Take to the Road

I finished reading a book today called The Songlines. Written by Bruce Chatwin, it describes his trip to Australia to learn about the Aboriginal cultures of the continent. The work, a mixture of travel memoir, fiction and philosophy, is based on an actual trip he took a couple years before his death in 1989. It details Chatwin's travels on the continent as he tries to understand the “songlines.”

The songlines are the fundamental element of the Aboriginal creation stories. At the beginning of time, the “Dreamtime”, the Ancestors created themselves out of clay and began to wander across the earth, singing out the names of everything they saw—animals, plants, rocks and streams—thus defining their existence.

The paths that the Ancestors traveled on as they sang are known as songlines (or dream-tracks), and the songs are passed down from generation to generation. When an aboriginal goes ‘walkabout’, he follows the original songline that his ancestors did. The songs are always sung in exactly the same way, as a way of maintaining the creation. If a wanderer remembers his song and does not deviate from its path, he can never get lost. The melodies along each line are constant from one end of the continent to the other. They are transferred across boundaries where one clan’s territory ends and another’s begins. The melody stays the same, even as the words would change. In addition to maintaining the creation, the songlines also act as trading routes among the clans.

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Extracto

If you happen to be out walking along Northeast Killingsworth Street someday, and the breeze is blowing just right, you might find yourself drawn to a small, white building with red trim and a couple tables out front. From that building, a rich, toasted-sweet aroma pours out onto the street, an aroma so attractive that you cannot help but want to find the source. There is no sign outside to tell you where you are, but you will have just found Extracto, one of Portland’s famous micro roasters.

A humble exterior

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Happy National Coffee Day!

In case you didn’t realize it, today is National Coffee Day here in the US! Apparently, it’s not that famous—I didn’t know about it until 3:30pm. Someone needs to do more to promote it (a Caffeinated PDX project for next year, perhaps?). Had I realized it a little earlier, I would have extended an invitation to have coffee with me at Park Avenue Café today, my treat, as a thanks for reading. I suppose I still could—so if you are downtown tonight and are interested, shoot me an email and we can meet up. The café closes at 8pm, so you’d better let me know soon.

The video below is from a morning news program from Connecticut. They’re telling their viewers about National Coffee Day and about Dunkin’ Donuts’ free coffee giveaway. I’m posting it because it’s kind of funny—as the reporter talks talking about DD’s promotion, all of the video footage is of Starbucks! The big green apron is a marketing MONSTER, even when they don’t mean to be! The company might not have the best coffee that you can buy, but when it comes to being everywhere, no one can touch it!

Coffee Capsules--Sustainable?

One of the things I talked to Brandon about the other day was the issue of sustainability in the coffee industry. I don’t want to try to tackle the entire issue yet—it is a very complex issue and to discuss all of the challenges of making the industry economically, environmentally and socially sustainable would take an entire book—but I would like to start a discussion about a part of the industry that is growing very quickly: single-serve coffee and espresso capsules.

There was an article in the New York Times in early August that featured Green Mountain Coffee and its K-Cups, plastic and tinfoil cups that are designed to make one cup of coffee and then be thrown away. According to the article, Green Mountain will sell nearly three billion of these capsules next year and it expects to sell many more in the future. The single-serve coffee industry has been growing around 30 percent each year for the last decade and industry experts expect this to continue.

The growth of the industry (and its future potential) has caused some battles between firms, as companies try to stake out territory in the single-serve market. Nestlé, one of the pioneers in this technology, recently sued Sara Lee in an effort to protect its market dominance.

Since there is nothing to suggest that the market is going to slow down anytime soon, I want to ask you:

1) Do you ever use any of these single-serve type coffee makers (Nespresso, K-Cups, Illy espresso capsules, etc.) and if so, what kind?

2) How does the coffee compare to what you get at your favorite coffee shop? 

3) What do you think about the impact that the capsules (a majority of which are non-recyclable and non-compostable) have on the environment?

Just curious to know what you might be thinking. . .

Interview with Brandon Arends, a Portland Coffee Enthusiast

In my pursuit of coffee knowledge, I had the most interesting conversation the other day with Brandon Arends, a coffee enthusiast/expert, who is about to get his Master of International Management from Portland State University. In past conversations I’ve had with Brandon, his eyes always lit up whenever the conversation turned to coffee, and I wanted to understand what makes Portland’s coffee so special. Brandon agreed to meet with me and talk about the Portland coffee scene. He told me so much that if one quarter of what we talked about stays with me, I will know more about coffee than 95% of the US population.

We met at Coffeehouse Northwest on Burnside Street in Northwest Portland. When we arrived, I asked Brandon what he usually ordered. He told me that he usually doesn’t go out for coffee because he has a “crazy setup at home”, but when he does, he gets a double cappuccino. Rather, I thought he said a double cappuccino, but he really said a double espresso and a cappuccino. What a way to get going!

Our first stop, Coffeehouse Northwest

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Killer Music

What does an artist have to do to capture a listener’s attention? To give you an example of what captures my attention, I have embedded the video of The Killers singing “Spaceman” on Saturday Night Live in 2008 (it might take the video a while to load—sorry, it was about the only site I could find that had this performance).

I happened to be watching SNL that night, and it was the first time I paid attention to the Killers. Watching Brandon Flowers, the lead singer, I could not to take my eyes off of him. He was wrapped up in the moment. Watch his eyes as he sings. They are intense. You can tell that he’s giving himself to the music and the audience. He starts out a little slow and builds up to the chorus. Around the 1:00 mark, he is hitting his stride and the music has taken over his body. Flowers has great range, and he sweeps through the high tones with flair. I don’t know if the band would say this was one of their best performances, but it was enough to make me a fan.

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The Rocking Frog

Today’s adventures took me to Belmont Street, where I stumbled across the Rocking Frog Café. With a name like that, I couldn’t resist stopping into see what I might find. On the corner of 25^th Avenue and Belmont, the Rocking Frog occupies an old green house. Go in, hang your coat on the rack and make yourself at home. At least that’s the feeling I got when I walked in. The café looked like someone’s living room that happened to have a coffee bar where the dining area would normally be. A few vintage lamps hung from the ceiling, and there were books everywhere—on either side of the old fireplace, on shelves next to the fridge and in the alcove that acted as the library, where I sat.

Rock it

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