Coffee Break

Saturday Morning with Coffee@eHow!

Okay, so Saturday morning may be a bit of a misnomer. I got caught up in fooling around with the new blog colors and watching the Top Chef marathon on Bravo TV and gosh, what do you know, it’s already 2 in the afternoon! I’ve got a bunch of coffee eHow’s to share though, including some on how to buy my favorite coffee and how to brew up some mean coffee drinks.

How to Buy Green Mountain Coffee

by  Jami Delgado

Jami’s back in the coffee@eHow spotlight with a short, quick how-to on where and how you can buy Green Mountain coffee. Y’all know by now that I like Green Mountain. They’re a socially responsible coffee roasting company that considers customers, growers, employees and the world right up there alongside their stockholders. And they make great coffee. They’re also building a new plant and adding new jobs in a market where most other coffee companies we know (hint: it starts with Star and ends with Bucks) are trying to slash costs.

How to Make Authentic Cuban Coffee

by  AllysanDrew

It’s not often that I run across a technique for making coffee that I haven’t seen before, and I can’t wait to try this one. eHow writer AllysanDrew gives really really clear step-by-step instructions so that even if you’ve never used a moka pot before, you’ll know exactly how to make her authentic Cuban coffee.

How to Make Pumpkin Spice Coffee Just like Green Mountain Coffee

by  dlcass

Yes, I love my Green Mountain Coffee. My flavor of choice is blueberry, but I do enjoy the pumpkin spice Green Mountain coffee when it’s in season. That’s why I was thrilled to find this eHow by dlcass about how to make pumpkin spice coffee just like Green Mountain’s. I admit it - I tried this one. It really IS that good!

How to Make Coffee Flan

by  Flip-n-Out

Mmm.. Flan!! There was a woman in my old neighborhood who used to make flan once or twice a week and send her kids out to sell them door to door. I never met her, but oh, my gosh, did I ever look forward to having $5 on the day that it showed up at my door. That’s why I can’t wait to try this recipe from Flip-n-Out for coffee flan. Sounds like tonight’s dessert to me~!

 How to Make a Gallon of Iced Latte to Enjoy All Day

by  6daughters4me

Okay, bear with me here. This recipe calls for instant coffee, which I don’t generally use. Ever. But the idea behind the recipe, and the great instructions are spot on! I’ll bet I could whip this up using my favorite Cafe Caribe as a homemade base - and seriously, you HAVE to read all the way through to the TIPS on how to keep your kids out of your latte. Totally hilarious.

And that’s it - my Saturday morning coffee@eHow has actually managed to last until almost 5 in the afternoon. I hope you learn something new and decide to try something delicious!

Caribou Coffee has weighed in on Starbucks’ announcement that they’ll no longer brew Decaf coffee after noon in order to save costs and cut down on waste. Their response? That’s no way to treat decaf drinkers! In protest, Caribou coffee is giving away a free 12 ounce cup of decaf coffee to anyone who asks for it this afternoon. It’s a one day offer only, so if you want a free Caribou decaf coffee, get ye to your nearest Caribou coffee before 6 PM tonight.

I was poking around on MSNBC Business this morning and found some news about one of the few supermarket coffee brands that I like - The Coffee Holding Co., Inc. announced it’s FY2008 earnings last night. The Coffee Holding Co., Inc. packages, among other things, Cafe Caribe, an espresso grind specialty coffee specifically roasted to appeal to Spanish palates. I love it for making Spanish coffee Puerto Rican style with a coffee sock - a treat that I don’t indulge in often enough.  According to the owner of the company, they registered a $2million loss last year, mostly due to bad hedges on coffee futures. The report makes fascinating reading for someone who can see through dry financial terms to read the story behind the numbers. For instance, net sales were up nearly 25% for FY2008 over FY2007 - but the company reported a net earnings decrease. Why? The answer to that is in the explanation:

The decrease in net income primarily reflects hedging losses when the price of coffee surged to a ten year high and subsequently collapsed during February and October 2008. 

In other words, someone made some bad guesses on how much they’d have to pay for coffee. Oops. You really don’t want to get me started on the effect of futures trading on the market and its role in our current economic situation. Suffice to say that the practice of locking in prices with speculative futures contracts cuts two ways - and in this case, the company lost.

Regardless, I rather like The Coffee Holding Co. for a lot of reasons. It was begun in 1972 and is still a family-run corporation with three generations of the family now involved in the day-to-day business. The company sources and distributes specialty green coffee beans to multiple private label roasters, as well as roasting and distributing several of their own brands, Cafe Caribe included. While they do not operate on a 100% Fair/Direct Trade basis, they have increased the percentage of Fair and Direct Trade and Organic coffees that they buy consistently over the years. I have a lot of respect for companies that get a clue about something and make strides toward doing better business. They’re currently up to sourcing almost a third of the coffees that they buy through coffee coops that are run by the farmers themselves, belong to Coffee Kids and invest in sustainable futures for their suppliers.

