Archive for category ‘screeds’
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
monaco: crazy place! more ferraris than fords, more obviously forced royal wedding photos that any public should be required to see. and such a fine (nonexistent?) line between "personal yacht" and "cruise ship."
and yet, it's kind of amazing that for all the fine food, captive populace, french sensibilities and disposable ...
Posted in coffee travel, screeds | 16 Comments »
Monday, August 15th, 2011
so what if the culture of specialty coffee, with all its focus on quality and impulse for celebration, also carries a certain narrow way of thinking that ends up handicapping the cause in the long run?
obviously, this is where you click, "close tab." back to teh twitterz! right, yes, ...
Posted in coffee shops, coffee+food, screeds | 24 Comments »
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
there are epic things you do with a headful of intentions. and then there are escapades where the big idea emerges only in retrospect. and so, this piece of food thought kind of sums up last weekend after the fact. if we'd read this before all the insanity, we would ...
Posted in coffee+food, screeds, siphon | 9 Comments »
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
it stings to be told how to properly drink a macchiato.
it also stings to be told your espresso tastes like "bitter ... burned citrus peel."
sprodown!
alas, the offense on both sides was avoidable -- and, to this reader's eye, the fault of intelligentsia's "good guys." which isn't to say they could ...
Posted in coffee shops, screeds | 18 Comments »
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
It's hard to know which came first, the malady or the remedy.
Whole chunks of my life first came to be anesthetized by coffee at roughly the same time as I was losing whole chunks of my life. Patience, appetite, wit -- anything that required reservoirs of energy to be deployed ...
Posted in screeds | 6 Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
... and so here we have a thought that won't dislodge from the gizzard meeting a blog in need of more thought randomization ...
is panama's famed esmeralda -- now the subject of frenzied annual auctions and ever-escalating price records -- the andy warhol of coffee? it's a stellar, genre-bending, tell-your-neighbors ...
Posted in screeds, subjective swilling | 10 Comments »
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
if a coffee customer feels like a moron, the hot salty shame will quickly drown out your hand-brewed floral notes. in which case, a fine coffee establishment contradicts itself -- it's not just a minor flaw -- when it believes its swill to be so yummy that it tramples on ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
and so the surreptiti-blogger tacy made a rather pointy point while this blog was out about the black hole that is ... well, it's a black hole. thus lacking basic tenets of existence. and the hole that is, currently, black might otherwise be described -- if it did exist ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
perhaps it is when caffeine becomes an ingredient in oatmeal that you know the culture of consumption -- the human churn rate for stuff -- has mutated beyond mere individualistic pleasure. it has become inextricably linked to addiction.
this idea was perhaps the most agreeably scintillating slice of last week's ...
Posted in mad coffee jaunts, screeds | 1 Comment »
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
Note: This is a bloggy draft. It encapsulates the arguments put forth at last weekend's staggeringly comprehensive Coffee Conference, on the moral, economic and social aspects of our second-largest commodity. It is likely to evolve. For now, it represents a series of unusual and unanswered questions for specialty coffee and ...
Posted in mad coffee jaunts, screeds | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
last time we saw the zombie (top right score) and his ladye (left side), they were pretty much competing against themselves.
this blog is now coldly eyeballing the real estate in san francisco, which of course is where that zombie chris owens and his ladye m'lissa have landed for the moment. ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
this blog wonders aloud: shouldn't we be, like, AT the serbc right now? And still we have no deets!
UPDATE: the 2005 southeast regional began sept. 9. the 2006 regional started sept. 22. although, yes, last year didn't get rolling until oct. 19. but that's only because of how long it ...
Posted in screeds | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
CI conspiracy theorizes so you don't have to: is there some clued-in coffee person on the new york times staff -- someone, say, with very close third-wave relations -- behind the paper's curious recent tandem of quality coffee coverage with snarky, skeptical starbucks riffs? or is it just deeply american ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | No Comments »
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
truth is, this blog stumbles erratically and self-loathingly toward the well-worn narrative arc of most junkie coffee sites. broad, anything-goes enjoyment gives way to self-conscious issues blogging, which segues to Matters Only of Very Great Import posted on the internets. the more we experience, the less we share.
which is ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 24th, 2008
it's a common, vexing concern: how would the world barista champeen answer the burning coffee questions of the day? -- with hurricane winds, swooping fighter jets and small mortar fire distracting him, no less?
that's pretty much how our hack front-porch interview sounds, thanks to the blogson, who kept slamming that ...
