Archive for category ‘happening elsewhere’
Thursday, December 28th, 2006
the government of zimbabwe: moving on from agricultural ruination (read: coffee) to arrest indigenous gold miners. CI asks the paranoid question: does this mean coffee is now thoroughly toast?
longtime readers will remember that we here in the carolina hinterlands have actual zimbabwe coffee farmers living among us. we'll have to ...
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Monday, November 27th, 2006
this blog is deeply humbled to discover that what home-roasted sublimity it has discovered, by experience or by accident, is actually illegitimate! not worth the sale of cheap greens from pro to amateur! because, you know, excellence is kept under lock and key by certificate-toting triple-waveists. who knew?
of course, ...
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Friday, November 3rd, 2006
billy has tattoos? who knew?
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Friday, November 3rd, 2006
sometimes it's nice just to go somewhere and let your mouth hang agape like a 16-oz. capp cup. or something.
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Tuesday, October 24th, 2006
six months ago, this blog first heard about jon lewis, the idahoan u.s barista championship finalist with a flair for thoughtful oratory and a bewitching euro subtlety in espresso beverages. and then, in a fit of unoriginal repetition, this blog called him "overwrought" at least twice. it was a function ...
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Monday, October 23rd, 2006
catching a glimpse of billy's espresso pearls caviar, it turns out, is not unlike waiting for the mists to align in the form of an ardently sought female religious figure. trust us -- we've flogged the global interwebs on your behalf. what with the difficulty of an actual sighting, then, ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 6 Comments »
Saturday, October 21st, 2006
it's not your amateur-driven muscular live-blogging, but day one of the northwest regional barista competition is expounded upon here. the private par-tays also don't sound so bad.
alas, this blog failed to unearth a travel sponsor.
UPDATE: finalists. competitor blogging. regular updates. but still no photographic evidence of billy's espresso pearls.
UPDATE: ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 2 Comments »
Friday, October 6th, 2006
it's a favorite moan in coffee circles. now wine spectator magazine adds its voice: why do so many otherwise exquisite restaurants serve such poo for a final course? namely, the cheese plate! no, wait. that's what should be served as the final course.
instead, mark pendergrast writes, they "expect you ...
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Saturday, September 30th, 2006
is wbc competitor hoffmann fomenting doubt about an alternative barista competition? this blog reports, you decide.
UPDATE: that alternative -- the nordic barista cup -- is being blogged here, here, here and here. 'bout time somebody live-blogged a large-caliber competition event. with the sporadic exception of coffeegeek, real-time information would seem ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
who knew the tattooed, usbc-finalist, spuma-master stumptownian billy wilson held to a reformed theological position? (see "heroes.")
also: myspace, billy? MYSPACE?! what happened to artistic originality? a blank slate? an unfiltered look at a leading barista's mind? shucks, mecca-proximal name-dropping? i want to know what billy wilson's scace device has ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, September 12th, 2006
either the perfervid poet and usbc finalist jon lewis has a new blog, or someone is doing a darned good impression of the dreamer himself at this web site. we think we know which it is!
indeed, this blog could be earning its place among the "dogs" by spilling the beans. ...
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Thursday, August 31st, 2006
this blog's beef with equipment supplier extraordinaire chris nachtrieb is NOT that he plasters his business vehicles with espresso machine images -- that's rareified geekery that makes this blog look placid and erudite by comparison! no, we quibble with the guru's newly birthed foray into specialty roasted coffee ... ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
this blog has been wishing it could latte art a good pig intestine for some time.
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Friday, August 25th, 2006
a bit late, but: the besmirching of lady esmeralda drags on, with a supposed guru supposedly rating its floral explosion behind a musty sumatran. (hat tip, billy.) which reminds us of the supposed guru chef who recently paired single-origin coffees with food and wine courses, egregiously missing an opportunity to ...
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Friday, August 18th, 2006
then again: wal-mart's image-shining efforts -- including "responsible" coffee sourcing -- aren't exactly invulnerable. as if we needed another reminder that the bigger the fair-trader, the more inevitable the shortcomings...
