Coffee thread

Good story a while back on Ikaria in the NYT Sunday Mag,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?pagewanted=all

 

When Starbucks installed its first espresso bar in downtown Seattle, in 1984, it effectively reordered the hierarchy of coffee in this country: brewed coffee might be nice, but nothing beats the theater of a latte.

Today, many coffee nerds feel differently. Espressos are tasty, and a cappuccino is a pleasurable indulgence, but the real magic is found in a cup of black coffee prepared to order with beans from the latest harvest: the new crop of Central American coffees that is arriving now, and East African coffees that will be here come summer. When members of this generation of fanatics step up to a brew bar, it’s not to look for something familiar and comforting; it’s to try something new.

Two coffee bars opening in Manhattan reflect this ascendant interest in brewed coffee. This week Stumptown Coffee Roasters reveals its most ambitious project to date. The company spent nearly $1 million to transform a neglected Greenwich Village storefront (it was once the Eighth Street Bookshop, a literary hangout that closed in 1979) into a coffee shop with unusually sumptuous details: coffered ceiling, walnut bar, custom wallpaper screened by hand in Portland, Ore. The shop includes a separate brew bar, where you may order any coffee in the catalog prepared on your choice of gadget, including AeroPress, Bee House, Chemex, French press, siphon and V60.

The brew bar is as much a workshop as it is a place to get a coffee and buy some gear. There will be demonstrations, free cuppings and an easy flow of jargon-laced conversation. If you want to learn how grind size affects extraction, here’s your chance.

Next week, Intelligentsia Coffee will open a coffee bar off the mosaic-tiled lobby of the High Line Hotel in Chelsea, a former seminary that dates to 1895. In addition to offering a daily coffee on a pour-over bar equipped with Wave drippers from the Japanese manufacturer Kalita (the current darling of high-end coffee), the baristas will select a second coffee that they think “pops,” said Stephen Morrissey, the director of communications for Intelligentsia. Then they will choose a preparation that suits those beans.

nyti.ms/12vFOWm

 

The gallery owner has been very good the last 6 months by buying me coffees from all over the country and world.

One of my favorites is Raven's Brew from Ketchikan. Deadman's Brew is a great roast.

Another company out there is Kicking Horse, and Kick Ass is one of its strong roasts.

 

I'm about 14 miles from a Stumptown Roasters. That's all I've got.

 

The Chicago Tribune is excited the Times wrote about a local company:

For a while Monday night, the lead story on The New York Times website did not involve Angelina Jolie, Benghazi or a single politician.

The hot, hot news?

Intelligentsia, the Chicago coffee company, is opening a coffee bar in Manhattan.

I can't recall anything involving imported food or drink from another city ever being featured so prominently in mainstream Chicago media unless it had to do with hot dogs or hamburgers.

But Manhattan's different. Food trends there are treated as seriously as theater and real estate, so it's not shocking that the opening of an Intelligentsia coffee bar in the new High Line Hotel merits a major headline.

The Times article, which spent most of Tuesday on the most emailed list, quoted Stephen Morrissey, director of communications for Intelligentsia:

"In addition to offering a daily coffee on a pour-over bar equipped with Wave drippers from the Japanese manufacturer Kalita (the current darling of high-end coffee), the baristas will select a second coffee that they think 'pops,'" he said.

Go ahead. Take a moment to process that sentence.

Got it?

Morrissey continued:

"When the morning shift comes in at 5:30 a.m., they'll cup the coffees. Then they'll pick how to make it. It's not that one brewer is better than another brewer. It's that they might decide, 'I'm loving the toffee notes in this, I bet it'll be awesome in a Cafe Solo.'"

Translation: This is not a 7-Eleven cup of joe.

 

The gallery owner has been great on several fronts, one of which is him buying me coffee from around the world for the last year. There have been some good brews, and great brews, but nothing comes close to Jamaican Me Crazy. Just got another pound of it. It is rich, robust and delicious.

Anyone else had it?

Another company that makes great coffee is Raven's Brew out of Ketchikan, Alaska.

 

Has anyone here tried bulletproof coffee?

 

http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/how-much-caffeine-is-actually-in-your-coffee-from-dunkin-to-starbucks