Clover coffee · Wednesday March 14, 2007 by colin newell
I am peeling the bulk of this off of the L.A. Times. It is an important read because, unless you did you not know this, Victoria has a Clover Coffee brewer at Discovery Coffee on Discovery Street.
And if you love coffee and have not been Clovered yet, you are truely missing out.
Anyhow… here is some of the article:
In the breve new world of coffeehouses, espresso has been getting all the love. Tattooed baristas pull perfect shots from loud machines the size of Fiats. Lattes come crowned with filigreed leaves drawn in foam; macchiati appear in dainty demitasses of Italian porcelain. The drip coffee drinker, however, is handed a paper cup and directed to a stoic thermos, exiled near the napkins and sugar packets.
But a seismic change is on the way in this highly caffeinated world. Drip coffee is getting a serious upgrade, thanks to a new machine called the Clover. A high-tech gadget that looks like a cross between a water cooler and a microwave (and it’s the size of a small one), the Clover brews a single cup of coffee at a time, to order, through a process that allows the barista to adjust the brewing to fit the flavor profile of specific lots of coffee.
Coffee brewed in the Clover has the depth of flavor of a French-press brew with none of the sediment; it has a clarity and focus, even an elegance, that you just don’t experience with other brewing methods.
And the price for a cup of such brilliant coffee? Two bucks. At least that’s what it costs (for most brews) at the new downtown branch of Groundwork Coffee Co., which has the only Clover in operation so far in Los Angeles. Not bad, when you consider that the machine costs a cool $11,000. read the rest
Victoria B.C.‘s Discovery Coffee has not just installed a new coffee machine – they have reset the bar for great coffee in the city of Victoria. This is drip coffee after all. Sure there are great shots of espresso to be had elsewhere in the city. But the drip coffee? Well, in most cases (and in most espresso bars and cafes around Victoria) drip coffee is an afterthought relegated to dusty old vac-pots… and neglect.
I list about 20 or more cafes on my favored list of great coffee joints in Victoria. And very few of these places really get drip coffee if you know what I mean. Some do. But few.
Consider this: drip coffee needs to be consumed within 20 minutes of brewing (or less…) before the ravages of oxygen turn a great bean into a bitter dreg. The coffee must be ground consistently. The water must be clean and fresh with just the right amount of mineral content (yes, minerals in the water make the best coffee!). Coffee must be brewed into an “air-resistant” thermal cafe. With the Clover, your cup is brewed right before your eyes for immediate consumption. It can’t be beat.
There is a cheaper alternative: The french press.
Chi-chi cafes, like Artigiano in Vancouver, serve press-pot/bodums with some of the finest ground coffee beans available. What is important with this method is timing, temperature and grind style. Done right, it produces a remarkable cup – done wrong, a cup of muddy bitter murk.
Alas, that is another blog entry.
Cheers!
Comment [8]
Live on CBC Saskatchewan - talking coffee culture · Monday March 12, 2007 by colin newell
Talking coffee culture with CBC Regina
My momma used to say… “If you want something right, you have to do it yourself.
So I did.
Live. On the radio.
So – that kind of makes up for the Globe & Mail mess below.
Talking coffee culture with CBC Regina
Roll up the rim... to pollute! · Thursday March 8, 2007 by colin newell
An Ottawa inventor has created a “labour-saving device” to help Canadians effortlessly “Roll Up the Rim to Win” at Tim Hortons.
Paul Kind, 62, spent three years developing the Rimroller — a plastic device the size of a bottle opener that cleanly slices open and unrolls a rim in one fluid motion.
“Do you know that Tim Hortons (sells) close to 300 million cups every year?” Mr. Kind said yesterday. “When you think of all the effort expended by these different people rolling up their rim, you realize what a labour-saving device this is.”
Uhm. Hello!?
300 million empty cups that get thrown in the trash… the land-fill… the sidewalk…
The trees!
I have been in Tim’s and I steadfastly refuse this stupid and polluting practice. Hello! Does anyone else get this? The waste? The blight on our landscape?
Mr. Kind said he purchased “hundreds” of Tim Hortons coffees over the last three years to conduct rim-rolling experiments.
“I always asked them for a double cup every time,” he said. “They probably wondered why, but there certainly was a good reason.”
Tim Hortons Coffee is a Bad corporate citizen.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Enough of this freaking pollution already…
and as you know… Tim Horton’s Coffee sucks.
Supplemental reading — The Story of Stuff
Comment [9]
Canadian jobs...gone · Wednesday March 7, 2007 by colin newell
TORONTO — As many as 700 workers at Air Canada’s Vancouver maintenance facility will lose their jobs because of a decision by Delta Air Lines Inc. to move work on its jets to China to take advantage of cheaper labour costs.
Air Canada Technical Services (ACTS), a division of Air Canada parent ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. said today that Atlanta-based Delta, has decided to terminate its contract and relocate airframe work on about 100 wide-body Boeing 767 jets.
Cheaper labour costs huh?
My wife was in a series of meetings in Vancouver not too long ago that included neo-con guest-speakers from the likes of the Fraser Institute (Conservative think-tank run by rich old businessmen…), British Columbia Liberals and other high-rollers.
This was at a time when the Liberal government in B.C. just finished gutting the apprenticeship programs – figured we didn’t need apprenticeship programs anymore. Right.
Various neo-cons were getting up and rah-rahing the Liberal party for their right-thinking… no pun intended.
Then one of my wife’s bleeding-heart left-leaning fuzzy thinker friends stood up and said…
Sir. How did you get here today? By plane you say? Indeed. Now, as your jet is screaming down the runway… thousands of pounds of airplane and thousands of pound of thrust… defying the laws of gravity… Would you rather have a B.C. certified and Federally certified journeyman aviation mechanic maintaining that aircraft or some minimum wage hump from some third-world outsourced back-water? Well?
There was a modest round of applause for the fuzzy-thinker.
And it is my point exactly: We need to be careful that we do not give away too much…
before there is nothing left.
