Links for March 11

It’s that time of the week again. . .

Changes in weather patterns are creating problems for Colombian coffee growers in both output and quality, according to the New York Times. link

The Seattle Times investigates how climate change is affecting Costa Rican coffee producers. link

On a related note, coffee prices touched a 34-year high this week-FT. link

The rise in coffee prices is making coffee a more attractive crop to grow for Mexico’s opium poppy farmers, as reported in this article from the WSJ. link

Democrats in the House, led by Oregon’s Earl Blumenauer, wrote a letter to the Republican leadership asking them to reconsider their decision to reintroduce Styrofoam cups to the House cafeteria. link

After much speculation over the last few months, it appears that Starbucks is going to work with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to put Starbucks coffee in the K-cups after all. link

US News has some good news about the health effects of drinking coffee, and some concerns about caffeine-drinking kids. link

MSNBC has an article about cafés that cater to bikers. The author mentions Portland as a bike-friendly city with bike cafés, but does not bother to interview anyone here. Too bad. link

This headline from Australia has a logical flaw in it. Can you figure out what it is?

Corby Kummer of The Atlantic has a great assignment—searching Rome for pizza, coffee, and gelato.  How does one get paid to do that? That is the question. . . link

For my Korean friends, an article about coffee in Korea. link

Enjoy your weekend. Hopefully it is sunny where you are. Spring is almost here!

Case Study Coffee - Coffee on the Rocks

It had been a while since I had been to a new café, and I was feeling particularly motivated to try something new, so I headed to Northeast Sandy Boulevard to check out Case Study Coffee. Case Study is one of the newer cafés in Portland, having opened only eight months ago. The café sent two baristas to the 2011 Northwest Regional Barista Championship. Neither of the baristas made the finals, but the fact that such a new café would send two competitors to the competition shows that Case Study is serious about coffee.

Case Study Coffee

While it may be fairly new, Case Study appears to not be a secret. During my time in the café, a steady stream of customers came through the door. The café was fairly loud—not with music, but with people talking. I overheard people brainstorming about their next big creative venture [on a side note, have you seen Portlandia’s sketch about creative ventures? It takes place in one of the cafés we have already reviewed here]. Several Laptopistanis were glued to their screens and some of them also had their smartphones glued to one ear. I watched a writer distractedly go between staring at her notebook and checking her email on her iPhone. It looked like she either had writer’s block or she was hoping that the phone would give her a legitimate reason to not be productive.

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Robots and pour-overs

In the coffee shops of Portland, one of the trendiest things you can get is a coffee brewed using the pour-over brewing method (this is not exclusive to Portland, as you can see by reading this CoffeeGeek.com discussion). Most, if not all, of the specialty cafés around town offer customers the pour-over option. The baristas at these shops may soon have some new competition—from a robot.

The pour-over is a very old brewing method, but it is being revived for several reasons, not least of which because it makes great coffee theater. Baristas delicately pour thin, even streams of water over freshly-ground coffee, concentrating hard to evenly wet the grounds. Some have a special pouring pattern that they believe improves the results. The single serving pour-over method guarantees that you get the freshest coffee possible. When coffee is made this way, much of the brightness and fruity notes really stand out. If the barista uses a Melitta or Chemex filter, as most do, the coffee is also very clean.

The double pour-over. You can see how it might be difficult to pull this off effectively.

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Walking for Water with Portland Roasting

When it comes down to it, there are only two ingredients that go into great coffee, assuming you drink it straight. The first is great coffee and the other is great water. Here in the Pacific Northwest, where we have great coffee, we often take for granted that we also have an abundance of high-quality clean water. Portland’s water is so good that the City of Portland is negotiating with the federal government over a requirement to install very expensive water treatment measures that city officials do not believe is necessary.

Other places are not so fortunate, especially many developing countries. One of the unfortunate truths about coffee production is that the people in many regions that produce great coffee beans do not have easy access to safe, clean drinking water. Not having access to water is a major drag on the economic development of  these places. In addition to increasing the rate of water-borne illnesses, the lack of clean water makes it harder for young people to go to school, because it is often the young family members who have to fetch water. They cannot go to class when they are hauling water for their families, and supporting the family’s survival is always going to take precedence over education. This is a long-term problem for these regions that needs to be solved.

