Entries tagged with 'coffee'
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Since there are only so many macaroni-bordered frames and lanyards you can make, here's another cheap crafty idea for Father's Day. The Object Project walks us through the step-by-step process, from tracing to stitching to the placement of the velcro strip. [via Craftzine]...
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Photo from Gourmet.com Probably not, Matthew Amster-Burton at Gourmet.com concludes. After noticing the country's penchant for sweetened iced coffee and blended fruit shakes, he had wondered if the Vietnamese weren't the first to make the Frappuccino. His theory is soon disproved—since blenders have only recently become available to the masses in Vietnam, he learns, they couldn't have invented the blended coffee drink. Still, it seems like he's onto something: after sending his own Vietnamese iced coffee for a whirl in the blender, he's plenty happy with his own Vietnamese-style Frappuccino. Even if it's not quite traditional....
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Hardcore coffee geeks wouldn't even consider buying anything but freshly roasted whole coffee beans from a skilled local roaster. But what if you don't live near an Intelligentsia, Stumptown, or Blue Bottle roasting location? In that case, the Atlantic Food Channel gives some tips for selecting the freshest coffee beans from your local grocery store. Among them: Few markets date their bulk bins. If coffee is properly packaged in a valve bag (the bags with the internal buttons and little slits), it probably will taste fresher than bulk coffee, which has been exposed to atmosphere. Put your nose up to the valve and squeeze the bag. Evaluate the aroma. And this:...
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At the Pike Place Market store I can sit around and jive talk about coffee for hours, but many others don't necessarily want to know more about it—instead, they're drawn to the experience of drinking it, socializing with friends, talking about the previous night, peeling off layers of a cranberry walnut muffin, until we reach that coffee buzz which makes surviving the upcoming day all that much more plausible. No wonder so many successful coffee shops around the country create living rooms for their customers with dark wooden floors, light colored walls, communal tables, and the endless aroma of freshly ground beans. We're drawn to comfort in the aroma of brewing, the barista's choice of music, and the milk-infused...
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Note: Serious Eats contributor Allison Hemler is a NYC-based barista who recently traveled to Seattle to check out the internal coffee college at Starbucks HQ. This week, she'll be educating us on tidbits she picked up in class, with today's focus on the espresso. A latte poured by a barista at Stumptown Coffee in Portland, Oregon. Any seasoned barista will tell you what the time before being cleared on an espresso machine is like. You're stuck at the cash register, acting as the interpreter between the customer and the artist behind the La Marzocco who pulls shots, steams milk, and applies a delicate touch to a porcelain cup as it makes its way to a caffeine-starved owner. The barista does...
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Image from the Morning Sentinel Yep, you read that right. The Grandview Topless Coffee Shop opened this February in Vassalboro, Maine—with bare-chested waitstaff refilling the mugs (and, one would hope, the thermostat cranked way up). Owner Donald Crabtree thought the café was a surefire way to rake in business and spice up small-town life. More than 150 applicants (both male and female) interviewed for the ten staff spots. But not all Crabtree’s neighbors were so enthused. Feeling that Grandview brought unwanted visitors and attention to Vassalboro, the town drew up an ordinance to ban topless venues. And two nights ago, flames engulfed the coffee shop, destroying it beyond repair—a fire that officials, the Boston Herald reports, are attributing to arson....
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Note: Serious Eats contributor Allison Hemler is a NYC-based barista who recently traveled to Seattle to check out the internal coffee college at Starbucks HQ. This week, she'll be educating us on tidbits she picked up in class, today's focus being on the improving relationships between coffee bean farmers and roasters. Coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. Photograph from tonx on Flickr As the second most traded commodity in the world after oil, coffee has acquired more frequent flier miles than any of your produce could hope for. In fact, more coffee enters the United States than any other food product. There's a clear reason why we don't have coffee trees in our backyards and why we rely on shipments from...
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Note: Serious Eats contributor Allison Hemler is an NYC-based barista who recently traveled to Seattle to check out the internal coffee college at Starbucks HQ. This week, she'll be educating us on tidbits she picked up in class, continuing today with the roasting of beans. When I want coffee made with love, I immediately think of Small World Coffee in Princeton, New Jersey—the location of my first-ever barista position. We had our own roasting plant five miles down the road in a huge warehouse. You'd walk in for a staff meeting after slaving away at the espresso machine all day and the intense aroma would conjure up images of swimming in coffee beans alongside toasting marshmallows for s'mores, stirring a...
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Note: Serious Eats contributor Allison Hemler is a NYC-based barista who recently traveled to Seattle to check out the internal coffee college at Starbucks HQ. This week, she'll be educating us on tidbits she picked up in class, starting with bean origins today. Clockwise from top left: Coffee cherries, washed green coffee, roasted coffee beans. A few weeks ago, I was at the local bar for trivia night when the ultimate question was asked: "Where is the majority of the world's coffee beans grown?" Simple, I thought. I work in coffee and look at names of Latin American and African countries every day. While hesitant, I chose Colombia from my brainstormed list—the popularity of Juan Valdez has got to count...
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Photograph courtesy of Beehive Dairy Most people, when they hear the words coffee and cheese in the same sentence, wince at the thought of two such vastly different foods coming in such close contact. But Utah's Beehive Dairy is boldly cutting straight through that taboo with their coffee-covered Barely Buzzed, a blue ribbon winner in the 2008 American Cheese Society Awards. The first time I'd tasted it was back in March at Beecher's Cheese in Seattle. As I bit down through the cheese, the bitter nuttiness of the espresso and the caramel sweetness of the cheddar-style cheese made me realize this is a match made in some really quirky and hip corner of heaven....
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