How to Make Spanish Coffee with Cafe Caribe

I learned to make this from my upstairs neighbor Judy about 15 years ago. Our kids were the same age, which meant they were all getting ready for school at about the same time. A few mornings a week, Judy would open her apartment door and yell down the stairs, “Hey, Debee!! Wanna coffee? I’m just puttin’ on the pan!”

I always said yes, and volunteered to walk all of our kids to school. When I got back, Judy would have the coffee waiting for me - steamy hot, creamy and sweet - the only time I ever take sugar in my coffee. Here’s how to make Judy’s Spanish Coffee with Cafe Caribe.

1. Put 6 ounces of water for each cup into a saucepan.
2. Put the pan over a medium flame on the stove.
3. Sprinkle 1-2 heaping teaspoons of Cafe Caribe to the water for each cup of coffee.
4. Let it sit without touching it until the water starts to bubble around the edges of the pot.
5. Stir the coffee into the water and keep stirring for about 2 minutes, keeping it just below boiling.
6. Strain coffee through a coffee sock into warmed mugs. * if you don’t have a coffee sock, you can line a wire strainer with muslin or a linen dish cloth and use that instead.
7. Rinse the pot and return it to the fire. Add 1-2 ounces of milk per cup of coffee to the pot.
8. Stir in 1 tsp of sugar per cup into the milk, and keep stirring till the sugar is dissolved and milk is scalded. Don’t let it boil!
9. Pour hot milk into each mug, stir and enjoy!

Tune in tomorrow for a Saturday morning Coffee@eHow edition! I’ve got a bunch of coffee recipes and how-to’s to share. In the meantime - don’t forget to rinse out your mug and put it in the strainer.

Yesterday, as Starbucks announced that they’ll cut out the afternoon decaf as a cost saving measure, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters had a whole other story to tell. While Starbucks is closing stores and laying off people left and right, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is watching their sales ride an upward trend and opening a new plant in Knoxville, TN. Nice to know that someone is doing well. Evne nicer when it’s a company that I honestly respect for doing business in an ethical way that balances the needs of our world with the interests of its stockholders.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters released their FY 2009 first quarter earnings just after the close of market yesterday, and they’re good. Not just “considering the market” good, but good. In a bleak market where almost everything is dropping off the edge of a cliff, GMCR stock is climbing… and climbing. But I did say that a while back , remember?Back on January 12, I said:

I believe that Keurig single-cup coffee systems and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters K-cup sales are actually going to increase in a tight market

What you’re looking at in that little chart with the big green arrow up above is the stock chart for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (which trades as GMCR on the NASDAQ, in case you want to check the coffee roasters’ stock charts for yourself) since November, when most stocks, including Starbucks, really hit the toilet. See what I’m talking about? Yup - GMCR stock is trading upuPUP. Here’s the details from the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters call to shareholders last night:

• Demand for K-cup single serve coffee portions was up 55% over last year at this time
• Sales for Keurig Single Serve coffee brewers are up 121% over last year at this time
• Green Mountain Coffee total net sales were up 56% from October through December 2008
• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters exceeded earnings estimates for first quarter FY2009
• McDonalds and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters extended their agreement
• Friendly’s to serve Green Mountain Coffee in up to 400 restaurants this quarter
• Green Mountain launched partnership to improve financial and management literacy among its coffee growers

Okay. There’s more - but I wanted to stop and point out that last one. Green Mountain has launched a partnership with Root Capital to improve financial literacy and management skills among the coffee growers in Africa and Latin America - the women and men from whom they buy their coffee. They are working with coffee farmers in Africa and Latin America to help them become better at the financial and business end of things. That’s the kind of corporate responsibility that seriously makes sense to me. Couple it with the fact that they’ve again increased the percentage of their Fair Trade and organic coffees to 33% - up from 30% - and then factor in the point that K-cups themselves are intrinsicially waste-producing, but the company is working hard to reduce their waste stream and carbon footprint, and you’ve got a company that is socially responsible AND highly profitable, even in these tough financial times.

I tend to drink my morning coffee with Morning Joe on in the background - mostly because I love waking up the whole family by yelling back at the screen. This morning, though, I had a nice treat - Morning Joe’s guest — actually, Mika and Willie’s guest - this morning was John Grisham, who is stumping for his new book The Associate.

According to Grisham, The Associate is a throwback to his earlier books like The Firm and The Pelican Brief, both written early in his career. Which makes it a book I might actually enjoy, since his later books really seem to have been written with “how will this translate to a screenplay” in mind.

