Gourmet Coffee Shop

Tuesday, July 25, 2006 -----

Coffee Can Be Funny

I was looking for some old images of coffee cups to use as a reference for a painting I am doing (for a coffee shop), and in researching coffee images I ran across this ad for coffee from a drive in... yep drive in movie coffee ....sounds yummy.

Watch the ad - it is less than a minute in length and it is a riot. All these people are sitting in the backseats of their cars ..............doing what you did at the drive in movies....drinking coffee. Of course that's what you did, I did too... yummy, yummy drive in coffee.

Check it out Here you will need Quicktime to watch it.

Also, I had my first ever car fire. I just had $1000 worth of work done on our heap and went and made a grocery store run (I know that is not very exciting but artists have to eat too ya know); and we got home and our car burst into flames under the hood. Our 1-yr old thought it was a riot and my partner and I were just flipping out but we got the fire out without incident and best of all, the mechanic shop said, "Mea Culpa' and replaced the 20+ melted parts for free.

I realized how dependent I am on coffee to chill out. The first thing I did after the fire was coming the house and made a pot of America the Beautiful Blend and funnily enough, it really made me feel better. Also glad no one got hurt and it wasn't a fight and a hassle with the dealership.






::  Posted by: 3am Art  at 4:57 PM
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Saturday, July 22, 2006 -----

Coffee Was Popular in England Before Tea

I have been re-reading the Diary of Samuel Pepys and if you don't know who he was - briefly - he was a man in England that worked for the Earl of Sandwich and had a bunch of political ties. He kept a diary of everything that happened around himself including his naughty dalliances with women, chronicaled the Black Plague moving through England and lots of other important historical events as seen through his own eyes. If you love history the way I do, it is a very cool read.

A little side note I didn't catch when I read it originally years and years ago is that he meets to discuss business frequently in coffeehouses and writes about enjoying coffee - tea is almost never mentioned. I did a little research and found that coffee was the drink of choice in England all through the 1600s, with tea only gaining favor towards the end of the century as the hot beverage of choice. In the late 1600s, there were an estimated 2000 coffeehouses in London alone, that's one for every 300 inhabitants of the city.

Considering it could take up to a year for coffee beans to reach England by ship, there is no way it was fresh. Imagine if they could have had the fresh roasted coffee we have today - i bet no one would even know what tea was in England if that were the case.


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::  Posted by: 3am Art  at 1:29 PM
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Friday, July 21, 2006 -----

Bonding Over Coffee

Have you ever met someone and found you got closer over something you had in common?
I am finding coffee is the great connector among people.

I've been to parties and other social events and found if a conversation seems lagging, you can get people going about coffee they love and coffee they don't love. Ask someone where they had the best cup of coffee they ever had. You can also ask someone where the worst cup of coffee they ever had was....everyone has been given a cup of mudlike substance that was supposed to be coffee at one point or another, usually in roadside diners and late night convenience stores. And let me add, anyone that is brave enough to eat or drink anything from a convenience store is either the bravest or most insane person on the planet! Another fun conversation starter for me is to tell people that not only do I drink a lot of coffee, I paint coffee cups on the beans too! That one gets a lot of interest.

I love asking people if they like fresh roasted coffee, I normally get a "deer in the headlights" look from them. Most people haven't had it and have no idea what they are missing. That's the point in the convo when I ask if they would like to try it and send them a bag. I've done this wtih a number of people and every single one has raved about their coffee.

So if you find a conversation lagging because no one really knows each other at your next social gathering, ask around coffee and find out how much you REALLY have in common!


::  Posted by: 3am Art  at 4:35 PM
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Thursday, July 06, 2006 -----

Coffee Taste Funky? Clean Your Pot!

Even coffee as good as Bello Montana needs to be made in a clean coffee pot. I ground up some beans for a friend to serve at a little get together she was having over the 4th and I asked if everyone raved and she said, "Well no..."

And I said ,"Impossible, this fresh roasted coffee is not only fantastic it is downright addictive!"

So we went through how much water she used to how much coffee and blah blah blah, and then I asked her when the last time she cleaned her coffee pot. She gave me a real deer in the headlights look and said, "you don't have to clean a coffee pot, you only run hot water through it"...

Well that told me where the problem was. So we ran 12 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of vinegar through her coffee maker and let it run a full cycle then let it cool off and there was still a nasty build up so we did it again and it came clean (finally!). Everything else got a good scrubbing and we went out to lunch and when we came back we made a pot of America the Beautiful and she LOVED it. Matter of fact, you would have thought she'd never had coffee before!!!!

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::  Posted by: 3am Art  at 12:49 PM
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Did anyone see the New Juan Valdez?

I thought this was a joke, but apparently it was for real:

(this is from the Associated Press)

BOGOTA, Colombia -- After a two-year search among more than 300,000 candidates nationwide, Colombia unveiled the new Juan Valdez, the country's iconic coffee ambassador to the world.

His real name is Carlos Castaneda. (anyone remember books by the author of the same name?)

Like his two predecessors, the 39-year-old sports the leather bag, bushy mustache and straw hat typical of rural Colombia where the world-famous arabica coffee is grown. But unlike those other Valdezes -- who were played by a Cuban-born actor and a silk-screen artisan -- Castaneda knows a thing or two about growing coffee. The oldest of 10 children born on a coffee farm, he picked his first bean at age 6.

Like most of the nation's 566,000 coffee growers, Castaneda has lived a modest life, with his family's 10-acre plot earning $200 a month.That changed last week at a ceremony in the capital of Bogota, when Castaneda literally took over the reins of Conchita the mule from the previous Valdez -- Carlos Sanchez, who is retiring after 37 years. Dressed in the trademark Juan Valdez poncho, Castaneda said he's nervous about his new job. "But I'm going to put all my heart and will into making sure things go well."

The Juan Valdez trademark has become one of the most recognizable in the world, the fictional figure one of the most famous Colombians of all time. Juan Valdez even made it to Hollywood, sharing a scene with Jim Carrey in the film "Bruce Almighty."

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