Is it just me, or does the "A" on my Americano cup from Starbucks this morning look like the international symbol for anarchy? Is this a secret code telling me that the revolution starts today? Hmmm....
Guess I need more adventure in my life.
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Has this ever happened to you? You grab a coffee from Starbucks on your way to a client meeting, take sip, and coffee dribbles down the front of your shirt? Doh!
Paper coffee cups from Starbucks have a fundamental design flaw that causes unnecessary drippage. When the vertical cup seam is lined up near the sipping hole in the lid, coffee collects under the lid at the seam and invariably drips on your shirt. To avoid sloppy-coffee-shirt syndrome, make sure the lid hole is on the opposite side from the cup's seam.
A few weeks ago I read an article in my local paper that described an easy way to roast your own coffee beans. You only need a special kind of air popcorn popper that you can find on eBay or a thrift store, green coffee beans, and a timer. I had to try it. I got a Westend Poppery II air popper on eBay.
I went to a local coffee roaster today (with Luke - he almost broke one of their plants) and picked out five different types of beans, one pound each. Prices range from $3 to $5 a pound, and these are high-quality beans. For my first roast, I decided on the Ethiopian decaf.
My instructions (from someone using this popper) state that I should use 3/4 of a cup of beans and roast for 6 minutes. Its recommended that you roast outside because the smoke gets stale and stinks. Here goes nothing.
I plugged in the popper. At between 3 and 4 minutes I'm supposed to hear the "first crack"... the first cracking bean. I'm afraid I'll miss it - the popper itself is pretty loud. Here are the beans as they start to roast.
2 minutes in... starting to smell a little different, and we see a small change in color. The popper spins and circulates the beans. They bounce around a little and only a couple escaped.
3 minutes in... I did hear a crack at about 3 1/2 minutes, sounded a little like a popcorn popping. Now I'm supposed to hear a "second crack" at about 5 minutes. Hmmm... is this a different crack than the "first crack"? How do I tell the difference between the first and second?
Back to the instructions. For a dark roast, its recommended that you stop at 6 minutes. Here are the beans immediately after turning off the popper at 6 minutes. I never really heard a "second crack", though I did hear a bunch of "first cracks". Gotta get better instructions.
As instructed, I dumped the beans into a collander and stirred them around to help cool them off. Nice color! I expected them to be a little darker and shinier, and perhaps they would have been if I'd let the roast go longer. Maybe I'll try 7 minutes tomorrow.
How did the coffee turn out? Well... the beans are supposed to rest at least 2 hours after roasting, and they are supposed better after 24 hours. I'll grind them tomorrow morning and see how they turned out.
I like coffee, alot. If Peet's was closer, it would be my favorite. But there are three Starbucks that are closer than our Peets, so SB it is. Its not just the coffee - its the memories, the experiences, the associations, even the cup. Any coffee tastes better to me when its served in a paper Starbucks cup. We make coffee at home most days, so to maximize the positive coffee effects produced by my behavioral conditioning, I save and re-use my Starbucks cups for the coffee we brew. Can you guess how many uses on SB cup is good for before it leaks?
3. You can get 3 good uses out of a venti Starbucks cup (including the original serving). After that, the cups tend to start to leak from the side seam near the bottom of the cup. I don't think I've ever had a successful fourth use. The paper holds up fine, but the coffee seems to seep more and more into the seam with each successive use. I could get longer use if Starbucks used better glue.
PS - Google Labs could probably add a question to their employment screenings asking prospects to map my location based on the fact that there are 3 Starbucks closer than the closest Pete's. Nah - too easy.
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