fitzage.me

Faz also had some very cool coffee cups.

We went to this nice little Greek restaurant in San Francisco called Faz. When they brought out the coffee to go with my dessert, they brought genuine sugar cubes to go with it.

I stumbled across CoffeeFool the other day. I don’t remember where exactly I found out about it. I was intrigued by the front page, which made me think it was a website that would give me more information about home coffee roasting. Imagine my surprise when I found out this was a web retailer of roasted coffee.

Now I have no doubt that their coffee is fresher than the crap they serve at work, or the average stuff you get in a grocery store. Even fresher than the best stuff you can get in a grocery store. In fact, it’s quite possible fresher than what you’d get at Starbucks.

I also have no doubt that the coffee is nice and fresh when it’s put into the box to ship. The fact is, however, that by the time you wait for the coffee to ship (unless you’re willing to pony up more than the cost of the coffee for next-day shipping) the coffee isn’t going to be any more fresh than what you get at Starbucks. And it’s going to be more expensive, or at least very close in price.

Also, to be truly fresh, you’re going to have to order 12 oz at a time, and pay next day shipping every time. That adds up to over $35 per 12oz shipment. For that price you could buy unroasted Kona coffee or similar.

There are really only two ways to get super fresh coffee.

1. Buy it from a local, small batch roaster.
2. Roast it yourself.

The first option is much more expensive, but the second option takes some time, depending on the method you use. But if you truly want fresh coffee, don’t order roasted coffee online. Your taste buds will thank you.

I’ve added a couple of links to coffee roasting resources on the links page.

A number of months ago, due to the fact that my coffee roaster was getting less and less effective, I switched to an air popcorn popper instead. I thought that the fan must be dying on my roaster, because it wasn’t circulating the air well enough.

The coffee roasted in the air popper wasn’t as good, due to the fact that the roasting time was too fast (at least in the summertime) and there was no control over the temperature or time at each temperature. Basically the roasting curve was completely based on the current temperature, wind conditions, and whether or not I had the lid on.Today, as I was roasting, the fan stopped working on the popper. It would still get plenty hot, but no circulation of the coffee beans. I tried briefly to take it apart, but it had three screws that required a triangular driver, so into the trash it went.I turned back to my coffee roaster, cleaned it up a little bit, and tried it out. It worked even worse than I remembered. On a whim, when the cooling cycle was running, and the coffee was circulating very poorly even with the fan at full speed, I removed the lid. Immediately the coffee started circulating almost too well. Violently in fact. Encouraged by this new development, I decided that the lid must be dirtier than it looked and was blocking airflow. I could feel plenty of air coming out the top of the roaster, but evidently it was plugged in some areas.I inspected the lid more closely. To save myself the words to describe it, here’s a picture of the underside of the lid:

Caffeinated coffee is a health drink! More and more studies are coming out that show the many health advantages of caffeinated coffee. Some of these can be attributed to caffein alone, and some come from the coffee.

• May reduce the risk of suicide among women.
• Helps prevent gallstones and symptomatic gallbladder disease in men.
• Contains caffeine-related compounds (theophylline) that can alleviate the symptoms of asthma in some cases.
• Can increase alertness and prolong waking hours.
• May improve short-term recall.
• Promotes the effectiveness of certain migraine drugs.
• May reduce the risk of cirrhosis of the liver among heavy drinkers.
• May postpone muscle fatigue and thus enhance athletic performance and endurance.
• May protect against free radical damage to tissues - one study found that coffee has more antioxidant activity than red wine, green or black tea, or orange juice.
• May help prevent Parkinson’s by reducing the deposits in the brain that cause it.
• Acts as an anti-inflamatory (similar to Ibuprofen).

It is important to note, however, that if you overdo it, coffee can have risks as well. Just like many other things, you must take your coffee in moderation to give you the benefits and lower the risks. Most of these risks are only risks in large doses.

• Increases blood pressure among people with high blood pressure.
• Causes insomnia, anxiety, and irritability.
• May worsen symptoms of PMS in some women.
• Can reduce fertility in women trying to conceive.
• Can cause heartburn and indigestion.
• May increase the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
• May increase blood levels of homocysteine and the associated risk of cardiovascular disease.

Well, I'm at training in Minneapolis, as you should know if you've been keeping up. To my horror, this morning, I discovered that not only did the hotel I was at have normally bad hotel coffee, it was much worse than the average hotel coffee.

I think I'll have to go buy some from the store to use the handy dandy coffee maker in the room with, but for this morning I had to go find something i could drink.I looked online for a Starbucks, and tried to follow the directions to get there, but I never did find it. I eventually found a Krispy Kreme which has decent coffee, but I had to drive a few miles to get it. So, I was a little late to training, but that's okay since I wasn't the last one.

The moral of the story is, don't ever let yourself get stuck in a hotel without proper planning in the coffee area. You just can't trust them to have decent coffee anymore.For what it's worth, the rest of the Continental Breakfast wasn't too bad.