Let's Talk Coffee

Author: Lois Maffeo

www.coffeegeek.com

Your favorite coffee roaster is in Topeka, they buy green coffee from a Fair Trade cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico that comes through an importer in Portland. How does this unique group of individuals find common ground to agree on high-impact issues like green coffee quality, cupping calibration and sustainability? How do they create a secure supply chain that reduces risk and builds equity? Fax? Skype? E-mail? Sure, those work. But Sustainable Harvest Specialty Coffee Importers in Portland, Oregon, have created a new business model called Relationship Coffee that brings these issues to the table in face-to-face meetings and onsite partnership building. And each year there is an opportunity for participants in the Relationship Coffee model to gather. It’s an event called Let’s Talk Coffee.

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China Starbucks to Stop Using Supplier, Amid Milk Scandal

By LORETTA CHAO
Wall Street Journal

BEIJING -- Starbucks Corp.'s China operation has decided to stop using milk from supplier Mengniu Dairy Co., one of China's largest dairy companies, until further notice in the wake of widening poisoned milk scandal, Starbucks said in a statement early Friday.

The decision comes as authorities discovered in recent days that the industrial chemical melamine was added to a broader range of products than baby formula, which has been linked to an unusual spate of kidney stones in thousands of babies. A Starbucks spokeswoman in Shanghai said that customers in their stores have been asking about the safety of the milk used in their products.

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Mystical Greek coffee-reading traditions

Today, people around the world continue to look for answers in the residue of their tea or coffee and lessons in how to do it correctly are passed on through the generations. It goes with the dramatic Greek nature to be both curious (and often anxious) about the present and future, as well as to enjoy making Cassandra-like predictions about how events or situations will unfold. The trick is not to take it all too seriously, but also to consider the possibility that some, if not most of it may be likely, indicative of something important or de facto true; certainly everyone who has had their cup read comments that what it reveals often is uncannily spot-on.

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How to store coffee so beans don't get old

One of the hot topics is how to best maintain the quality and flavor of coffee over time, or simply put, how best to store it.

This is another topic where everyone knows the "right" answer. But to understand how coffee beans should be stored, let's look at what causes coffee to get "old."

Attacks on fresh coffee beans are as numerous as those in political ads. It's really a shame that innocent little coffee bean has to put up with so much.

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Cafe Femenino Coffee Festival

The Cafe Femenino Coffee Festival, a consumer event, will focus on Purposeful Purchases and educating the public about coffee, as well as emphasize the work being done by the Café Femenino Foundation to enhance the lives of women and families in the coffee growing communities throughout the world.

When and where: 16 October in Portland, Oregon

The event will feature:

* Showing of the film Strong Coffee: The Story of Café Femenino
* "Peru in Portland" Dance by the Pivot Dance Company
* A coffee cupping demonstration, with several Café Femenino coffees
* Silent auction and raffle
* Cafe Femenino coffee martinis by McMenamins
* and more!

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Starbucks: Ministry of Information

by Scott Reeves

Struggling monolith to serve up news alongside caffeine fix.

Starbucks (SBUX), reeling from the need to close 600 of its stores, plans to serve up news alongside shots of double espresso. Perhaps the rag, entitled The Good Sheet, will spark discussion and maybe even gooey communitarian feeling among its customers.

This is yuckier than last week’s coffee grinds.

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Green Mountain Coffee buys Seattle-based Tully's

News Sentinel staff
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Waterbury, Vt.-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., which is building a distribution and manufacturing facility in Knox County, has agreed to buy Tully's Coffee Corp. for $40.3 million in cash.

Seattle-based Tully's will give Green Mountain a complementary West Coast brand and infrastructure, Green Mountain CEO Lawrence J. Blanford said in a statement.

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There's an art to making Greek coffee

By JOYCE SÁENZ HARRIS / The Dallas Morning News
jharris@dallasnews.com

Making Greek coffee isn't a matter of switching on a coffee machine.

To indulge in this centuries-old social tradition, you first need a briki, a small, deep, long-handled pot with a lip, made of brass, copper or (more commonly nowadays) stainless steel. In Greek families, vintage brikis often are cherished heirlooms. New pots are inexpensive – usually $15 or less for a 5-cup stainless-steel briki, but many are smaller and make two or four demitasse cups.

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