Beverages Seeking refreshment at IKEA Warrington yesterday after finding just the right set of shelves for once, I decided to visit the cafe for some apple pie and coffee. Large signs everywhere advertising filter coffee, freshly brewed with some nice pictures of same. I duly paid the 0.95p at the check out when took the mug to the dispensing station only to find that there is indeed freshly brewed filter coffee - unless you want decaff in which case its sachets of Kenco Instant.
Not being able to have caffeine for medical reasons is the worst at the best of times but having to pay the same price for a couple spoonfuls of the same stuff I'm stuck using at home instead of what's available to everyone else, well, it's the worst. I bristled. I considered taking it up with a manager. But then realised it would have been a corporate decision so took the damned instant.
For those of us living in a decaff world, options are limited. Some supermarkets, even the Tesco Metro in Clayton Square don't have non-caffeine products in the beverage section which means we have to looking further, harder. But it's even worse when you're in a restaurant or cafe and have to deal with it. Last time I visited The Garden cafe in FACT I was charged extra for decaff and the situation on Virgin Trains is similar to IKEA, a sachet of decaff Kenco for the same price as filter. Over two pounds in that case.
Decaff is presumably less popular than the "proper" stuff which is why these other arrangements are made. Why have an extra machine for something which is selected by just a fraction of the potential audience? Starbucks can justify the expense presumably because they have the volume of traffic, although they only have one type of decaff and it's only available as Americano, not as filter coffee.
If nothing else, this has made me appreciate what it must be like to be a vegetarian or vegan in a carnivorous world where restaurants cater for the larger market first and almost include veggie food as an after thought. At some point in the future I'll hopefully be able to return to caffeine and the kick (oh the kick) but until then I'll keep cherishing those place which make an effort to include everybody.
Showing posts with label caffeinated. Show all posts
Showing posts with label caffeinated. Show all posts
The Starbucks on Bold Street has closed.
Commerce Quite suddenly. My last visit was last Thursday where I sat on the ground floor beneath the stairs near the Wood Street entrance and read that week's comics. Passing by this morning I saw the above. Asking at the check out in the Home Bargains next door but one, it seems have shut on Monday.
Now I know what a couple of you are thinking, and presumably poised to type into a social media text box, it's just an outlet of a multi-national company which doesn't pay as much tax as it should and there are still plenty of independent coffee shops in the area and here's a list of them, and yes all of that is true.
But I like Starbucks coffee and I liked this space which like the best outlets was modular. The seating area at the front and beneath the stairs. Half way up the stairs overlooking Wood Street and at the top with the massive table and easy access to the toilets. Plus it tended to be less manically busy than some cafes, which was probably ultimately its downfall.
Like any space you visit regularly we have history and this blog has history with it. Not as much as I thought, but there's plenty of business here in which a visit to this Starbucks would also have been involved. In any case, to memorialise, here's an archive of links to previous posts on this blog specifically about Starbucks on Bold Street.
When I entirely failing to deal with a private view at the venue which filled the space before Starbucks moved in (about 2000).
When one of the items I'd Bookcrossed in there was found in 2003.
When another of the items I'd Bookcrossed was found too.
When I went for a coffee with the best new person I met in 2003. Which I reflected upon in 2013.
When it became a third place in 2004.
When I badgered them about buying the acoustic version of Alanis's Jagged Little Pill (which was an exclusive in the US).
When I the Christmas blend for the first time in 2006.
When I read the first issue of the Buffy: Season Seven comic in March 2007.
When I into a Gingerbread Latte while listening to the Doctor Who audio The Auntie Matter in August 2013.
Bye then.
Java Hook.
Beverages While we're (sort of) on the subject, Core77 saw these being promoted at the International Home + Housewares Show:
Relevant website. Potentially useful but presumably a key part of the business model is that it's something with a high customer replacement rate due to forgetfulness.
Relevant website. Potentially useful but presumably a key part of the business model is that it's something with a high customer replacement rate due to forgetfulness.
John Nevil Maskelyne.
Nature The pay toilet, originally invented by the magician John Nevil Maskelyne, oscillates in availability. In Liverpool, there's a convenience at the top of Bold Street, one at Liverpool One, Clayton Square and Liverpool Lime Street. But in general, since the loss of public conveniences, and when a latrine seems as far away as Mount Doom, it's a case of either becoming a patron at a caffeination station or brazening it in the hopes that previous custom at a restaurant or department store can be taken as some kind of collateral.
Apart from when the restaurant has instituted a coding system, in which case you left trying to remember said code from the last visit or dismally walking away (or skipping depending on the level of discomfort). But I understand the reasons why companies are less inclined to give casuals access to their conveniences. Some of those casuals are the reason public venues have closed with their vandalism and other things. It's just difficult given the lack of the aforementioned public apparatus in easy reach.
Now a McDonald's on 20th Avenue in Brooklyn is piloting another option: a pay toilet within its restaurant. Customers can either queue up and ask for a token (or presumably get one with their meal) or pay 25 cents to take care of their business. Non-customers, the rest of us, the casuals, can simply dodge in from the sidewalk and pay the quarter. As the Yahoo article explains, this follows the story of a barber who began charging a dollar for people to use his bathroom, though he called it a nuisance tax.
I'm not surprised. There's brazening it and there's a bizarre sense of entitlement which is what some local residents seem to have as they complain that it's unethical for Macdonalds and whoever else to charge people who aren't customers to use their bathroom. A similar issue attended the Starbucks in New York when they began to put attendants on the door. How dare they, was the message, stop me from walking in off the street and using their toilet when I haven't bought a coffee?
