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@palafo: Is talking to people a waste of time? Sometimes it is, I guess. Twitter is a conversation. You get what you put into it. I don’t think talking to our readers is ever a waste of time.

That’s the short answer. Here’s the long one.

I view my Twitter account @palafo as part of my identity. It does not belong to The Times any more than my name does.

But The Times is part of my identity, too, because I am an editor here. For that reason, I behave on Twitter as I do in the newsroom or on a public panel. I try not to say anything on Twitter that I wouldn’t say in front of a live microphone with cameras rolling.

Background: I joined Twitter in 2007 when few people in the newsroom knew what Twitter was, and I didn’t hide my Times employment, but I didn’t advertise it at first, either. At the time, I was on the Metro desk, where I was editor of the City Room blog. We were always looking for ways to engage online with New Yorkers. The blog had an automated Twitter feed, but it had fewer followers than my account (still true, alas). It turns out that a personal touch on Twitter was more successful than spitting out headlines. So I identified myself on Twitter as the blog’s editor and started interacting with readers through it.

In my current job, editor for news presentation, I oversee copy editing and production for print and Web, and I continue to experiment with all the social media tools, including Twitter. I have a responsibility to understand the digital media innovations transforming journalism and the news business.

But I admit it: I love this stuff. I’ve been on the Internet since it was the Arpanet, when I was a teenager in the 1970s. Twitter reminds me of the computer bulletin boards, Usenet newsgroups and other online forums of the early days. The rest of the world has finally caught up.

Now, to your specific questions…

The Public Editor: What are the benefits to you of tweeting and what kind of content do you tweet?

I follow about 1,100 news organizations and blogs, competitors, Times colleagues and other journalists, people who follow the news closely, media critics, tech experts, some friends and acquaintances and anyone or anything anything else that catches my interest. I try to pare the list back from time to time. It was easier to follow when it was closer to 500. I also have a number of Twitter lists with even more accounts that I consult from time to time. I have a list that shows how Twitter looks to me.

These Twitter users “curate” the Web for me, which means they find, analyze and comment on useful links that interest me far more quickly than I could ever do for myself. If they link to something that grabs my attention, I will generally look at it or save it for later. I don’t read everything. I dip into Twitter when I have time. The analogy is a cocktail party. You can’t join every conversation, but you drift through the crowd and stop now and then. Important or significant news gets repeated, and it sometimes shows up in the trending topics.

Often I learn about news from Twitter. Your predecessor, Clark Hoyt, wrote about Twitter’s role in a big story in 2009 that was an aha moment for me and the newsroom, when a jetliner landed in the Hudson River.

But Twitter is more than a tip sheet or a place to find sources. It is important to remember the “social” part of social media.

Since the people on Twitter share so much useful information with me, I try to give back to them by interacting there. I don’t write about my lunch, or anything too personal. Mostly, I share links. The links are generally to news articles, blog posts, interesting uses of digital media, pictures, video, you name it. I follow our newsroom policies for personal Web writing, which permit journalism reflections, and lively commentary on one’s avocations like music and food, but forbid taking stands on divisive public issues.

I am not a Times spokesman or a marketer. I share a lot of our journalism on Twitter, because it is excellent. I don’t feel obligated to do so, and I don’t share everything. The article has to interest me personally as a reader and be something that I think my Twitter followers will like. People can tell when you are just randomly pumping your own stuff or your employer’s offerings. Luckily, Times journalism — I am biased about this — is almost always of a high caliber.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is asynchronous, so I am followed by about 10 times more people than I follow back. Sometimes they want to talk to me. So I read all “mentions” directed at me on Twitter. People know I’m busy, so they don’t abuse the opportunity. I ignore anonymous gripes, but people who use their real identities are generally polite even if they are upset about something The Times has done. If someone like that has a question, a correction, or a criticism, or a technical problem, I try to answer it or find someone who can.

The Public Editor: Do readers benefit and, if so, how? Does The Times benefit and how?

