Chamie's Coffee Blog

This morning's mailbox coffee grab bag included a fair amount of coffee news that was actually interesting, a switch from the past few weeks when my Google "coffee" alert was focused on news that was about weight loss, the stock market and a couple of coffee-house related crimes. So it was a treat this morning to find that green coffee bean extract, kidnapped baristas, coffee-throwing patrons and the trials and tribulations of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters have slipped into the background to make way for more interesting news about coffee -- like a review of the Chris King coffee tamper from uh... Adventure Journal? Apparently, there's a very good reason for a magazine on outdoor adventures is publishing a review of coffee gear -- the tamper was designed and is offered by Seattle fixture Chris King, well-known makers of high-quality precision bike components and now, apparently, of coffee tampers. Watch:

It's Mother's Day. How are you treating your mother? I don't mean the woman who gave birth to you or the one who raised you. I'm talking about our Mother, Mother Earth, without whom none of us would be here. As coffee lovers, we should be paying very close attention to how we all treat the world around us. You may have missed this interview about the challenges of ethical business from Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans, though the video is actually here on site on the Dean's Beans profile. This is a little snippet from the clip that I think everyone who loves coffee should hear.

My Mother's Day present from my daughter and son-in-law just arrived and I couldn't be more tickled, especially since I'm down to just my own roast in the house right now. I should have guessed that I'd be getting a pound of Dean's Bean's Happy Mother's Day coffee from them since I was on the phone with my daughter when I got the email from Dean's Beans mentioning that they'd make a $1 donation to MotherWoman for every pound of Happy Mother's Day coffee they sold -- and she said, "Yep, we've already seen that." But I can be a little dense sometimes. So... I was surprised and pleased when it showed up this afternoon.

I'm a total sucker for pretty coffee gadgets, so when I spotted the Cafino coffee maker on -- of all places, a website that sells home lighting products, it stopped me in my tracks. It's described as sort of a French press without a plunger, but from the photo and the description, it seems more like an Eva Solo -- sans neoprene jacket -- with a removable filter rather than a filter cap. I've got to confess that I was intrigued enough to look for more information only to find... pretty much nothing.

Y'all probably remember how ecstatic I was when this espresso machine arrived in my house back in January. We had real espresso -- yay! Even the roommate, who is a coffee Philistine, asked to learn how to use the espresso machine so he could make one for himself. In retrospect, that was probably a mistake. This is a man who has broken three washing machines, two coffee makers and countless other electrical and electronic gadgets. It was probably inevitable that shortly after he learned to make espresso, the machine just... stopped working.

My kitchen coffee bar is sporting a new accessory this morning -- a Hamilton Beach BrewStation Summit Ultra automatic drip coffee machine. Doesn't it look cozy next to the Espressione coffee grinder? I ordered this baby on ROASTe last week and it arrrived Tuesday, so I've had a couple of days to play with it and check it out. Here's the scoop on it.

Guilty confession time. I still occasionally grab a bag of supermarket coffee when I go shopping. I grew up on Eight O'Clock Coffee -- and I do mean I grew up on it. It was the signature coffee sold by the A&P supermarket, which was the only market where my grandmother would shop. Back in 1963, you could still buy Eight O'clock Coffee in whole bean form and have it ground just before you took it home with you. Not quite as good as roasted at point-of-purchase, but definitely better than tinned coffee. Until I discovered the convenience of ordering coffee from multiple roasters on ROASTe, Eight O'Clock was usually my coffee of choice for one basic reason: aside from Starbucks -- which I never could stomach -- and those horrible flavored coffees in the bins, Eight O'Clock coffee was the only brand that I could regularly get at the supermarket in whole bean form. Well, that and the nostalgia factor.

True confession: I have never played any of the GTA franchise of games. I'm a text game baby, and I don't really care a whole lot for graphical games. Not to mention, the game premise just never really appealed to me. But you can't live in a house with teenage boys without hearing a lot about GTA and all of its little hidden side games, so I DO know about the Hot Coffee version of GTA. So when I read about Hot Coffee: The Game on The Verge, I had to check it out. You'll want to check it out, too.