Whenever I've done it, I've always felt guilty. It's the fear of getting caught, of a staff member shouting, "Hey! You're not a customer! How dare you use our toilet!" or some other unlikely scenario. Sometimes I've elaborately stood around for a moment as if waiting for someone afterwards then pulled out my mobile phone and pretended that the person I was supposed to be meeting hasn't arrived or I'm waiting in the wrong place. The staff probably don't notice but it makes me feel better.
Which is why adding a pay element would be an excellent move because on the "rare" occasions when I am caught short, I'd become a customer of Costa Coffee or whoever by using their toilet which in some ways is just as much a public place as a station. The going rate seems to be about twenty pence (thirty at a push) which seems just right to me. If I'd otherwise be paying for their water as part of a beverage, it seems only fair that I should also help pay the rates bill for any other implementation of that particular utility.
Apart from when the restaurant has instituted a coding system, in which case you left trying to remember said code from the last visit or dismally walking away (or skipping depending on the level of discomfort). But I understand the reasons why companies are less inclined to give casuals access to their conveniences. Some of those casuals are the reason public venues have closed with their vandalism and other things. It's just difficult given the lack of the aforementioned public apparatus in easy reach.
Now a McDonald's on 20th Avenue in Brooklyn is piloting another option: a pay toilet within its restaurant. Customers can either queue up and ask for a token (or presumably get one with their meal) or pay 25 cents to take care of their business. Non-customers, the rest of us, the casuals, can simply dodge in from the sidewalk and pay the quarter. As the Yahoo article explains, this follows the story of a barber who began charging a dollar for people to use his bathroom, though he called it a nuisance tax.
I'm not surprised. There's brazening it and there's a bizarre sense of entitlement which is what some local residents seem to have as they complain that it's unethical for Macdonalds and whoever else to charge people who aren't customers to use their bathroom. A similar issue attended the Starbucks in New York when they began to put attendants on the door. How dare they, was the message, stop me from walking in off the street and using their toilet when I haven't bought a coffee?
Whenever I've done it, I've always felt guilty. It's the fear of getting caught, of a staff member shouting, "Hey! You're not a customer! How dare you use our toilet!" or some other unlikely scenario. Sometimes I've elaborately stood around for a moment as if waiting for someone afterwards then pulled out my mobile phone and pretended that the person I was supposed to be meeting hasn't arrived or I'm waiting in the wrong place. The staff probably don't notice but it makes me feel better.
Which is why adding a pay element would be an excellent move because on the "rare" occasions when I am caught short, I'd become a customer of Costa Coffee or whoever by using their toilet which in some ways is just as much a public place as a station. The going rate seems to be about twenty pence (thirty at a push) which seems just right to me. If I'd otherwise be paying for their water as part of a beverage, it seems only fair that I should also help pay the rates bill for any other implementation of that particular utility.
Mrs. Samuel Pepys's coffee-making skills
Beverages Interestingly, a search through Pepys's diaries doesn't provide much of a mention of Mrs. Pepys's skills in that particular department. Pepys did however spend an inordinate amount of time in coffee houses, which as the annotation page to the republication of the diaries indicates through quotes and other miscellanea, weren't unlike the coffee chains of today in terms of there importance within social circles:
"The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might indeed at that time have been not improperly called a most important political institution. No Parliament had sat for years. The municipal council of the City had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances the coffee houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis vented itself."As has been noticed lately, Starbucks and the like are now being used increasingly for job interviews, because they provide a relaxed atmosphere which presumably means you're able to open up more and give a better accord of yourself, assuming you don't spill latte down your front.
Kevin Warwick on caffeine.
Caffeine How I learned to stop worrying and drink coffee already. Kevin Warwick in Chicago decides to become addicted to caffeine via coffee doses. Tries various brands. Ultimately ends up liking it too much. It's a steady slide:
"Here's the thing about Starbucks: it's not bad at all, it's just juiced with caffeine. Not Barry Bonds juiced, more Rafael Palmeiro juiced—because he didn't seem like he had it in him. Making such a significant jump in caffeine seems ill-advised, but I went ahead and ordered a 12-ounce—ahem, "tall"—anyway, nearly doubling the amount of caffeine from yesterday's ten-ounce serving of Dunkin'. I've been in a Starbucks before because I am a human, but once I was ordering something other than decaf tea or coffee cake, navigating the menu of mochas, macchiatos, lattes, and cappuccinos felt on par with placing a bet at a Vegas sports book."
how to make a better cup of instant coffee
Beverages Still by far the most read or at least visited post on this blog is this review of Lyons's attempt to put fresh coffee in bags with one of the longest comments threads outside of some Doctor Who thing.
Here's something else I've discovered.
Most instant coffee is awful. The reasons are generally because it is instant coffee, but often it's because the amount of granuals required for a decent cup varies with the brand and since in these hard times we all tend to shift about depending on what's cheapest at the supermarket, we're never entirely sure how heaped a typical spoonful needs to be.
Some manufacturers like Starbucks do put a measured portion in a sachet of what they think is the right amount, even instructing us on how much water is required but even then, under normal circumstances, it always seems wrong, or the coffee's still horrible because it's instant. The only Starbucks VIA I can stand, and actually really rather like is the Italian Roast.
I have, however, lately been using an excellent way to make all of them taste less objectionable. In fact, this process not only means they have a kick but sometimes, on rare occasions, even have something of the ground coffee taste about them (without the grind).
There's probably some scientific reason for this to do with atoms interacting or whatnot but as I only have an Art A-Level I'll leave that to people who know what they're talking about. For a change.
Here's how to make a better cup of instant coffee.
(1) Boil the kettle.
(2) Select a cup rather than a mug (you can always have another one).
(3) Let the kettle finish boiling and then just leave it for a minute.
(4) Pour the water into the empty cup.
(5) Spoon instant coffee in. Or empty the sachet if this is VIA.
(6) Stir.
Or the synopsis: stir the coffee into the cup after the hot water.
