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Growing Coffee

Ever wonder how coffee is grown?
Check it out.

Starbucks VIA . . . not bad

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

There has been a sample pack of Starbucks VIA in my pantry for quite some time. And this morning, I decided it was time to break it out - I needed that morning coffee kick and I overslept my alarm, therefore this was the perfect solution.

These instant coffee packs are exactly like the lemonade/iced tea/Gatorade packs you can add to a bottle of water so you don't have to drink just plain water. You simply dump this little pack of coffee into a mug, heat up eight ounces of water and add that in! It doesn't get much simpler.

Like Coffee? Try some tea.

Image via Wikipedia

Putting tea on our blog may be a mistake. 

We love coffee and thinking about drinking tea seems like cheating on the boyfriend you've been dating since high school. Some will say "go out with different guys, see what else is out there." But we know what is out there, and we are passionately in love with what we have. 

The purpose of this post is two-fold: to give our non-coffee drinking readers a taste goodness and to give some options if your current coffee relationship is on the rocks. 

Sometimes it only takes one date with a new cup and you remember why you liked the old one. 

Enjoy! 

Here are comparable coffees to tea. 

Thank you I Need Coffee!

Espresso - Imperial Gunpowder: tightly rolled full-potency green tea leaves explode with a complex flavor spectrum.Lapsang Souchong - a smoky tea that has a wonderful leather smell.


Kenyan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopian -Earl Grey:  a rich body (usually a Darjeeling base) with a penetrating taste and oil of bergamot.


Guatemalan, Sulawesi- Keemun (fancy or Lion Mountain): a deep, mellow black China tea.


Tanzania Peaberry, Ethiopian Sidamo- Assam (Goldentip, or extra fancy): a full-bodied malty tea.


Puerto Rican Yauco Selecto, Papua New Guinea- Formosa Oolong: pleasant smooth aftertaste
China Gui Hua -black tea with pieces of dried kwei flowers.


Sumatran- Jasmine blossom (fancy or Yin Hao) - Green tea: with a floral scent and a pleasant aftertaste, Ti Kwan Yin - a fruity, oolong tea.


Brazilian, Kona- China Rose Petal: black tea with dried roses added.

-Becky

Oh, Coffee Information

I just discovered the coolest book ever. It's called The Visual Miscellaneum and it is filled with a myriad of info graphics.  It's so informative. The Author also of has a blog The Visual Miscellaneum, so check it out.

I want to put this coffee graphic on my wall as a constant reminder of how to make good coffee. I love it how well explained the graphics are, you could be your own Stovetop Barista.

The best part is that the pronunciations are underneath each cup, so scary hipster coffee shops can't judge when you pull out your Italian accent.

Enjoy!

-Becky

Coffee Straight from Guatemala

Every summer for the past five or six years my roommate travels to Guatemala with a group of people from her church. They work with orphanages down there, and she actually sponsors one of the girls herself. I absolutely love hearing her talk about her trips there (she loves it so much) and seeing her pictures, and the other day I fell in love with something else about her trips - the coffee.

The other day was one of those typical winter days in Northwest Ohio - gray, windy and plenty cold. In other words, it was the perfect weather for a mug of coffee. I offered to pull out the Folgers in my cupboard, but she offered something better - coffee she had brought back from Guatemala. Thank goodness she offered.

The coffee had a deliciously rich flavor and it was extremely smooth. It was a little bolder than I thought it would be, but it was a pleasant surprise. For some reason it struck me as the perfect winter coffee - the bold richness was warming and helped get rid of those winter doldrums. It was also a great coffee to give me that kick I needed to get through the day, I was most definitely awake when my mug was empty.

My roommate better be careful, she's going to spoil me with her great coffee taste.


--Alissa

Make-at-Home "Snowflake Lattes"

The weather in Bowling Green has been pretty typical of Ohio lately - it's 64 degrees one minute, and 45 the next. So with the onset of cold weather and winter, we have been dying to make peppermint mochas because what better to welcome one of the more brutal seasons with?

We decided to consult our handy "I love coffee!" book, and discovered a recipe for a "Snowflake Latte." We made it in our kitchen as per usual so we could share it with you here. We hope it warms up your day (or night) as much as it did ours . . .