If you thought you were being creative with your coffee grounds when you dumped them in your compost heap or turned them into coffee scrub, wait till you get a load of what Raul Lauri does with his. The talented Spanish designer took first place for the Satellite award at the 2012 Salone Milan furniture deisgn show last week for his lamps, lights and tableware created from -- you guessed it -- coffee grounds.

When it comes to drinking, I have two vices. One is coffee. The other is Pepsi. A new study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" strongly suggests that I should quit drinking one and continue enjoying the other. Bet you can guess which one is which.

威爾Family ♥ Ryan,Will,Lilian / Stock Photos

One of the minor annoyances of being a stay-at-home worker in a town that doesn't have much of a coffee culture is that people just don't get you. I mean, they really don't get you. When you start talking about flavor nuances and water temperatures and the relative benefits of a Beehive vs. a Clever, their eyes glaze over. And heaven forbid you want to figure out exactly WHAT that little hint of flavor is that you can't identify. "What do you taste?" you ask. "Uh... coffee?" Well, I'm totally tickled this morning to announce that I've come up with the solution to the problem: I raised me a homegrown coffee geek!

Should local roasters be allowed to sell their products at local farmers' markets? I love coffee. I love coffee roasters. I love shopping at farmers' markets. I never thought about combining the two before reading an article in yesterday's Washington Post about coffee roasters being barred from many local farmers markets. My first reaction to the headline was -- well, duh! Local. Farmers. Coffee is not ever local produce, so where's the controversy? Then I read the article and started thinking about it...

First -- fair warning. The video quality is really poor -- I was playing with new tools and I'm a coffee person, not a production person. That said, I figured I'd share my big coffee roasting oops this weekend:

What do our favorite coffee roasters get up to when they're not firing up beans for our enjoyment? Well, if it's Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans, it could be just about anything... and it will almost always be fun. I'm on the Dean's Beans mailing list to keep up on new coffees and good deals, and because every once in a while, they send out something cool, like this video of Dean getting down with a group of their coffee partners in Papua New Guinea:

A couple of days ago, I posted about the TextSpresso machine developed by the tech and coffee geeks at Zipwhip -- you remember, right? The ultra-cool coffee machine that makes an espresso when you send it a text -- and prints your name on the crema? Here's a follow-up video with a lot more detail for all you guys that were drooling over having this baby at work:

Coffee and mustard may not sound like go-togethers, but tonight's Easter ham. glazed with an apricot, coffee and mustard glaze was a big hit. In fact, I caught both boys licking the spoon after they stirred the glaze. This one was an improv -- I just added ingredients to taste, but it was so good that I know I'll be playing with it again to fine-tune the measurements so I can write a real recipe for it. In the meantime, here's the general recipe if anyone wants to give it a try.

The official household coffee roaster

About a week ago, I posted about the Congo coffee over at The Captain's Coffee and mentioned that I'd be picking some up when my paycheck came in. Well, it took me longer to get around to it than I'd planned (yay, procrastination!), but I just popped back to place my order for 2 pounds of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kivu 4 Special Prep at the below-cost price of $2.65/lb. It's been a while since I've roasted my own, but I'm looking forward to firing up the retro-inspired popcorn popper and filling the house with roasting smoke and blowing chaff.

File this one under "Holy cappuccino, Batman!" A company in Seattle has created an unmanned espresso machine that acccepts your coffee order via text and brews it up for you. Check out the report from Seattle's KOMO News:

Discovered this one via Dear Coffee I Love You, one of my favorite non-ROASTe coffee blogs. This Steampunk coffee brewer will be featured at the  April 19th SCAA Event in Portland. The video is your standard slick marketing video, but the coffee machine is pretty neat.

Are you one of those people who has trouble making decisions before your first cup of coffee? Now there's a new Android coffee app that can help you make that all-important first decision of the day -- what kind of coffee should you order?