Now this is where I stop. I much prefer black coffee because of the caffeine kick so I don't actually know if the following steps help or hinder. Experiment.
(7) Add sugar.
(8) Stir.
(9) Add milk and cream
(10) Stir. Again.
For some reason the coffee tastes nicer. I've never understood why. Perhaps because it isn't scorched or something? Oh well, anyway, that's it. Try it and let me know how you get on.
Unless everyone does this already. In which case, carry on.
“Starbush?”
Beverages Bloomberg has a useful piece about why Starbucks hasn't opened in Italy and the country's coffee culture in general:
"The cafe’s owner, Orlando Chiari, a 78-year-old former stock exchange worker, has the mobile phone numbers of top executives at Italy’s most important coffee companies and the confidence to dial them in the middle of an interview. But when I ask him if he’s ever visited one of the Seattle-based chain’s locations, he answers me with an empty look.Essentially its about perception. Starbucks consider themselves (in general) as somewhere for people to meet and hang out, whereas in the boot of Europe there's more of a connoisseurship.
“Starbush?” he says. “No. I’ve never even heard of it.”
It takes a couple of beats to realize he isn’t joking. When the concept is explained, he says, “Interesting. But does it exist in Italy?”"
"new type of sugar packet"
Food Yesterday, President Obama hosted a Science Fair at the White House. Here are his remarks and he makes a point towards the end of asking the press to give it some attention. So I thought I would, and in particular this innovation:
My first reaction was "sugarcubes?" but on reflection this is presumably cleaner, works inside the comfort zone of the average consumer and might have other practical applications.
"Some of you, that means developing new products that will change the way we live. So Hayley Hoverter -- where’s Hayley? There she is, right over here -- invented a new type of sugar packet that dissolves in hot water. It’s flavorless, it’s colorless, and potentially could save up to 2 million pounds of trash each year -- and that’s just at Starbucks. (Laughter.) So MasterCard has already awarded her $10,000 to help turn her idea into a business."And here she is talking about the product at TEDx:
My first reaction was "sugarcubes?" but on reflection this is presumably cleaner, works inside the comfort zone of the average consumer and might have other practical applications.
"pasta, cheeses and mini-dishes"
Commerce Starbucks puts alcohol on the menu in Portland and starts opening restaurants:
Along with simplifying that logo and replacing the familiar heavy mugs with what amount to tall tea cups, we're seeing the slow erosion of what used to be for some of us quite a comforting brand (taking into account all of the globalisation concerns).
Even the BBC are getting in on the act and have opened a tavern and grill in Greenville, Delaware.
"Starbucks first began selling liquor last year at a few stores in Seattle, so that in itself is nothing new. But the new Portland store makes one wonder if Starbucks is looking to become something more than a coffee house; perhaps a full service eatery that can compete with a neighborhood Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (NYSE: CMG) and Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: DRI) subsidiary Olive Garden?Surely one of the reasons seek out Starbucks (or any coffee house) is as an alternative to pubs and restaurants, for coffee and perhaps horse statues. So why would they think this is a good idea? I appreciate this won't be every site, but when one sees a brand logo on the outside of a building, it creates an expectation for what we'll find inside.
"Although the Portland store features Starbucks trademark storefront, company executives say this store has been “localized” and decorated to fit the neighborhood. It also features a sit down menu, including pasta, cheeses and mini-dishes, while the wine and beer selections, such as Rouge, Widmer Brothers and Deschutes, were handpicked to fit in with the area’s culture."
Along with simplifying that logo and replacing the familiar heavy mugs with what amount to tall tea cups, we're seeing the slow erosion of what used to be for some of us quite a comforting brand (taking into account all of the globalisation concerns).
Even the BBC are getting in on the act and have opened a tavern and grill in Greenville, Delaware.
"a shadowy monopoly exists"
Beverages Coffee suppliers in Paris are at war, with a single brand monopolising due to "a lack of education" amongst drinkers:
"The French coffee paradox is due to a few reasons, the first being that the country’s most widely consumed coffee, robusta, is the standard. To most of the people I spoke to who chose to remain off the record, a shadowy monopoly exists, with robusta using “subtly threatening” tactics on new businesses, making people afraid to strike out on their own, with different brands. Also, as one French barrista explained, “The French have a romantic, colonial mentality of being the best, without looking elsewhere.” For most café owners, that means less effort and more money.I'd be interested to know if a similar turf war is at play in the UK. My understand was that it's all about real estate and surviving amongst the chains. it hadn't occured to me that it might extend to the product itself.
The scones have gone
Commerce Apart from the coffee and the Very Berry Scone, there have always been two other things I've always liked about Starbucks. The logo and the mugs. The scones have gone (or at least the original version which I loved) and now ...
"Starbucks' familiar chunky white mugs will disappear from its British stores this year as part of a major rebranding exercise that will also see the American company drop its name from its well-known logo."The new logo keeps the mermaid but now looks like something ICI might have tried in the 80s. Along with the replacement of the mugs, this erodes their brand identity to a somewhat horrific degree. Well played.
"a fresher batch"
Coffee How to get the best out of Starbucks. Insider knowledge from a barrista on Reddit. Much of this seems like it could be relevant in the UK:
(1) Not all of the available sizes are on the menu. If like me you don't need a vat of coffee and just want something that's closer to an ordinary household mug, ask for a "short". It's cheaper and leads to less wastage because you'll drink it before it goes cold.
(2) At the moment if you buy some of the VIA instant coffee (which as the linked article says is nicest and more authentic in its Italian form) using a Starbucks gift card you can get a free tall coffee from the menu and anything from the menu.