Apparently, though, Grisham was being quite literal, at least if this review from the UK Guardian is to be believed. Says reviewer Joshua Rozenberg,

Suffice it to say that The Associate bears many similarities to The Firm, even down to the two dust jackets, which both show shadowy young lawyers on the run. Plagiarism? No, because both books are by John Grisham. 

So the big deal with Grisham this morning was that Grisham was going to be in live chat with viewers over at MSNBC Live. I figured - Nice! A chance to send in a quick question and have it answered by a longtime favorite author, so I headed on over as soon as Grisham ws off the air only to find that … Mr. Grisham’s computer wouldn’t play nice with the network’s firewall. By 9:03 AM, MSNBC was apologizing and asking folks for email addresses in order to let us know when we could read Mr. Grisham’s responses to our questions. Ah, well - I guess they’ll get the hang of this newfangled technology soon enough. After all - Mika’ s joined the Tweeps over at Twitter!

How have the mighty fallen! Just last year, Starbucks was laying out $11k per unit to put the fancy-shmancy Clover1 drip coffee maker in 80 of their stores. Yesterday, the “gourmet” coffee company announced that starting immediately, they’ll no longer keep a pot of decaf brewing after noon since they tend to throw a lot of it away. It’s part of their effort to cut $400 million in costs by August.

That means that if you want a cup of  Starbucks decaf after 12 noon, you’ll have to wait for them to brew it up for you. Which means, actually, that you’ll get fresher coffee than those who are having their coffee poured for them from a standing pot. Which is, of course, why they were wasting so much coffee to begin with - because coffee starts tasting pretty rank after it’s been sitting there for a while.

Regardless. I’m for anything that reduces waste, especially in a world where the typical restaurant throws away enough food and drink every day to feed a family of four for a week. And I commend Starbucks for making the announcement and pointing to it as a cost-cutting measure. I have to admit that I pour a lot of coffee down the sink - I won’t drink what’s been standing in the pot for hours. So maybe it’s time for me to start brewing coffee by the cup - not just when I feel like a special treat, but as a matter of course. If you seldom finish a full pot of coffee, but typically brew one because it’s easier, then maybe it’s time to invest in a single serve coffee maker or make your coffee on the stove, one cup at a time.

It’s been a while since I’ve spent my morning coffee break browsing coffee how-to’s at eHow.com, so there’s a whole bunch of great new coffee how-to’s to share with y’all.  I’ve been having fun with the DIY-coffee roasting and blending, so I thought I’d look for articles about unusual ways to make, roast, brew and enjoy coffee. Get ready, folks - some of these are pretty way out there!

 How to Make Coffee When Your Coffee Pot is Broken

by  sunshine11219

What does your morning coffee have to do with knee-high hose? Check out Sunshine11219’s article on improvisation when your coffee maker is on the fritz to find out.

How to Make Coffee Dough

by  Rachel Terry

Why throw away your coffee grounds when you can turn them into unique and nifty gifties like this ornament? There are lots of ways to recycle your coffee grounds - and I love this one. Check out Rachel Terry’s article about how to make coffee dough to find out how!

How to Make Coffee Soap

by eHow Coffee, Games and Toys Editor

Yes, coffee soap. I’ve been playing with making my own soap at home, too - and have a few articles up on eHow about how to make silicone soap molds - but I’d never thought about making coffee-scented soap! This is one I’ll have to try myself - and let you know how it works out!

How to Make a Hawaiian Lei with Coffee Filters

by  amberdawn

Looking for a unique way to use up those coffee filters you don’t need any more - because you took my green advice and bought a permanent coffee filter? Coffee filters make very cool oversized leis - and a fun project for a rainy day with your kids. Check out amberdawn’s article to find out more!

How to Make Mocha Coffee Using a Slow Cooker

by  Amy Laine

We’ve roasted coffee in a popcorn popper, ground it in a blender and brewed it in a chocolate pot, so why not? Check out Amy Laine’s article about making mocha coffee for a crowd using a slow cooker. The recipe calls for instant coffee, but I’ll bet you could substitute coffee concentrate and cut back on the amount of milk you use, hm?

That’s it for this week’s Coffee@eHow - hope you had some fun reading and discovering with me. Don’t forget to drop by often - I poke around in lots of places looking for coffee-related -stuff- — and I always, always share!

So, you’re probably wondering, what’s that chocolate pot doing on my favorite Coffee Break blog? It’s my newest discovery! See - I’ve been dying to try my popcorn-popper roasted coffee in a Bodum French press for a few weeks now. There’s just one little problem - I don’t own a French press. Shhh… I know. That could get me thrown out of the  coffee elite  clubhouse if it were  widely known. Fact is that I love French press coffee when I’m out at a coffee house, but I’ve never really had the money or the inclination - or at least had them both at the same time - to buy my own French press to use at home.