What you'll need:
-Vanilla-flavored syrup
-Peppermint-flavored syrup (or peppermint extract and sugar, we'll get into that later)
-A strong pot of coffee
-Milk
-A stovetop and some pots (of course!)

The New Starbucks Experience

Image via Wikipedia

The Starbucks Experience is going to the Web.

In early October Starbucks launched The Starbucks Digital Network, a new way to enhance patrons’ visit to the coffee shop. The network will offer exclusive access to music, videos, coffee news and other multimedia, according the Starbucks website.

Since 1971, when the Starbucks Coffee Company was founded it has been “committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality coffee in the world” and to abiding by the “Starbucks Experience,” which the company believes goes hand-in-hand with providing a good cup of coffee.

News with your coffee

The Starbucks Digital Network, in partnership with Yahoo! will “hand-picked premium news, entertainment and lifestyle content along with local insights and events, the Starbucks Digital Network,  is powered by free Wi-Fi and available only in Starbucks stores.” The network will be compatible with all Wi-Fi enabled laptops, iPads or smart phones, according to the Starbucks website.

What Starbucks has to say
"Our customers are the inspiration for the Starbucks Digital Network. They’ve told us they want to be the first to know what’s happening in their neighborhoods and around the globe, to have an easy way to discover new music, great books and important films and find ways to be more involved in their communities. And they’re connecting with the brand digitally in numerous ways,” said Stephen Gillett,
Starbucks executive vice president, chief information officer and Digital Ventures general manager in a press release. “These points combined with our passion for creating a unique customer experience, our heritage of recommending culturally-relevant works and focus on giving back to the community, led us to create this new, one-of-a-kind, localized content experience with Yahoo!.”

What the Customer thinks 

Katey Yinger of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, said she goes to Starbucks for the atmosphere.

“It ‘s a great place to relax, get a good cup of coffee and get stuff done,” she said.  “It has a great atmosphere for that.”

Yinger said the introduction of the Starbucks Network, in her opinion is a “smart move for Starbucks.”

“Starbucks is already known for things like their music … and people like it” she said. “So why not give special access to people in their [shops]. It’s good for business and probably good for the artists.”

One of the main reasons Yinger goes to Starbucks, she said, is because she knows she will always get a good cup of coffee and that the employees will be “very pro-customer.”

“For people who really like coffee, and I do, I know I will always get what I want, there a no surprises,” she said. “And when I don’t, they’ll make again … they take care of the customers and I know I’m getting good coffee.”

Yinger also said along with the new network, she is excited about other experiments Starbucks is trying, like selling wine and a shop in Seattle.
 “It’s all very interesting,” she said.  “I think it will really develop their image and maybe people will think differently about Starbucks … they’ll get more people in the door.”

-Becky

Fair Trade Coffee Aids Guatemala

Image via Wikipedia

Bowling Green State University senior Michelle Erford has  traveled to Guatemala with her church for the past five summers. In that time she has been able to see firsthand how important coffee is as a crop to Guatemala.

"There are a ton of coffee farms in Guatemala, and it's a high export," Erford said. "They are very proud of their coffee because it's grown by the volcanoes."

With that importance, the Fair Trade movement has begun to have an effect on the Guatemalan coffee growers.

Fair Trade Certification

To have a product become Fair Trade certified, the importer must pay a minimum price of $1.26 a pound, according to Global Exchange, an advocacy group based in San Francisco that promotes human rights and social, environmental and economic justice worldwide. By requiring a minimum price per pound at that amount, the Fair Trade certification is ensuring that the small coffee farmers trying to make a living can do just that.

In Guatemala, a large number of coffee producers are small farms that produce small quantities of coffee while the smaller number of large farms produce the larger share of coffee in the country. This imbalance makes it hard for the small Guatemalan farmers to stay afloat and many have had to abandon their farms and move to the cities or another country to make a small living.

How Ellen likes her men, and her coffee . . .

Yesterday I was perusing Twitter when I noticed a tweet Ellen DeGeneres sent out . . .

TheEllenShow Ellen DeGeneres I like my coffee like I like my men. Shirtless. 

She included a link at the end of the tweet, which I of course clicked on because I mean, who wouldn't, right? I took the link out of the copied tweet I pasted above, so that I could put the video the link sent me to right here:  (enjoy!)

You’re watching You’ve Got Ellen DeGeneres. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

--Alissa