Coffee links - February 25

Links for February 25, 2011

Is it possible to grow coffee in Portland? Marrowmag.com has an interesting article about Coava’s Matt Higgins trying to grow coffee in his basement. link

Coffee futures reached their highest price in fourteen years this week. Of course, it could be worse for consumers—cocoa prices are the highest they have been in thirty-two years. link

Brazil’s government is holding onto its coffee stocks, in anticipation of even higher prices to come this year. link

After seeing Starbucks make a deal with Tata to enter the Indian market, Dunkin’ Donuts decided it wants some of the action too. link

Dunkin’ also made a deal this week with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to put its coffee into the K-cups. The question is, should you short Green Mountain’s stock? That’s what Steven Syre, writing in the Boston Globe, tries to figure out. link

If you like Bollywood films and you like coffee, you might like Kudirithe Kappu Coffee. link

The Calgary Herald sees a parallel between the coffee and the chocolate industries. link

Even as worldwide demand for coffee has increased, Kenya’s coffee production has decreased over the last two decades, according to Business Daily Africa. Richard Gitonga, the author, proposes some solutions. link

Growing higher-quality coffee has brought a higher standard of living to coffee farmers in Uganda. link

I just like the picture in this coffee article.

Did you know that you can make oatmeal in your coffee maker? A better question might be, why would you want to?

Friday's Links - February 18

Friday has come quickly again this week. Hope you are ready for a good weekend. Here are your Friday links:

Reuters has a story about the coffee culture in Iran. It sounds like the country has a small but growing coffee industry that is catching on among young people. link

In the article, the author mentions an Iranian coffee chain called Raees, which Starbucks unsuccessfully sued for infringement of trademark. You can see the logo for yourself here. I cannot imagine why Starbucks was upset (sarcasm intended).

As you know, single-serve coffee is the fastest growing segment of the coffee market. Starbucks wants in on the game too. There was speculation that Starbucks was in talks with Green Mountain Coffee over using the K-cup technology that Green Mountain owns. This week, however, Howard Schultz wrote a very cryptic memo to company employees about those rumors. It appears that Starbucks is either trying to create leverage in its talks with Green Mountain, or the company has plans to develop its own technology. Either way, it does not seem like you are going to have Starbucks K-cups for a while. link

Here’s an article about Maryland coffee shops, posted on a Kitsap, Washington site. Sounds like lots of Laptopistanis are out there working in coffee shops. I can relate. link

If you’re traveling through Forsyth County, Georgia, you might want to avoid stopping at this particular Starbucks, as it has been hit by a car twice in the last month.

Good.com has an interesting map of the world’s coffee consumption. Most of the coffee is not consumed in the places where it is grown. link

If you like the toasted smoky taste of coffee but are tired of caffeine, you could always try roasted barley. link

Want to know more about the history of coffee? Prague has a good museum to visit. link

An Irish traveler visited Portland and came away with a very favorable opinion. Surprisingly, the visit was in January. link

February 11 Links

It's that time again. Here are some coffee highlights from the last week:

There’s “Portland Weird” and then there’s “Silicon Valley Weird”. When you go to this link, be sure to watch the video of the robot that visits a local coffee shop in Mountain View, California. It’s kind of cool—and kind of creepy. link

Smuckers is raising the price on Folgers coffee, the third price increase in the past year. Just one more reason to stop drinking Folgers. link

Growing middle classes around the world are bound to have a long-term effect on coffee prices, as consumers demand better quality. MarketWatch has a short article about the effect the expanding middle class in Brazil is having on coffee prices. link

Coffee won’t make you fat, but what you put into it, might. link

Oliver Strand of the NY Times admires the pour-over culture that the US has imported from Japan. link

Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz has joined the board of directors of Groupon, which is reportedly planning an IPO later this year. Is there half-priced coffee in the future at Starbucks? I doubt it. Hopefully the company will have better TV commercials. link