Providing clean drinking water is a  great start to improving economic development in poorer regions, and Portland Roasting Coffee (PRC) is working with Portland Global Initiatives to do this. Portland Roasting’s mission is to use the commerce of coffee to improve living conditions in developing countries, and one of the ways they do this is by partnering with Portland Global Initiatives to host the Walk for Water, a 3.5-mile walk along the Willamette River in downtown Portland.

The Walk for Water coincides with the United Nations' World Water Day

This year’s event takes place on Sunday, March 27 at 1 p.m. Participants will walk the course, carrying water and stopping at stations along the way to learn more about water issues. The money from registration fees and sponsorships will go to USAID, a federal international economic development agency that partners with Water for All to build wells in developing countries. The purpose of the walk is to raise enough money (approximately $14,000) to build a well in Kenya or Malawi. While building one well is not going to solve the all of a country’s development challenges, it will make a huge difference in the lives of the people in the village.

The video below, produced to promote last year’s walk, explains the walk and shows you how the previous year’s funds were put to work.

If you are interested in walking, the cost is $20 per individual or $50 for families up to 6 people. I plan to walk, and I encourage you to do the same. If you do not feel like walking, you can also donate. Click the Walk for Water link at the top of the left sidebar and you will be taken to the sign-up page. Thanks!

News and Links for Friday

Fresh from the search engines, here are your coffee links for the week. Enjoy!

In the least surprising news of the week, Seattle and Portland were voted the best coffee cities in America by Travel & Leisure. link

Baristas beware—there’s a new robot pour-over master in town that might brew better coffee than you do (with video). link

Generosity is alive and well in Lampedusa, Italy, where a café owner offers free coffee to Tunisian migrants who cannot pay for it. link

Dunkin’ Donuts signed a deal last week to put its coffee in the K-cups. This week, there is speculation that Peet’s will do the same. I do not foresee Stumptown joining the stampede to sell K-cups, thankfully. link

Nespresso was dealt a blow this week when a Swiss court ruled that Denner could sell coffee capsules that are compatible with Nespresso’s machine. link

In other Nespresso news, the company did manage to be one of the first companies to place its products in a British television show. This is a new and controversial new practice in the UK that has been around for years in the US. link

Starbucks and Kraft, one step closer to finalizing their divorce. link

In Massachusetts, a mini-van crashed into a coffee shop (includes video). Oops. link

David Sarasohn, editor of the Oregonian, gives his take on the Republicans’ decision to bring back Styrofoam to the House cafeteria. link

If you regularly drink any of the drinks on this list, you might want to reconsider, for your health’s sake.

Fox News does not like the fact that the town of Orange, Connecticut was ordered to reinstate casual Fridays and pay for workers’ coffee. link

Melissa Ward Aguilar does mention that she stops at a coffee plantation on her trip to Costa Rica, but it’s the zip lines through the rain forest that sound like the most fun to me. link

Another report about rising coffee prices, this time in the Wall Street Journal. link

Fair Trade is not the same as Fairtrade, and neither might be the guarantee of ethical business practices that you think they are. link

Um viagem lindo (A beautiful trip)

Here’s some creative writing that I did for a contest for Trazzler, a travel website that relies on readers to describe their experiences at various places around the world. Entries for the contest were supposed to be less than 120 words and written in the “Trazzler style.” I chose to write about Coffeehouse Northwest. The entry didn’t win anything, but it was still fun to write. Thought I’d share it with you.

Dreaming of Brazil in Portland, Oregon 

Looking for relief from the gray Portland winter, I slip in the back door at Coffeehouse Northwest.

What cure for the blues do you have on grind? I ask, knowing that the ever-changing espresso lineup always offers something sublime.

A Brazilian coffee from Serra Negra, the barista replies—a  “black saw” to cut through the doldrums. I order a double. It has hints of strawberries and summer sun.

Sip by sip, my spirits rise. Over the speakers, the Girl from Ipanema is swaying down to the sea, and my escape to Rio is complete. Refreshed, I slip out the back door, ready to face the gray once more.

Koreans really get into their coffee...

Jennie G, of Not Just Kimchi, sent me another picture from Seoul, where the coffee culture is growing by leaps and bounds. I suppose you could say that coffee is making a big splash in the country, at least at this café.

A coffee-lover's dream