As everybody knows, over the last several years Twitter and social media have grown at a great rate, and many news sites, including The Times, now receive a growing amount of traffic from referrals on Twitter and other social media sites. Having our journalists on Twitter also translates into credibility with readers who live their lives online. It shows we understand the digital world and how it works.

More important, The Times and its readers benefit from a newsroom that understands digital culture and is familiar with the conversations about the news on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, blogs and similar sites.

The news report and readers also benefit from the news-gathering power of tools like Twitter. Brian Stelter has used Twitter to develop ideas that have turned into articles. Rob Mackey of The Lede blog (@thelede) has shown how news events from earthquakes to political revolutions have played out on Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms.

In general, sites like Twitter have accelerated news competition. Not all of the effects of high-speed social media have been positive. Rumors and bad information spread faster — but they are also debunked faster. The pressure to compete in real time, and the transparency and immediate feedback from readers can be nerve-racking and destabilizing. But competition is good for everyone. We are closer to our audience, and they are closer to us. That results in a better news report.

The Public Editor: Are there any costs to you, or the Times, of using Twitter as a tool? Surely, it takes time. Does that time subtract from the time available to do your job? Any other costs?

It doesn’t take away from the job. If anything, the job probably eats into many more hours of my personal time than it should. Or so my wife tells me.

Part of my job is to read The Times and its competitors, a task that could fill every hour of my day if I let it. Twitter is a useful tool for figuring out priorities for my attention. It doesn’t take that much time. At work, I use an iPhone app, and there’s always down time, walking down the hall, waiting for stragglers at a meeting, riding the elevator, while I’m grabbing a bite to eat. It only takes an extra second to save a link or share it. At home, I’ll look at Web sites and Twitter on my laptop, phone or iPad while I’m watching TV or listening to music, a podcast or an audiobook. I am busiest on Twitter at night and on weekends. The Web and Twitter have definitely cut into time I used to spend reading books.

Another cost is the occasional irritation of family and friends, although e-mail is a worse cause of inattention and wasted time. I’ve been trying harder lately to turn off devices and get off the grid away from work. It’s not easy. The people I know are like me: They talk about the news a lot, and they want to know the latest news, too.

###

Addendum: As I mentioned on Twitter, I might have chosen a different metaphor had I known the headline was going to be “A Cocktail Party With Readers.” The analogy is as old as Twitter, and useful for newbies, but it doesn’t capture everything:

[See also: Basic Twitter Tips for Journalists.]

The article is reprinted below, with permission (My favorite line: “Some people believe the Web or some future souped-up version of it will transform society. Others think the accent in ‘hypertext’ should be on ‘hype.’”) The series was later archived on the paper’s rudimentary Web site (logo at above left), a precursor to the now-thriving YDR.com. That site was pushed into the world a bit early, thanks to some bad weather.

Design of the York Digital Record had been proceeding with slow deliberation around the time the series was written. Then, on Jan. 9, 1996, a blizzard paralyzed the region, and The Daily Record couldn’t deliver papers (the state ordered all vehicles off the highways and local roads were impassable). I rushed the “York Digital Record” online with summaries of snow emergency information. A week later, the snow melted and ice blocked the Susquehanna River. which overflowed its banks. We posted flood updates online too. Traffic was in the high three figures, and we were pleased. We began publishing a daily headline and selected articles. I would update the site at midnight at the end of my shift as night city editor, after we put the print edition to bed.

The following year, in early 1997, The Times hired me as a print copy editor. I was disappointed that the Web operation was separate, in another building, with almost no regular contact with the newspaper staff. That has changed considerably, thank goodness.

In York, thanks to the march of progress and efforts of smarter people with design ability who came after me, YDR.com is a lot prettier and newsier. The hideous original (oh, those frames!) is partly preserved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. If you click around in “Our Back Pages,” you can find reports on the 1996 blizzard and flood, articles about the local band Live and the archive of our explanatory series “Untangling the Web” from December 1995. Here’s part one, presented for your historical amusement.

What Is This Thing Called the Web?

Once on line, it’s easy for Internet travelers to enter this growing cyberspace neighborhood and find York County connections

By Patrick LaForge Daily Record staff

A year ago, most people unfamiliar with computers had never heard of the World Wide Web. Something to do with the Internet, whatever that is, right?