"If you come in and ask for a cup of coffee and see that the little red light on the brewer is blinking, ask politely for a fresher batch, or just go with a pour over. The red light starts blinking after an hour. At my store, we're pretty strict about the 30 minute time limit on our coffees, but other stores aren't."I'll add two things:
(1) Not all of the available sizes are on the menu. If like me you don't need a vat of coffee and just want something that's closer to an ordinary household mug, ask for a "short". It's cheaper and leads to less wastage because you'll drink it before it goes cold.
(2) At the moment if you buy some of the VIA instant coffee (which as the linked article says is nicest and more authentic in its Italian form) using a Starbucks gift card you can get a free tall coffee from the menu and anything from the menu.
the carnage befalling
Commerce Entering Borders at Speke Retail Park felt somewhere between attending a funeral and looting a shop after the apocalypse. In the Starbucks up above a baby was crying and the shelves were half empty, the closing down sale having begun yesterday. The similarities with the Woolworths wind-up are stark; unlikely stock filling the shelves, everything in disarray, understandably sullen looking staff members mixed with temporary workers appointed by the liquidators who when asked don't know where anything is. Even the sale signage in use is exactly the same.
But even as I searched the stock looking for bargains, the reason the chain is closing became all the more apparent. Everything is 20% off the recommended retail price, or in the case of films and music, as per the label. The problem is that even with this saving, Borders still can't beat Amazon and other online retailers for price, especially with travel cost factored in. I came away with Edge of Darkness and Zeffrelli's Taming of the Shrew on dvd and a Gimble.
Added together with my bus fair, I would have saved two pounds and half the morning if I'd simply order these on-line when I got up. Which I wouldn't, of course, because they were impulse buys, but if a Borders purchase can't be attractive without the smell of nostalgia what hope did it have under normal trading? If all of this wasn't bad enough, because their website had been withdrawn. I noticed a staff member had ironically had to consult Amazon for product information (the website's back up now in what looks like an older version).
Within the Speke store there's also a Game, Paperchase and the coffee shop, all still trading as normal, their staff looking across balefully at the carnage befalling the rest of the shop floor. As time moves on, I'm sure they'll become weary of the public wondering why their merchandise isn't discounted as well. What will happen to them when Borders closes its doors, will they be redistributed to other parts of the company or lose their jobs? Or will these healthy chains simply expand into the rest of the shop like a parasitic fungus growing to fill the shell of its dead host?
A brilliant friend in New York
Beverages A brilliant friend in New York posted over to me some of the new Starbucks instant or VIA coffee for my birthday. It won't be available in most of the UK until the end of next year. I was intrigued but a bit reticent. Drinking instant coffee instead of filter is often a bit like watching a film on dvd rather than going to the cinema. It's perfectly enjoyable while you're doing it, but there's always a slight pang of melancholy afterwards because the experience just isn't quite the same, even when, as you can see, I drink it from a proper Starbucks mug.
I chose the Italian Roast for this first try. The coffee comes in small, long sachets, which when opened and tipped into the mug don't reveal granules but a dark brown powder not unlike grounds. I boil the water then let cool slightly as I pour the 8oz required into a measuring jug, then straight onto the coffee, stirring as quickly as I can so that the powder will dissolve quickly. Already I can sense the authentic smell of Starbucks coffee. I take my coffee black this has the rich shade of brown I expect from filter.
Then the taste. It's a triumph. The flavour is almost exactly like filter coffee. Like magic. A rich, strong wack of bitterness which flows about the mouth, resting on the tongue just like filter. Then there's the kick, the Starbucks kick, which makes my head cock slightly and my skin tingly as I assume the caffeine hits my system, just like filter. The strong after taste at the end of the cup stays in my mouth for minutes afterwards, just like filter. None of this do I usually experience from an instant and certainly not without overcompensating on the amount I'm dissolving.
Miraculous. And with no machine to wash afterwards, just my mug. Elsewhere, reviews have been mixed. Zoe Williams in The Guardian thought it "insipid" though based on her description I'd question whether she put too much water on it -- any more than the 8oz and I imagine it would taste blander. Similarly I'd question what it's like with milk and sugar, but then I think that about all coffee -- I do like it strong. There's an alchemy at work here and I can't wait for Starbucks to launch it nation wide in the UK so that I can experiment some more.
Like tea bags. But with coffee.
Beverages I don't remember the first time I drank a cup of coffee. I remember my first beer -- a Budweiser at the Leeds Jazz Festival in 1995. I still have the bottle. But coffee -- I must have been very young. I do know it's only in the past decade I've been drinking black, desperate for that kick which I know will jump start my system for another couple of hours.
These days, I drink more coffee than alcohol and since like wine there are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which it can taste, too little coffee, too much water and you've either got a damn fine cup or black/dark brown hot water. Even in Starbucks I don't think I've ever had two mugs of coffee that taste the same. I like that.
Some don't. Some want to have the same coffee experience over and over again, and I understand why. Sometimes you don't want to surprises, you want something you can rely on. That's why machine manufacturers pour so much energy into creating a machine that will produce that perfect coffee experience over and over again and hire George Clooney to be their prophet. And why there are such a thing as coffee bags. Like tea bags. But with coffee.
I quite like instant coffee, so this isn't really a problem for me, but I know many connoisseurs deplore the somewhat unsubtle taste of you get from granules and I'd imagine may still clamouring for a convenient way of enjoying filter without having to deal with washing anything more than a mug and spoon afterwards. This is designed for them.
I've wanted to try coffee bags for a while but didn't want to buy a box full in case they turned out to be a wrongen and didn't see the point if I them had to simply empty the bags into a filter machine after all. Recently, Lyons were giving away samples at their website so finally I've had my chance. Here's the silver pocket it came in:
I snip off the top and inside there's this:
You can't tell from this photo but the coffee bag is about twice a large as a tea bag. You need more coffee than tea to fill a cup it seems. But it is roughly the same design. I miss corners.
