Murchie's on the block · Friday November 9, 2007 by colin newell
In 1975 I got one of my first introductions to specialty coffee via Murchie’s of Victoria. My Brother-in-law bought me a bag of Dark French coffee. At 15 years of age, I was in for a bit of a shock. This was not what I was accustomed to… but it would set the wheels in motion for what would be a future endeavor for me.
Coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee.
Here in the 21st Century, the old Murchie’s firm is now on the block… for sale… to the highest bidder I guess.
But why?
The Receiver-manager of Murchie’s Canada blames the firm’s demise on increasing material and labor costs.
Right. In a red-hot economy where everyone is doing terrific thank-you very much, we can blame labor and material costs.
Let me see. The raw materials, Tea and Coffee can still be purchased for cheap (if you bypass the Fair Trade options — much as Murchie’s has me-thinks) and then you mark them up 200 to 400%. The result: Profit.
Labor costs are at something of a historic low in B.C. – the minimum wage being something under 9$/hour.
So. What is the real deal here?
I think Murchie’s have been sitting on their hands for so long and have entirely lost touch where specialty coffee has gone in the last decade. Visiting a Murchie’s today is like jumping onto an episode of the Time Tunnel. For you Gen-Xer’s, it means that Murchie’s lives within a temporal time bubble – somewhere in the late 1800’s. They are out of touch with modern coffee commerce and the new reality of better coffee served by people who know coffee.
Murchie’s: I wish you luck!
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Being Canadian - visit the ROM · Thursday October 25, 2007 by colin newell
I am Canadian. You have heard it before.
But what is a Canadian? And how do we differentiate ourselves from the other noble members of the North American community?
Well. It is in our art.
For one thing.
And if you live in Toronto, or can get to Toronto – make sure you visit the Royal Ontario Museum for Canada Collects .
Canada Collects – The treasures of a Nation celebrates the passion of Canadian collectors and their vision of a young Nation.
Assembling some of the most iconic historical Canadian artifacts in the country, Canada Collects is certain to strike a patriotic chord among many visitors.
From an early 1709 Hudson’s Bay Company map of the Hudson’s Bay and Straits, to the 1982 Proclamation of the Canadian Constitution Act, the exhibit touches on many aspects of the country’s political and social history. Other notable Canadian items include Lucy Maud Montgomery’s original manuscript for Anne of Green Gables (1905), Walter S. Allward’s powerful maquette, Justice (c. 1925-1930) for the Vimy Ridge Memorial, the first Canadian maple leaf flag (1965) and Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s birchbark canoe (c. 1968)
Having been on the Planet (and in Canada) for the duration I can attest to seeing the new Maple Leaf flying over my elementary school in 1965. I stood in a field at Beacon Hill Park in 1968 with my parents and sisters as Pierre Elliot Trudeau addressed a blossoming liberal nation.
Canada Collects runs until January 8, 2008. I will be there in June 2008 celebrating my Canadian heritage on the streets and in the cafes of Toronto – but this is not a reason for you not to attend!
For more details on the event, download this pdf
Media rant #1 - Macleans gets it wrong · Thursday October 11, 2007 by colin newell
I subscribe to Macleans magazine in Canada – more out of patriotic duty than anything else.
And in the last year or so, Macleans appears to have descended from the ranks of respectable magazine to rag status — at least in my eyes.
I did an interview a couple of weeks ago for Macleans – on the topic of Panama La Hacienda Esmeralda
For me, this is a largely good news story; North American market discovers a great coffee and is willing to pay handsomely for it — and I mean Handsomely! Result: Children get fed, hospital gets built, doctor comes to town, school is full… cue the lights.
The coffee itself is wonderful – often described as more tea-like than coffee like. It has sold via internet auction on a program called The Cup of Excellence. So I talked and talked about it to the Macleans writer pointing out the marvelous benefits to the community that grows this wonderful coffee.
One of my more salient points was how the coffee community, in Canada generally, is a familial like organization that breeds trust as opposed to deception – the writer asking me: “Is there any deception going on with this wonderfully expensive coffee?”
Huh? What? Deception? Heck no. It is a positive message with a positive outcome sister!
The community in Panama now has a medical clinic, a school and hope for the future.
Trust Macleans magazine to strip all this away and cheapen it — making it all about rich Canadians buying expensive coffee —read, us! A few quotes:
Toronto residents have long been accustomed to emptying their wallets for a gourmet meal or fine glass of wine. But is Canada’s most expensive city ready for the $15 cup of coffee? Matthew Lee thinks so. Lee, 29, recently opened Manic Coffee, a café on the bustling outskirts of Toronto’s Little Italy. To celebrate, on Oct. 19 he’ll begin offering up a limited amount of Esmeralda Special — a heady Panamanian brew that’s brought the coffee-drinking world to its knees.
Within the coffee community, Esmeralda backlash has begun. “It is out of control, in my opinion,” says Mark Prince of coffeegeek.com.
He suspects some retailers have been “less than crystal” about whether their coffee is auction-lot or not
Prince himself bought three half-pound bags he believed to be auction-lot Esmeralda, only to find he’d been duped. The Story
Huh? This is about us now is it?
No. It is about the farmers and their families… their children – or it should be.
Yes. I know what you are thinking. This is sour-grapes on my part from not being included in this piece.
Maybe in part. The Panama La Hacienda Esmerelda is a good news message and Macleans has missed the point entirely and made it laugh worthy.
Nice work?
Not.
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Coffee rant #1 - Get out of your car! · Friday October 5, 2007 by colin newell
Coffee on the run took on new meaning for a local Starbucks when a thief ran off with the store’s drive-through speaker box.
The speaker box – stolen sometime after midnight Sunday and early Monday from the cafe on Douglas Street across from Mayfair Shopping Center – was dismantled, and its insides stolen, leaving stranded customers in a caffeine valley.
Reacting in typical corporate fashion to the crisis of inconvenience, Starbucks Coffee, rather than lever java drinkers out of their idling vehicles, sent servers, armed with headsets and blanket – outdoors to take orders in person.
Barista Peter Gatt, 19, did his eight-hour shift on Thursday, repeating orders through his headset to staff inside.
“It’s been really, really awful,” Gatt said. “It’s a pain with the rain, even with the umbrella.”
In the day of no request being too small or big, customers ordered the usual array of coffees, to caramel macchiatos to extra-hot half-caf no-fat no-foam lattes with cinnamon.
Begging the question folks – Is it too much to ask to get your big fat tush out of your polluting car into a cafe for 7 minutes?
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