Now TV commercials sport Web addresses, and mainstream magazines review new sites. Students use the Web for homework, and job hunters scan ads on it. Politicians use it to campaign for president, and Congress spends hours debating whether it poses a threat to children.

Some people believe the Web or some future souped-up version of it will transform society. Others think the accent in “hypertext” should be on “hype.” Over the next several days, the Daily Record will offer a guide to this high-tech world, with a look at some places of special interest to York County.

Live connection

One Web site in particular has put York on computer screens around the world, with some help from the city’s chart-topping rock band.

Last year, Jimmy Lang noticed one of his favorite bands didn’t have a place on the Web where fans could go for information.

The 24-year-old network engineer for Cerfnet, a San Diego-based Internet provider, happened to have a friend who worked for Live’s booking agent.

He struck a deal with the boys from York — he would set up a Live site in return for free concert tickets. He and his girlfriend, Meg Jahnke, a 24-year-old Cerfnet network specialist, set it up in their spare time. More than a year later, Lang has been to 19 Live shows across the country, and the band’s site (http://live.cerf.net) has taken off in popularity.

The site features interviews, lyrics, photographs, sound and video samples, tour dates and more. Band members even answer fan questions through an e-mail newsletter, Straight Out of York.

“A lot of fans do not get a chance to go to shows or go backstage or talk to them directly,” Lang said. This gives them a chance to do that. “People who don’t know the band can go to the site and get a sound sample.”

The growth of the Live site has paralleled the growth on the Web. In October 1994, when the page went up, 904 people visited it. At the peak of the 1995 Live tour a year later, Lang said, as many as 10,000 people were hitting the page each month.

Read the FAQ

Like many Web sites, the Live page has a file called a FAQ that contains answers to “frequently asked questions” about the band.

The Web itself has many FAQs and guides that offer more details once you’re on line. One of the best is a student guide kept at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business Administration. Some basic information from that and similar documents follows.

The Web is part of a network of computer networks called the Internet that links 20 million to 39 million computer users in 50 countries.

People use the Internet to send and receive electronic mail, chat or post messages to each other, access archives and transfer software and other files. Most people access the Internet through local or national services, called providers. Most services range from $10 to $20 per month.

In mid-1989, CERN, a European particle-physics laboratory, started the World Wide Web to transfer multimedia information text, graphics, sound and primitive video to the international research community.

Average computer owners didn’t start getting on the Web until commercial software for using it became widely available during the past two years.

The Web consists of computers called servers that store documents called pages. At a site, the “home page” is the first document you see. It connects you to other pages.

Storing information are more than 135,000 servers operated by universities, research centers, major corporations, individuals and kitchen-table businesses.

Each server has a specific Internet address. Users navigate the Web with software called browsers, chief among them Netscape and Mosaic. The programs use a computer’s modem to connect with the Internet through a telephone line.

Surf and crawl

In a world where many people still can’t program a VCR, the Web still isn’t a user-friendly paradise. You need to know the basics: How to set up a modem, how to operate basic computer software like Windows or the MacIntosh desktop, and how to work a mouse.

Once you are on line, navigation is pretty simple. You can bring files to your screen in two ways:

–By typing the Universal Resource Locator. Every Web page has a unique URL that starts with the letters “http://” that’s short for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Browsers can also view documents that do not use hypertext.

–By clicking with the computer mouse on a link in a Web page that points to the address of another document.

–Web pages are written in Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, which allows text to appear in various colors and sizes. The language can also be used to embed graphics or sound and video files in the page.

The browser also stores the links you’ve hit, leaving a trail of electronic bread crumbs that you can follow back and forth from each page you visit (It’s common for users to find themselves flying off on tangents from link to link.)

Wait a minute, or two

Even with a powerful computer, a fast modem, up-to-date software and a first-rate Internet provider, connections to other servers and pages can be slow, especially if they have a lot of pictures and graphics.

Lang, the designer of the Live site, said the biggest problem is that some providers simply do not have enough telephone lines for the amount of information going back and forth. This capacity is called “bandwidth.”