Pop it in the mug, add the water as directed:
Problem: It's not entirely clear how big the cup/mug should be (not all are created equal) and how much water to use. I decide to only half fill the mug. Yes, that is what it looks like, and no it wasn't stolen. Earlier in the decade, Starbucks actually sold their corporate china instead of the fancy designs you get these days. I wish I'd bought more than two, it's the perfect size usually. The instructions recommend that the bag should sit for three to five minutes. I leave it just slightly longer, because I like my coffee very strong.
Stir. Stir some more. The coffee, looks like coffee. A little bit cloudy. Squeeze and lift out the bag:
I can't believe how well lit that photograph is.
Half a mug of coffee.
Flavour? I did get the kick, but unfortunately, that's all. The bag probably contains a relatively mild blend, but this brew has the taste which happens when I've put too little of the stuff into a filter machine, weak and a bit soapy, with the flavour of the water coating my tastebuds more than whatever the rest of the solution is.
Which could mean that I've put too much water in, scorched the contents of the bag somehow, this just doesn't work as a concept, or it's just not strong enough for my tastes. It's a bit of a disappointment. One of those occasions when you really do only get a result which reflects the work you've put into it. Nothing comes from nothing.
But they've been on sale for a few years now and the sales must be high enough to make them worthwhile. Even the most innovative products are removed from sale if they're not flying from the shelves. Someone must like them. Perhaps hotels buy them.
Personally, I'll be sticking with my cheap Argos filter machine and the chaos of not knowing what comes next. It might not be terribly convenient, but at least you end up with something that tastes like coffee. Sorry Lyons.
You can buy Lyons coffee bags here.
These days, I drink more coffee than alcohol and since like wine there are a seemingly infinite number of ways in which it can taste, too little coffee, too much water and you've either got a damn fine cup or black/dark brown hot water. Even in Starbucks I don't think I've ever had two mugs of coffee that taste the same. I like that.
Some don't. Some want to have the same coffee experience over and over again, and I understand why. Sometimes you don't want to surprises, you want something you can rely on. That's why machine manufacturers pour so much energy into creating a machine that will produce that perfect coffee experience over and over again and hire George Clooney to be their prophet. And why there are such a thing as coffee bags. Like tea bags. But with coffee.
I quite like instant coffee, so this isn't really a problem for me, but I know many connoisseurs deplore the somewhat unsubtle taste of you get from granules and I'd imagine may still clamouring for a convenient way of enjoying filter without having to deal with washing anything more than a mug and spoon afterwards. This is designed for them.
I've wanted to try coffee bags for a while but didn't want to buy a box full in case they turned out to be a wrongen and didn't see the point if I them had to simply empty the bags into a filter machine after all. Recently, Lyons were giving away samples at their website so finally I've had my chance. Here's the silver pocket it came in:
I snip off the top and inside there's this:
You can't tell from this photo but the coffee bag is about twice a large as a tea bag. You need more coffee than tea to fill a cup it seems. But it is roughly the same design. I miss corners.
Pop it in the mug, add the water as directed:
Problem: It's not entirely clear how big the cup/mug should be (not all are created equal) and how much water to use. I decide to only half fill the mug. Yes, that is what it looks like, and no it wasn't stolen. Earlier in the decade, Starbucks actually sold their corporate china instead of the fancy designs you get these days. I wish I'd bought more than two, it's the perfect size usually. The instructions recommend that the bag should sit for three to five minutes. I leave it just slightly longer, because I like my coffee very strong.
Stir. Stir some more. The coffee, looks like coffee. A little bit cloudy. Squeeze and lift out the bag:
I can't believe how well lit that photograph is.
Half a mug of coffee.
Flavour? I did get the kick, but unfortunately, that's all. The bag probably contains a relatively mild blend, but this brew has the taste which happens when I've put too little of the stuff into a filter machine, weak and a bit soapy, with the flavour of the water coating my tastebuds more than whatever the rest of the solution is.
Which could mean that I've put too much water in, scorched the contents of the bag somehow, this just doesn't work as a concept, or it's just not strong enough for my tastes. It's a bit of a disappointment. One of those occasions when you really do only get a result which reflects the work you've put into it. Nothing comes from nothing.
But they've been on sale for a few years now and the sales must be high enough to make them worthwhile. Even the most innovative products are removed from sale if they're not flying from the shelves. Someone must like them. Perhaps hotels buy them.
Personally, I'll be sticking with my cheap Argos filter machine and the chaos of not knowing what comes next. It might not be terribly convenient, but at least you end up with something that tastes like coffee. Sorry Lyons.
You can buy Lyons coffee bags here.
So fresh they're ....
Commerce When Sayers announced they'd be closing a range of their bakeries in Liverpool a couple of months ago, they carefully listed which they'd be and when so as not to create uncertainty amongst their staff and customers. It seems to have been the larger spots including the venerable old restaurant half way down Bold Street (which is strange because it was always busy when I passed by).
It in the US, Starbucks, though a much larger company, have 'fumbled' a similar move with no one really knowing which shops would be closing leading stress amongst their barristas -- both because of the uncertainty of their employment position and the constant, repeated barrage of questions from coffee lovers trying to find out if their local caffeine hit outlet will be leaving them.
One poster to the Starbucks Gossip blog has found an ingenious way of finding out his job is in jeopardy:
It in the US, Starbucks, though a much larger company, have 'fumbled' a similar move with no one really knowing which shops would be closing leading stress amongst their barristas -- both because of the uncertainty of their employment position and the constant, repeated barrage of questions from coffee lovers trying to find out if their local caffeine hit outlet will be leaving them.