Speaking of Groupon, Colin Smith does not think the company should have rejected Google’s $6 billion takeover offer. He raises some good points. link

It might be possible to find some wicked good coffee in Boston after all. link

The BBC has a video report about how rising coffee prices should be good for India’s coffee growers. link

A coffee shop in New York City is taking the direct-trade model of coffee sourcing very seriously, only selling Rwandan coffees that it buys directly from farmers. link

A Winlock, Washington artist paints swirling figures rising from coffee cups in sepia tones. His paint? Coffee grounds mixed with water. And you thought you were obsessed with coffee. link

And finally, in time for Valentine’s day, an ode to “Timeless Coffee Love” from Portland Roasting Coffee’s blog. link

UPDATE August 2018: 

For some up-to-date news about what is going on in coffee, visit Danish coffee writer/educator Asser Christensen's website, The Coffee Chronicler.

Friday's Links February 4

In Washington, apart from trying to figure out the state’s upcoming budget deficit, legislators are discussing whether coffee should be the state’s official beverage. link

Starbucks is offering a guarantee for its Via instant coffee line. If you’re not satisfied, take it back to the store for a free 12oz bag of ground whole-bean coffee. link

Bad news for men who like coffee. Researchers at the University of Bristol (England) found that drinking coffee hurts men’s performance under stress. Women, on the other hand, performed better after drinking coffee. link

It looks like Lavazza is going to fight it out with Starbucks for the Indian coffee market. link

Andrew Stark, management professor at the University of Toronto, discusses some of the benefits and criticisms of the fair trade movement, in a book review of The Fair Trade Revolution. link

More competition for the China coffee market. True Coffee, a Thai company, plans to try its hand at the market by opening 15 cafés in Shanghai this year. link

Rose Tosti from Seattle weekly has a full-weekend round-up from the 2011 NW Regional Barista Championship. link

The engineering firm Bechtel is supporting the Washington State University College of Engineering and Architecture by donating a year-long supply of free coffee for the students’ study area.  link

On a related note, perhaps someone should supply the WSU basketball team with some coffee. link

Come on Cougs, you’re better than that.

Friday Links-January 28

It's Friday already, and we're another week closer to spring. Hooray! Here's today's links. 

A woman in Georgia is set to receive a $1.2  million dollars after a convenience store cappuccino shot hot water at her. link

A new documentary about lawsuits and tort reform examines the well-publicized case of the woman who sued McDonald’s after being burned by the company’s coffee. Sounds pretty provocative. link

Please be careful with your coffee. It’s hot. link

The Starbucks iPhone payment app is a game-changer, according to Bob Sullivan of MSNBC. link

Coffee is sometimes used for political reasons, as is the case in Ivory Coast, where the president-elect of the country has called for a halt on the country’s coffee and cocoa exports in an effort to starve the government of the incumbent (who refuses to cede power after losing the election) for funds. The US is backing the embargo. link

Seattle’s Best (talk about a misnomer) announced the nationwide release of its iced canned lattes. Yay for them. link

The New York Times estimates that you would have to drink 42 cups of coffee at one sitting to be at risk of ingesting a fatal dose of caffeine. For the record, that’s only eight Starbucks Trentas. link

Coffee drinking is growing quickly in India, and guess who is partnering with Tata to push into the Indian market? Yep, the big green apron. link

In an effort to reduce coffee theft, the Coffee Board of Kenya is trying out a new tracking system that follows coffee from the field to market. link

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that the price of a tall Starbucks latte was $5.50. Then I realized that I was reading an article from Singapore. Must be the conversion rate, I thought. Then I looked up the conversion rate and found that US$5.50 is SD$4.30. Ouch. And we complain about high prices here. link

I’m headed up to the Northwest Regional Barista Championship in Tacoma today. It’s a three-day event, but since I’m not competing, I’m just going to see the first day of competition. Hopefully there will be a good story or two to come out of it that I can share with you. Have a good weekend.

Will