee on line ? 3)Are there any major advertisers in the market ? 4) who are the SERIOUS MAJOR players so far ?.........Thank you so much for answering any of the questions. PS: Thank you for the education !!!!!!!!!!!! Gary !

I am hoping you can give advice on the best grinder for me. When our neighbors moved, they gave me a Krups (says on back Model: Type 863) made in Switzerland. They said that they hardly used it. Trouble is, I have used it 3 times in 2 years, one reason is because it is such a pain to fill the portafilters, among other things. Talking to a friend aobut getting rid of the machine, he suggested I look into getting a grinder that feeds into the portafilter. Since that sounded like a good idea I started looking for a grinder. Now I am confused as ever, because of all the types, sizes and prices. Maybe you can offer some suggestions. This is my situation: 1. The espresso machine I have is an out-dated low-end to mid-range home-use machine (from what I can tell.) 2. The 3 times I used the machine I made espresso shots so I could make cappucino. (I don't usually drink espresso straight, except at Italian restaurants.) 3. I make coffee at home at least once but at the most 3 times per WEEK. (That's not per day.) 4. When I make coffee I use a drip coffee machine. 5. I have an old Krups blade grinder that is still twirling at 23 years old. I bought it in 1981. 6. I grind only enough beans at a time for each pot of coffee. 7. After grinding the beans, I always soap wash grinder top and wipe out the blades so left over grounds don't go rancid/acidic. 8. Since I clean/wash the grinder each time,I would like a machine that is easy to get out leftover grounds/static. 9. I keep unground beans in freezer, and would never leave them in a hopper or doser of a grinder just sitting on the counter. 10. Finally, my initial feature was to get a grinder that feeds into the portafilter directly. (Idea sounds great in theory but in reality does this cause a great big mess? ) The issue just isn't money alone, although it's a big factor. I can spend at max US$150. I've seen the Rocky but besides the hefty price it's maybe overkill for somebody like me. I would like a better grinder than the Krup blade and one that easily cleans between use. For someone who has been using the same blade grinder for 23 years, I definitely have no experience at all and I've learned that I have the worse kind of grinder and a pretty bottom-of-the-line espresso machine. I need to spend big bucks for both new espresso machine and grinder. But if I don't go that rounte, and just get a grinder for now, what grinder should I get???? Thanks for any feedback.

My friends and acquaintances know that they'll always get to try one of my ever changing espresso blend when they visit and I typically have some roasted coffee varietals (at least three or four) in the freezer for regular coffee. How about tea? I drink it only on occasion and keep a tin of Earl Grey and one of Irish Breakfast in the freezer (loose tea - I use a tea ball). Will one of you kindly souls with tea expertise suggest five or six varities that I might invest in? I'd like to have a coupl stalwart old reliable type selections for the unadventurous but also want to have a few that most of my friends have not tried - something a bit less commonplace that I might introduce them to.

Let's face it - I'm a die-hard espresso drinker and rarely even drink regular coffee anymore but I do enjoy tea on occasion and at least a handful of times every year I have guests who are tea drinkers. In the past I've purchased a few decent quality loose teas and stored them in freezer containers, taking out a bit every now and then as needed. I know the storage issues regarding both green and roasted coffee (which have been discussed here at length) but what about tea? Is freezing a good idea if it will be consumed slowly? Do some teas freeze better than others? What's the maximum storage time for room temp in an airtight container (dark place) and also for freezing? Will a food vacuum packing system be a worthwhile aid in preparing tea for long term storage?