One poster to the Starbucks Gossip blog has found an ingenious way of finding out his job is in jeopardy:
"I have been with the company for a couple of years. I along with everyone else have been on pins and needles wondering about the fate of my store. While on the internet today I just had a crazy idea to look for commercial property for sale in my home town. Guess what I found..... a picture and a listing for my third place......waiting for a phone call. Really sad that respect & dignity are lost on www.....they become only words"Slowly but surely, I'm loving Starbucks the company less and less. Good job their coffee is still so tasty.
Beverages Confessions of a coffee addict. Polly Vernon's experience is all too familiar: "I ride the swings and roundabouts of my caffeine-altered mood like a pro. I buzz maniacally with it at certain points in the day, I snap angrily at others because of it; I wilt when my body's caffeine levels drop below a certain point, I rev up again dramatically once that's been seen to. Sometimes I drink so much that I get head spins. Other times, I drink so much that all I can do is order more."
Beverages The Story of Coffee at Lothian Life. The textual equivalent of those videos which would appear through the square window on Play School:
"What really gives coffee its aroma and flavour is the way the beans are roasted. Heat breaks down starches in the bean, changing them to simple sugars. As the roasting process continues, aromatic oils, acids, and caffeine weaken but other oils start to develop, in particular caffeol, which is largely responsible for coffee’s aroma and flavor."I probably drink too much coffee though it is my only toxic vice; I don't smoke and only drink sporadically. It is worrying to note from that article that although physically it has all kinds of benefits like all drugs it does nothing for your psychological outlook. Water?
Mystery Music March in April
Having spent the best part of a month mostly talking about music I genuinely do like, it seems only fair to inflict some utter rubbish on myself and write about that too. Taking a glance at my mp3 player, I now have enough music on here that it would take over fifty days listening non-stop to get through it all, my entire cd collection. Logically I really should delete the music I don’t like; I've certainly ferreted and filleted already with everything from Simply Red to the Traci Lords album (don’t ask) heading towards the recycling bin.
But there are some tracks which, despite making me scream I just can’t part with. Sometimes they're the early work by artists who turned a corner or rubbish versions of favourite songs or in one case below my own petty annoyance with a single aspect. So even though I can almost hear them festering on there, as though the binary ones and zeros within them might have the ability to melt my hard drive like acid, I'm risking disaster through retention.
We Built This Starbucks On Heart and Soul – Jefferson Starbucks
The original Starship version was my favourite song ever when I was eight years old, just as every song was my favourite song ever if it was getting enough airplay on the local radio station. Now, I’m really not so sure, but it's certainly superior to this corporate reworking created for what they called a ‘leadership conference’ and leaked onto the internet. It’s the kind of work which has the power to make you like your favourite coffee chain just a little bit less each time you hear it.
Two weedy vocalists over a disappointing backing track pass the ethos of the company on to its employees without irony and with horrid, demoralising lyrics such as ‘So many partners / working late at night / living the ways of being / in the green apron look’, a totalitarian message, that knocks on for five whole minutes and blows the impression Starbucks wants us to have of their shops being a comfortable regular third place to be with staff that are our friends.
Reason for keeping: It’s horrendous but hilarious. I’ve started going to Costa Coffee. That fantastic image was borrowed from here.
Big Yellow Taxi (Traffic Jam Mix) – Joni Mitchell
In case you can’t see me right now, I’m putting up my hands in the universal sign of ‘Hold on a minute let me explain’. This isn’t the version you know, from her album Ladies of the Canyon. That’s gorgeous, a beautiful depiction of the destruction city developers continue to wrought on nature. It’s also, you’ll notice, not the cover version by Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton’s ‘um-bap-bap-baps’ which though corporate still has just enough soul to commemorate the original. No, my approbation is reserved for the anodyne, put the vocals and a bunch of clichéd samples into a computer and press a button remix version that appears on the first soundtrack to the sitcom Friends.
I loved Friends and I largely quite liked this album which also features such luminaries as KD Lang, Lou Reed, The Pretenders and Toad The West Sprocket in all their unmessedaboutwith glory. Yet, the producers also include this indigestible slab of chopped liver, Joni’s vocal being chased around a parking lot by the kind of backing track which sounds as though it was made up from the demo version of the old eJay software. How ironic that this song about the ruination of beauty should be subject to this kind of cultural vandalism and appear on an album dedicated to songs about six people living in a big city.
Reason for keeping: Fades out into the moment in Friends when Phoebe sings ‘I made a man with eyes of coal / and a smile so bewitching / how was I supposed to know / my mom was dead in the kitchen’. The soundtrack everyone really wanted was ‘Phoebe sings…’ I think.
Goldberg Variations – Glenn Gould
Bit of a difficult choice because one of my access points to classical music was François Girard’s film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, a biography of the pianist which thematic took ideas from this his most famous recording. It’s undoubtedly a work of genius, both in composer and performer, the two married perfectly and particularly brilliant in the opening aria so beloved of European filmmakers and Woody Allen. Here’s the problem: what critics tactfully call his ‘singing’.
Gould wasn’t a quiet pianist and on this recording of Bach's masterwork, he grunts, breaths, sighs and indeed hums his way through the tunes, the microphone close by picking up his humanity as well as the sound of the piano, essentially everything that would be inaudible in a concert hall. Since Gould gave up playing live, eventually the only way to enjoy his virtuosity was on tape and vinyl, audio interference included, and it’s a distraction that’s sometimes hard to take. A company recently released a computer generated recording which mimicked Gould’s finger work but filtered out his other performing. Critics welcomed it with open arms. There’s a lesson there.
Reason for keeping: It is still Gould playing the Goldberg Variations. It just depends how tolerant I’m feeling on that day.
