Jul 12 2009
Sunday Morning Coffee and the News
 |
|
Credit: woodsy@stock.xchang |
It’s another gorgeous summer Sunday morning here and I’m enjoying my morning coffee out on the patio and sifting through the newspaper to see what’s up and what’s new in the coffee world.
Over at Mike’s coffee blog, there’s a lot of talk about the coffee wars, for which he provides frequent updates. Well, up in New York, the coffee wars have a new entrant - new to New York, if not to the coffee world. Tomorrow morning, Tim Horton’s will be opening 13 stores in NYC, located in 13 former Dunkin Donuts locations. If you’re in NYC, you can help Tim celebrate by dropping by for a free Tim Horton’s coffee at the new Penn Stations location.
Course, it could be rough going for coffee shops in NYC. One well-known Brooklyn coffee shop, Vox Pop, is looking for a new Lady Liberty to replace an 8 foot tall fiberglass Statue of Liberty that used to stand on the sidewalk out front. The statue was stolen in June, and used in an amateur “terrorist video”. If you happen to have an 8 foot tall fiberglass Lady Liberty hanging around, I’ll be Vox Pop will be happy to take it off your hands.
Down in NOLA, customs agents found that some of the Colombian coffee being shipped through their border had a little bit of extra kick. X-rays of the shipping containers showed “squarish shapes” in among the burlap coffee bean bags. Turns out the squarish shapes were duffel bags full of cocaine - just under 1,000 pounds of it. Now that’s putting some serious octane in your morning cup!
And speaking of free coffee, check your local Mickey Ds to find out if they’re participating in the Mocha Monday giveaways. McDonalds is giving away free sample size iced or hot mocha on Mondays from July 13 - that’s tomorrow - through August 3. Not all McD’s are participating, but there are participating stores across the country. The chain figures that they’ll give away about 10 million cups of mocha over the course of the 4 Mondays.
And sad news for our UK friends - Brit chain coffee shop Coffee Republic is shutting down 10 of its 19 UK locations in preparation for selling off the company. As someone who has watched too many favorite coffee shops close down over the years, Coffee Republic fans have my condolences. It’s never easy to lose a friendly coffee shop.
And to end on a high note - more free coffee! Barnes & Noble have introduced a new iPhone app - and it comes with a free coffee. Well, it doesn’t actually -deliver- the free coffee. You have to take your iPhone to a B&N with a coffee shop and show it to the barista. You’ll get a one-time only free cup of coffee for downloading the B&N iPhone app - each app download has a one-use coffee coupon code. The app lets you share book recommendations and learn about new releases, etc etc etc.
And with that, my coffee is gone and it’s time for me to get to weeding the garden - course, the way the weeds are running this year, I’d do better to just let them take over and figure out a way to use them!
We lived on the US side of the Northeastern US/Canadian border for a few years — there were Tim Horton’s all over, up there — no Starbucks, no Duncan. Tim Horton’s coffee is pretty good; their food is excellent; their prices (for food and such) aren’t on the low side.