UPDATE: this fascinating line from the washington post version:
The incident underscores the public relations challenges Wal-Mart faces as it tries to ...
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Saturday, August 12th, 2006
inquiring blogs want to know: would the now-ubiquitous hoffmann have listed this site among his "favorite blogs" in the latest issue of barista mag had we incited this week's needless rhetorical row before it went to press?
UPDATE: how do we know he compiled the list before our ribbing? easy! hoffmann's ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006
scintillating, charbucks-earnings-drop-related thesis: "the cost of living well is rising more rapidly than the cost of living."
which holds a certain ring of truth for this blog. it was only last week that the meager writer's salary failed to cover the cost of beaufort special reserve french import cheese for the ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | 6 Comments »
Thursday, August 3rd, 2006
reader mikep sends this image to remind us why our recent fixating junket through the midwest fell far short of comprehensiveness.
mike helpfully annotates the image here, identifying the sliver o' scalp behind the la marzocco as usbc finalist fritzen himself. it's like having our very own lurking paparazzi in bloomington, ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, mad coffee jaunts | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 17th, 2006
as if to jar us loose from mesmeralda snobbery, this blog's africa-bound brother cruelly unleashes this photographic evidence of a bush-dweller's 'gourmet' coffee habit:
it's not common that one sees this exotic level of pukery, so let us help identify the wares. at top, there's nido, a sort of third-world powdered ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 2 Comments »
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
this blog feels it is its duty to inform you that barista-blogger james hoffmann just said "surfactant." also: "lactoglobulin." we don't even want to know what sort of edgy euphemisms those might be. it reminds us of an old and dense discussion on "foaming fractions" -- also known as "crema."
this ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | 3 Comments »
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
deeply unsettling notion: "wal-mart" and "fair trade coffee." talk about a simple business proposition with the potential to turn coffee sourcing on its head. it's no secret that the demands of wally world for computer software, for example, have been called the single biggest determinant of which products reach the ...
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Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
now this, i say, is what this blog calls a truly visionary investment tool.
it tells me, for example, that if i were to purchase every coffee that i currently drink at a local chain store, i would spend about $4,200 a year. this would seem to breathe new life ...
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Sunday, May 21st, 2006
insta-bloviating on the wbc's final scores:
* does it seem to you like there are intangibles associated with the danish competitors that so consistently put them over the top? it does to this blog, too. an earlier comment might have touched on why this is.
* not having seen scores from previous ...
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Sunday, May 21st, 2006
mark prince calls him a dark horse. chris tacy thinks he could finish second. you decide.
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Sunday, May 21st, 2006
james hoffmann's el salvador finca la fany bourbon used in his competition blends.
with james safely in the world barista championship finals, it falls to this blog to make wildly unwarranted performance extrapolations based on a single component of his competition blend.
stunning, really, how a crashing hoffmann had the ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, playing with (roaster) fire, subjective swilling | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 19th, 2006
competitors and spectators agree: uberdane klaus turned in an early juggernaut-ish performance at the worlds.
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Friday, May 19th, 2006
someone, finally, is quasi-blogging from the worlds. also: pics.
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Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
...is the pre-wbc information vacuum, apparently. how else to explain the startling lack of chatter pre-worlds? could it be the sheer humbling effect of a recognized master casting a wee bit of harsh light on all the impenetrable, insider-friendly shortcomings of barista competitions? (on the point of spectator accessibility: agreed. ...
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Thursday, May 11th, 2006
that which would alleviate the "tyranny of mechanical limitations" is sitting on schecter's counter, behind his mazzer -- seemingly not the prominent place for something with the potential to crest the third wave. he's posted a photo, but still no illuminating public discourse. 61 days and counting!
UPDATE: mikep offers a ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 7th, 2006
this blog has yet to find a more profoundly useful public service than this brief investigative video on the dangers of gas station espresso. (insert your quarter. follow the flashing prompts. then click "apri".) in this blog's opinion, the journalists responsible for this report should be strong contenders for a ...
Posted in happening elsewhere | 2 Comments »