Real World – Alanis Morissette
I’ve written endlessly about Alanis in the past, eagerly awaiting each new album, even though in my heart of hearts I could be paraphrasing Sickboy from Trainspotting – ‘Jagged Little Pill was a mere peak in an otherwise downward spiral’. Nothing’s been quite as indispensable as that opening salvo and yet mostly loveable and I’m still desperate to hear what her next album Flavors of Entanglement (despite the title), especially after the My Humps cover. Except. Pill was not her first record, no matter how many Best New Artist awards she might have been nominated for and won. Her first two records, released in the very early nineties were Canada only releases and clearly influenced by the likes of Tiffany and particularly Debbie Gibson, only, um, not as good. They might sold reasonably well, giving Morissette the impetuous to move to LA and try again, but they’re nearly impossible to listen to.
The second platinum selling album, Now Is The Time, is doubly dispiriting because she was a co-writer but there’s not a single real emotion throughout. This opening track, an Electric Youth knock-off, begins with a chant ‘We play the game with determination / We don't give a dam 'bout our reputation baby / It's not a game, it's a revelation / Step inside the real world / The real world...yeah yeah yeah... The real world...yeah...” which is about as lyrically complex as it gets. The rest sounds like a London Boy’s seminal Requiem rendered by a Pat Benitar impersonator, with Alanis’s vocal betraying an overbearing producer’s interference. She told Rolling Stone in 1995 that wasn’t “scared (that) people might hear these records. I never did Playboy centerfolds. There's nothing I regret. Maybe people will just understand my lyrics a little more if they hear those records.” Indeed.
Reason for keeping: It’s always good to be reminded of where your favourite musicians came from because it makes their later work seem even better (see also Shelby Lynne before I Am Shelby Lynne) and it cost me fifteen pounds on ebay. A decade later Alanis considered including a couple of her Canadians on her greatest hits compilation but decided against it on the grounds that she only really became an artist when she met Glen Ballard, the Pill producer. To be honest anything here would have been better than the clichéd cover version of Seal’s Crazy which did appear on The Collection. Recorded for a Gap commercial and considered acceptable enough to be released as a single, the video for this opus which actually ‘borrowed’ the twist ending from the promo of Smack My Bitch Up. Great. Perhaps I should have included that instead.
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life (radio edit) – Eric Idle
Because a single word makes all the difference. When Liverpool Football Club last won some European tournament, the city centre filled with people, live footage of the area around St. George’s Hall featuring shoulder-to-shoulder supporters awaiting the arrival of the bus, cup and players. In one voice they sang not only You’ll Never Walk Alone but also in a surreal twist Always Look On The Bright Side of Life which, I think, has become the theme song of the football fan, warming the cockles as each potential defeat beckons. As that lyric loomed I was on the edge of my seat, thousands of people shouting the s-word in one voice. And sure enough, there it was, in all its broadcast glory, with no Ofcom apology forthcoming.
Except they were clearly singing along to this radio edit, blasting out from loudspeakers, rerecorded by Idle on the back of its airplay on Simon Mayo’s Radio One Show in ’91 and totally ignoring the replacement of ‘shit’ for ‘spit’ in the line ‘Life’s a piece of ****, when you look at it’. Radio Edits are entirely understandable – we still live in a world were swearing isn’t acceptable in the afternoons and if that means that the vocal silences in some R&B sonically cripples them, so be it. Except in this case, it sounds like a censor too far. Spoils the record. Even in the early nineties, and entirely pointless on the single release which these days would have welcomed a ‘Parental Advisor’ label and especially since, he inconsistently says ‘bugger’ at the beginning of the fade out. The song is the theme song for a satire about organised religion after all.
Reason for keeping: In this rerecord, Idle slots in some solid new Python material during that fade out ‘It’s nearly the end of the record. You’ll be announcing another tune in a minute. Alright so your wife’s just run off with an Argentinean polo player. OK, so your husband just decamped with a baby sitter – and he’s from Norway. Alright so your team’s lost 15-0 to Barnett. It’s not the end of the world is it?’
But there are some tracks which, despite making me scream I just can’t part with. Sometimes they're the early work by artists who turned a corner or rubbish versions of favourite songs or in one case below my own petty annoyance with a single aspect. So even though I can almost hear them festering on there, as though the binary ones and zeros within them might have the ability to melt my hard drive like acid, I'm risking disaster through retention.
We Built This Starbucks On Heart and Soul – Jefferson Starbucks
The original Starship version was my favourite song ever when I was eight years old, just as every song was my favourite song ever if it was getting enough airplay on the local radio station. Now, I’m really not so sure, but it's certainly superior to this corporate reworking created for what they called a ‘leadership conference’ and leaked onto the internet. It’s the kind of work which has the power to make you like your favourite coffee chain just a little bit less each time you hear it.
Two weedy vocalists over a disappointing backing track pass the ethos of the company on to its employees without irony and with horrid, demoralising lyrics such as ‘So many partners / working late at night / living the ways of being / in the green apron look’, a totalitarian message, that knocks on for five whole minutes and blows the impression Starbucks wants us to have of their shops being a comfortable regular third place to be with staff that are our friends.
Reason for keeping: It’s horrendous but hilarious. I’ve started going to Costa Coffee. That fantastic image was borrowed from here.
Big Yellow Taxi (Traffic Jam Mix) – Joni Mitchell
In case you can’t see me right now, I’m putting up my hands in the universal sign of ‘Hold on a minute let me explain’. This isn’t the version you know, from her album Ladies of the Canyon. That’s gorgeous, a beautiful depiction of the destruction city developers continue to wrought on nature. It’s also, you’ll notice, not the cover version by Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton’s ‘um-bap-bap-baps’ which though corporate still has just enough soul to commemorate the original. No, my approbation is reserved for the anodyne, put the vocals and a bunch of clichéd samples into a computer and press a button remix version that appears on the first soundtrack to the sitcom Friends.