So here I was yesterday afternoon thinking about drinking a cup of fresh roasted coffee made in a Bodum French press and lamenting the fact that I’ve never got around to buying a French press of my own when my son wandered out of the kitchen with this nifty little gadget. As you can see, it very clearly states that it makes Frothy Chocolate. I picked it up at the end of last year’s Christmas season - that’s Christmas 2007, y’all. This nifty little gadget has been sitting on my top shelf in plain sight for a full year. Technically, it belongs to my daughter, who asked me for it when I brought it home on her birthday last year. It came in a pretty little gift pack along with a matching Hot Chocolate mug and three envelopes of gourmet hot chocolate. She made the three envelopes of hot chocolate - and promptly forgot about it. So did I - until yesterday afternoon.

So here’s the thing. This is what the hot chocolate frother looks like on the inside. Look familiar? It’s a basic plunger pot! Well, duh!! The principle behind the hot chocolate frother is pretty basic. You dump the hot chocolate mix into the pot, add hot milk and stir it up, then rapidly pump the plunger up and down and up and down to whip air bubbles into the hot chocolate. It works pretty well - and the only energy it uses is your own. But.

The principle behind a Bodum French press is also pretty simple. You heat up the French press by swirling hot water around inside it then dumping it out. Then you add hot water - just off boiling is the ideal temperature - and stir in a tablespoon or two of fresh ground coffee. Cover the pot and let the coffee grounds steep in the hot water for 1-3 minutes, then slooooowly press the plunger down to force the coffee grounds down to the bottom of the pot.

In other words -  the innards are just the same! Okay - so it’s not perfect. You will still get some grounds in your coffee because the plunger doesn’t fit as snugly to the sides of the chocolate pot as it does in a Bodum French Press. Nonetheless, it does a nice job of brewing a hot cup of fresh roasted coffee - especially if you’ve just roasted and ground it yourself. I used two tablespoons of fresh ground, fresh roasted Ethiopian coffee to 6 ounces of water - and then added boiling water to make a smooth, strong, rich cup of Americano.

Lessons learned from this experiment -

1. grind the coffee very very fine to avoid gritty coffee grounds floating on top of your coffee cup.
2. you’ll get great sediment in the bottom of the cup for reading fortunes!
3. you don’t need to buy special equipment to make good coffee. You just need good coffee.

I’m enjoying a cup of Trader Joe’s Bay Blend coffee this morning - and taking a leisurely stroll through the news. I was looking for sexy new coffee machines - but they’re not up high in the news pages today. Instead, I came across yet another financial web site suggesting that the high-end coffee trend has run its course and its time to get back to basics. Yes, Andrew Snyder at Today’s Financial News is advising investors to trade in their Starbucks stocks for stocks in Mickey D’s. His reasoning is simple - Starbucks isn’t cost effective in today’s world. Just this morning, the top-level gourmet coffee shop country in the world announced that they’ll be laying off as many as 1,000 people in the coming months. McDonald’s, meanwhile, posted moderate growth last quarter, suggesting that people are returning to cheap fast food in the current economic times.

So, okay - he has a catchy title there with the whole coffee wars meme, but I don’t go to McDonald’s for their coffee, do you? Granted, Mickey D’s is touting their McCafe concept - gourmet coffee in a nice setting - and they are featuring a coffee company that I love to tout - Paul Newman’s Own - but this isn’t a war about who has the better coffee. It’s about who has the better marketing model, and what people will spend money on when times are tight. Face it - at McDonald’s $5 will get you a cheeseburger, fries, coffee and an apple pie - as long as you don’t get the gourmet coffee. At Starbucks, it will get you a coffee. Period.

However, I can stay home with that same $5 and roast up my own coffee, fresh and delicious, when I’m ready to drink it. Green coffee beans are still one of the best bargains out there - as long as you’re not going for high-end gourmet coffee beans like Kona or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. That $5 gets me a full pound of green coffee beans - even more than that if I can invest in buying in bulk. I’m working on building up my coffee stores - right now, I’ve got Mexican, Guatemalan Robusta and Ethiopian from Dean’s Beans, but I’m shopping around for a good deal on Ugandan and Indonesian organic coffee beans next week.

Till then, I’ll keep on roasting my own and supplementing with Fair Trade and  Certified Organic coffee beans from Trader Joe’s, where decent coffee is far cheaper than it is at the supermarket, or fill in with coffee from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters when and if I can get it whole bean. That’s my morning coffee break today - tomorrow, I’m fishing for great coffee how-to’s on the web. Hope to see you back here for a cuppa Joe!