“If you’re a user on one of these providers, you’ll notice a lot of sluggishness. Things are slow, they don’t work,” Lang said. “That’s because they’re selling four or five on-ramps a week, and it’s only a 10-lane freeway. You’re just going to have a big parking lot, really. You have to stay ahead of the people who are coming on line.”

Adam Viener, a partner in Cyberia Communications Inc., a York County provider of direct Internet access, agreed that’s part of the problem.

“We’re adding about five lines a month to keep up with it,” he said.

Viener said things could speed up quite a bit next year when GTE begins offering Integrated Services Digital Network lines. For now, York County lags behind other parts of the country.

Better hardware and a good Internet connection can only do so much, though. Often the problem is with the site a user is trying to reach, he said.

The server at the other end may be down for maintenance, which could leave you waiting for an answer, or it might have inadequate lines or hardware.

Home pages — particularly those put up by hobbyists — suffer from programming problems or go off line without warning. And sometimes a site’s popularity spells its doom: Servers have been known to shut down pages that get too much traffic and interfere with other operations.

Viener predicted these problems would be solved as the Web matures. The sites that are going to be successful are the ones that run properly and quickly, he said.

[Copyright 1995 by The York Daily Record. Used with permission.]

A friend from Pennsylvania forwarded this Craiglist job ad. If you’re interested, hurry before it expires.

So many questions: What is the business in June 1983? Perhaps a modest investment in Apple Computer. The need for a cat sitter could be avoided by returning on the same day, but perhaps time that passes in the past must be accounted for somehow. A two-day job, then. I have to assume “circumference” of the head was intended. The average circumference of the human head is reportedly 57 cm, based on a Web page I pulled up at random. Do you have to climb through some kind of porthole? Or wear a special helmet? Will you have to lift the time machine? Perhaps to hide it.

Seriously, though, most cats can get through a couple of days alone with a bowl of dry food and water.

Nixon was the president of my childhood. This explains something about my view of authority. http://nyti.ms/hvIyoKSat Dec 11 19:29:34 via EchofonPatrick LaForge
palafo

Jane is promoting her second chapbook, “Half-Life,” from Big Table Publishing. It is drawn on experiences with cancer in her family (her mother died in November 2009 and her sister in July 2010, while many of these poems were being written and revised). (I wrote last year about Jane’s first chapbook, “After Voices,” now in its second printing, about growing up with a deaf father.)

About the other writers: Lisa Marie Basile has published a chapbook, “White Spiders,” and her full-length poetry collection, “A Decent Voodoo,” will come out in 2012. (She’s on Twitter.) Britt Gambino’s work has appeared in anderbo.com and DecomP. Jim Meirose is the author of “Crossing the Trestle,” a new collection of fiction from Burning River.

All will read from their work from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, at a free event at Sparks Art Center, 161 West 22nd St., in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan (just off Seventh Avenue, handy to No. 1 train). The art space is under the green awning in a building shared with a tile shop (the former Sparks Cafe).

Books will be available for purchase, and a quick reception with the authors will follow the readings. You can also order copies of Jane’s book here.

The tasting notes: “Red currant aroma. Floral brightness. Sweet notes of aged bourbon & molasses.” The Cup of Excellence rewards barista skill, of course, but you have to start with a good bean, and this far exceeded my expectations. I was parceling out beans like bits of gold on mornings with important business.

I also returned to a couple of standbys — Grumpy’s Heartbreaker espresso, always right on the money, and the house espresso at Joe the Art of Coffee. In my office, I used the Aeropress to make cups of another Honduran bean, Finca La Tina from Joe, with good results.

I have noticed a few new coffee shops opening their doors around Manhattan, so I hope to try a few new places. Alas, B. Koffie, home of the French press in a cup, closed its doors a while back, so Hell’s Kitchen again lacks a boutique coffee experience. (The beans came from La Columbe.)