I loved Friends and I largely quite liked this album which also features such luminaries as KD Lang, Lou Reed, The Pretenders and Toad The West Sprocket in all their unmessedaboutwith glory. Yet, the producers also include this indigestible slab of chopped liver, Joni’s vocal being chased around a parking lot by the kind of backing track which sounds as though it was made up from the demo version of the old eJay software. How ironic that this song about the ruination of beauty should be subject to this kind of cultural vandalism and appear on an album dedicated to songs about six people living in a big city.
Reason for keeping: Fades out into the moment in Friends when Phoebe sings ‘I made a man with eyes of coal / and a smile so bewitching / how was I supposed to know / my mom was dead in the kitchen’. The soundtrack everyone really wanted was ‘Phoebe sings…’ I think.
Goldberg Variations – Glenn Gould
Bit of a difficult choice because one of my access points to classical music was François Girard’s film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, a biography of the pianist which thematic took ideas from this his most famous recording. It’s undoubtedly a work of genius, both in composer and performer, the two married perfectly and particularly brilliant in the opening aria so beloved of European filmmakers and Woody Allen. Here’s the problem: what critics tactfully call his ‘singing’.
Gould wasn’t a quiet pianist and on this recording of Bach's masterwork, he grunts, breaths, sighs and indeed hums his way through the tunes, the microphone close by picking up his humanity as well as the sound of the piano, essentially everything that would be inaudible in a concert hall. Since Gould gave up playing live, eventually the only way to enjoy his virtuosity was on tape and vinyl, audio interference included, and it’s a distraction that’s sometimes hard to take. A company recently released a computer generated recording which mimicked Gould’s finger work but filtered out his other performing. Critics welcomed it with open arms. There’s a lesson there.
Reason for keeping: It is still Gould playing the Goldberg Variations. It just depends how tolerant I’m feeling on that day.
Real World – Alanis Morissette
I’ve written endlessly about Alanis in the past, eagerly awaiting each new album, even though in my heart of hearts I could be paraphrasing Sickboy from Trainspotting – ‘Jagged Little Pill was a mere peak in an otherwise downward spiral’. Nothing’s been quite as indispensable as that opening salvo and yet mostly loveable and I’m still desperate to hear what her next album Flavors of Entanglement (despite the title), especially after the My Humps cover. Except. Pill was not her first record, no matter how many Best New Artist awards she might have been nominated for and won. Her first two records, released in the very early nineties were Canada only releases and clearly influenced by the likes of Tiffany and particularly Debbie Gibson, only, um, not as good. They might sold reasonably well, giving Morissette the impetuous to move to LA and try again, but they’re nearly impossible to listen to.
The second platinum selling album, Now Is The Time, is doubly dispiriting because she was a co-writer but there’s not a single real emotion throughout. This opening track, an Electric Youth knock-off, begins with a chant ‘We play the game with determination / We don't give a dam 'bout our reputation baby / It's not a game, it's a revelation / Step inside the real world / The real world...yeah yeah yeah... The real world...yeah...” which is about as lyrically complex as it gets. The rest sounds like a London Boy’s seminal Requiem rendered by a Pat Benitar impersonator, with Alanis’s vocal betraying an overbearing producer’s interference. She told Rolling Stone in 1995 that wasn’t “scared (that) people might hear these records. I never did Playboy centerfolds. There's nothing I regret. Maybe people will just understand my lyrics a little more if they hear those records.” Indeed.
Reason for keeping: It’s always good to be reminded of where your favourite musicians came from because it makes their later work seem even better (see also Shelby Lynne before I Am Shelby Lynne) and it cost me fifteen pounds on ebay. A decade later Alanis considered including a couple of her Canadians on her greatest hits compilation but decided against it on the grounds that she only really became an artist when she met Glen Ballard, the Pill producer. To be honest anything here would have been better than the clichéd cover version of Seal’s Crazy which did appear on The Collection. Recorded for a Gap commercial and considered acceptable enough to be released as a single, the video for this opus which actually ‘borrowed’ the twist ending from the promo of Smack My Bitch Up. Great. Perhaps I should have included that instead.
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life (radio edit) – Eric Idle
Because a single word makes all the difference. When Liverpool Football Club last won some European tournament, the city centre filled with people, live footage of the area around St. George’s Hall featuring shoulder-to-shoulder supporters awaiting the arrival of the bus, cup and players. In one voice they sang not only You’ll Never Walk Alone but also in a surreal twist Always Look On The Bright Side of Life which, I think, has become the theme song of the football fan, warming the cockles as each potential defeat beckons. As that lyric loomed I was on the edge of my seat, thousands of people shouting the s-word in one voice. And sure enough, there it was, in all its broadcast glory, with no Ofcom apology forthcoming.
Except they were clearly singing along to this radio edit, blasting out from loudspeakers, rerecorded by Idle on the back of its airplay on Simon Mayo’s Radio One Show in ’91 and totally ignoring the replacement of ‘shit’ for ‘spit’ in the line ‘Life’s a piece of ****, when you look at it’. Radio Edits are entirely understandable – we still live in a world were swearing isn’t acceptable in the afternoons and if that means that the vocal silences in some R&B sonically cripples them, so be it. Except in this case, it sounds like a censor too far. Spoils the record. Even in the early nineties, and entirely pointless on the single release which these days would have welcomed a ‘Parental Advisor’ label and especially since, he inconsistently says ‘bugger’ at the beginning of the fade out. The song is the theme song for a satire about organised religion after all.
Reason for keeping: In this rerecord, Idle slots in some solid new Python material during that fade out ‘It’s nearly the end of the record. You’ll be announcing another tune in a minute. Alright so your wife’s just run off with an Argentinean polo player. OK, so your husband just decamped with a baby sitter – and he’s from Norway. Alright so your team’s lost 15-0 to Barnett. It’s not the end of the world is it?’
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