Posted in screeds, video | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
this blog's enthusiasm for the pocket wonder of espresso machines, la marzoccco's gs3, did NOT collapse like a hot souffle. it collapsed like a stale, forgotten, marbleized souffle left outdoors for three winters and sucked slowly to a shrivelled crisp by fume-loving mites devoid of options. because, you know, they ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
a hopeless aesthete coworker and recent home spro bandwagon getter-onner wonders: how environmentally obtuse can it be to sell high-end, earth-sensitive coffee in 12-oz. bags?
(a) people are accustomed to buying coffee by the pound. (b) as such, they have coffee habits built around this unit of measure. most standard drinkers ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
what solis jake saw at the corning museum of glass:
what solis jake then drank at the corning museum of glass (hint: his e-mail subject line said "WME"):
"worst mocha evar!" pondering, then, this $12,000 architectural tragedy (roughly), this blog ends up fascinated all over again at the levels of indignity people ...
Posted in screeds | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2007
recipients of this blog's seasonal giving often look at us with a seething expression that says, "riiiiiiiight. you gave me coffee because you've got it coming out of your tear ducts, and probably overroasted this batch while mindlessly slurping a closeted fungus."
and yet, giving coffee can be actually sacrificial. ...
Posted in screeds, shameless robusta filler | No Comments »
Monday, December 10th, 2007
now that we've thought about it, your grandma is quite possibly a stronger influence on the quality of your coffee than, say, your credentials as a working barista. it's not about the bar skills, but about the narrative, right? -- the riveting coffee story you're able to deliver to the ...
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Monday, November 12th, 2007
another in a series: tales of coffee woe you, too, could experience were you enough of a self-flagellating masochist.
what reaction could one have offered? where, at the moment the shoe dropped, could we have tucked our mouthful of shrimp crepe florentine in order to burble a protest? who could have ...
Posted in screeds | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007
this blog has never met kyle larson. which sort of makes it hard to tell: is he a well-meaning tipster or conniving bio-terrorist? this blog reports, you decide.
the problem, see, is that this blog is NOT suffering a flare-up, as once supposed, of the previously contracted malaria. (what does the ...
Posted in happening elsewhere, screeds | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 25th, 2007
no sooner do we indulge in the quasi-regular, neodemocratic, metaphysical debate on barista competitions (what is the philosophical significance of three beverage rounds? will a home junkie ever compete respectably? what IS cigaragay's next signature potion? jus de slaughterhouse lambshank el puente?) than someone far outside the usual echo chambers ...
Posted in screeds | 15 Comments »
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
this blog assumes the informal word is true, and the 2007 southeast regional barista competition will be held in clearwater, fla.
forgetting for a moment the extreme nether location for what is a 10-state competition region -- on a peninsula! that juts into the sea! -- the most burning question just ...
Posted in screeds | 25 Comments »
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
to encapsulate our desolation, one really must turn to metered verse. also, touching imagery:
the vestiges of ezzie spent/e'en the chil'en ain't exempt/from gazes sad and clothing rent
shake the trees/break my knees/the esmeralda's now debris
top that grief, why don't you. this blog dares you. *sob*
UPDATE: where's jon lewis when you need ...
Posted in screeds | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
this blog believes firmly in meeting coffee consumers where they are. even if ... no, particularly if it involves mini demis, nutella biscuits and plenteous outdoor verdure.
Posted in screeds | No Comments »
Friday, August 3rd, 2007
it strikes this blog that newly crowned world barista champion james hoffmann represents a sort of preeminent aesthetic value that doesn't just lead in its category (known formally as "dang good coffee"), but that transcends industry and cultural divisions to engage a diverse melange of the masses. you'd be hard ...
Posted in screeds | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
james' excruciatingly awaited, long-promised announcement -- now suddenly in jeopardy?
watch the video, decide for yourself.
UPDATE: join this blog in a hearty "whew."
UPDATE: forget "whew." james hoffmann is the new world champeen. this should come with added burdens of disclosure and responsibility, no? mad props to the mad foodie.
Posted in screeds | 4 Comments »
Friday, July 27th, 2007
hoffmann's next move -- to be revealed on the world's biggest coffee stage?
UPDATE: as if we needed another reason to root for james.
URGENT BREAKING UPDATE: a CI source says, on quintuple-super-secret background, that hoffmann is, quote, "starting a glitch-hop klezmer-fusion boy band." we assume the 'do will be getting ...
Posted in screeds | 4 Comments »
Thursday, July 12th, 2007
somehow, due to forces far beyond this blog, the new blogson was born a purist.
UPDATE: yes, well. pouring a capp into a volumetrically marked suckling bottle turns out to be a quasi-humbling, non-wasteful exercise. how humbling, you ask? it took us three pours to nail the ratios!
basically, this blog has ...
Posted in screeds | 8 Comments »
