July 3, 2010
Posted in Coffee!, New York | 1 Comment »
Tags: Coffee!, Café Grumpy, espresso, Porto Rico Importing Co., Intelligentsia, organic, Empire Coffee & Tea, Birch Coffee, McNulty Tea & Coffee, Peru
June 5, 2010
Posted in Coffee!, New York | 2 Comments »
Tags: NYT, NYC, computers, Coffee!, drinks, espresso, Guatemala, India, Stumptown, Nicaragua, Coffee Labs Roasters, Monsooned Malabar, Museum of Sex, Birch Coffee, Gershwin Hotel, Ace Hotel, Flatiron
May 29, 2010
For the longest time, lovers of single-origin high-end culinary coffee in the upper Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood have had to travel downtown for beans. Even this place is a bit far from the West 50s.
Now comes B. Koffie.
The new shop drew a fair amount of attention when it opened earlier this year as the first place to offer a disposable a French-press-to-go cup.
I went to see that and try it out, but I was more interested in the selection of single-origin beans, all imported from Africa.
The beans are sold in Mason jars, the ones made by the Ball Corp., the type that my parents used to use for canning preserves, sauces and pickles.
If you return the jar for a refill, you get a discount, the barista told me.
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Tags: NYC, Coffee!, espresso, French press, Rwanda, Africa, B. Koffie, Hell's Kitchen, XPress Cup, African coffee, Mason jar, FAEMA E61
May 16, 2010
A good coffee shop is all about atmosphere. And the atmosphere is one reason that I’ve tried to like the Joe Art of Coffee chain. They really make an effort.
Paintings and other one-of-a-kind art on the wall. Barista classes. Cute little signs describing bits of coffee lore. Cupping notes on the bags. The last time I sampled some beans here, very early in my coffee quest, I was disappointed. Lately Joe has been popping up on best-of lists, so it was long past time to give Joe another chance, and now I’m glad I did.
One important change: Joe has switched to a new roasting partner, Ecco Caffe in California, since my visit last year. A good roast makes all the difference. The retooling landed the shop on this best-of-New-York coffee list by The Times.
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Tags: Aeropress, Brazil, Coffee!, Ecco Caffe, espresso, Joe the Art of Coffee
April 29, 2010
From time to time, I have complained that Midtown lacks any good coffee, apart from the bitter, over-roasted offerings of the many Starbucks outlets. That’s not quite fair.
There is one exception that stands out in this wasteland: Empire Coffee & Tea, on Ninth Avenue, about a block north of the Port Authority.
I wandered over there on my lunch break not too long ago, had a latte and picked up some beans for home and the office.
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Posted in Coffee! | 3 Comments »
Tags: Aeropress, Africa, Barack Obama, Coffee!, Empire Coffee & Tea, espresso, NYC
April 4, 2010
I have a new device. No, not that device. Or that one. No, this is a Nespresso Aerocinno.
I saw one at a friend’s house on a trip to Los Angeles last winter. This thing is amazing. Usually I’m content to take my espresso or coffee straight, but every once in a while I want some foam and froth.
I have managed to steam and froth milk with various steam-shooting attachments on espresso machines over the years, but it was usually a big mess, and the results were mixed.
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Tags: Blogs, NYC, technology, Apple, computers, Coffee!, drinks, Café Grumpy, Novo, Pandora, Blogging, iPad, soy, foam, cappucino, Nespresso Aeroccino
April 3, 2010
Posted in New York, Paper & Ink, iPhone Apps | 3 Comments »
Tags: NYT, Books, comics, Apple, macs, Kindle, Posterous, ebooks, iPad, Collyer brothers, Kindle for iPad, iBooks
March 26, 2010
I don’t remember how I first came across the Aeropress, but as soon as I saw it, I wanted it. I had been looking for a way to make coffee — espresso in particular — in my office without creating a lot of mess. For the past few weeks, I have discovered that something like this is possible. No longer am I the slave to the stale, vaguely machine-flavored Illy served upstairs in the cafeteria or the over-roasted swill found in the Starbucks shops of Midtown Manhattan.
Using air pressure, the press extracts delicious “espresso” (not really) from two scoops of finely ground coffee. Top it off with hot water, and you have an Americano. So far I’ve had the best results with the Kenyan Gatomboya from Stumptown and the Novo Decaf Espresso carried by Cafe Grumpy. I heat the water to 175 degrees Farenheit using this Breville electric kettle, served up in these supposedly unbreakable glass mugs.
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Posted in Blogging, Coffee!, New York | 6 Comments »
Tags: Aeropress, Brazil, Breville electric kettle, Café Grumpy, Coffee!, decaf, drinks, espresso, Illy, Kenya, NYT, Starbucks
March 21, 2010
That was the first real winter we’ve had in New York City in a while, but I’m still glad to put the days of snow and winter jackets behind us. I’ve been engaged in a bit of apartment-organizing, having finally bit the bullet and paid for some storage space. There is some stuff we didn’t want underfoot but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. Some old computer equipment, some books, the comic collection from my misspent youth in the 1970s, my complete collection of Spy, furniture that we might put in a big summer house if we ever buy a big summer house. I fueled the weekslong effort with cups and shots of this coffee from Stumptown.
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Tags: NYC, Coffee!, drinks, espresso, Stumptown, Thumpology
One July weekend, I had the opportunity to combine two of my favorite activities — riding my bike through Manhattan and visiting new coffee shops.
Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village.