My family was traveling elsewhere, and New York had not yet fallen into the drippy hot torpor that has marked recent days. I rode down the west side a bit, diverted to to the Hudson River trail, then passed through TriBeCa, Chinatown, SoHo and my old East Village stomping grounds before chugging up the East Side — a loop of sorts.

I made a pass by La Colombe Torrefaction, but I had already tried beans from there via B. Koffie, so I decided to check out Kaffe 1668, one of the shops highlighted in The Times a couple of months ago.

Coffee Guatemala Antigua Los Volcanes

Purchased July 3 at Kaffe 1668, 275 Greenwich St., TriBeCa.

Roasted on June 27 by Plowshares Coffee Roasters of Hillburn, N.Y.

Description Creamy body; delicate, clean acidity; milk chocolate and orange citrus; smooth, sweet, dry finish.

In the cup I picked out this particular coffee because I had not tried anything from this roaster before. In the shop, I had a coffee brewed expertly by the cup in a Clover press. That was a Panama variety from Denver-based Novo. Full bodied, and smooth, with a milk chocolate flavor, this coffee was delicious, as anything brewed in an $11,000 machine should be. I drank it hot, because that’s how I like coffee, though it would have been a good day for cold brew, which was also available.

The shop, located across from a Whole Foods, adds some style and ambiance to an otherwise mall-like block of sterility downtown. The front opens out on the street, and there are interesting light fixtures and a communal wood table, where I sat. I was able to lock my bike within view on a low fence around a tree, and there was more ample bike parking across the street near the Whole Foods.

There’s free WiFi with your purchase, which I used to browse the shop’s Web site, with its entertaining cartoons. As best I can tell, Kaffe 1668 doesn’t have its own roaster, but features beans from Intelligentsia and other high-end roasters like Novo.

I left with a bag of this Guatemalan strapped to my bike. The bag itself is an impressive bit of green-ish technology, made from paper with a ziplock that can be resealed.

Plowshares, which has an excellent Web site, gives this description: “Los Volcanes coffee is grown in the valley’s rich volcanic soils that were formed by the three volcanoes (Agua, Acatenango, Fuego)… Most of the coffee here is cultivated at 1,500 – 1,700 meters above sea level which helps gives this coffee a pronounced acidity that is clean but not overpowering.” The Antigua valley is a prime coffee growing region about 40 kilometers from the city of that name in Guatemala, according to Plowshares. The beans with this name come from 34 growers who banded together in a cooperative in 2000.

I have been drinking a regular cup or two brewed at home every morning for the last couple of weeks. I don’t have any complaint about it, but it hasn’t been bowling me over. It does pass my no-milk test, which means it is not overly acidic to my taste. The citrus didn’t overwhelm me, which is sometimes a complaint I have with the single-origin coffees promoted by many coffee aficionados. It is remarkably light-bodied and smooth, which is good on these sweltering days, though I tend to prefer a fuller flavor and more than a trace of chocolate.

Still, it was well worth the ride.

Since I am still dabbling with social media, I also documented this trip on Foursquare and Posterous. And now I am promoting this WordPress blog post on Facebook and Twitter. On some level, I suppose this is a longer, multi-platform version of the classic Twitter update, “I am eating a sandwich.”

(Yes, I am drinking a cup of coffee.)

I try not to be that guy, but it’s getting harder.

Coffee Organic Peruvian French Roast

Purchased June 19 at McNulty’s Tea & Coffee, 109 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village

In the cup Despite its prominence in Zagat ratings and elsewhere, I was not familiar with this shop when I stumbled upon it quite by chance a couple of weeks ago, on my way with my family to hear a friend read his flash fiction at the Path Cafe (also a neat little place; Christopher Street has a lot of them). I ordered a half pound of chocolate-covered peanuts — delicious — and a half-pound of this coffee.

McNulty’s — a retailer, not really a place to drink coffee — seems to have steadfastly resisted the modern trend of sharing every little secret with its customers. The Web site makes much of its history (founded in 1895), the old time feel of the shop, the exotic mystery of imported products: “Immediately upon entering the shop, one’s senses are delighted by the many aromas of coffees and teas from around the world. Sacks of coffee and chests of tea with obscure markings from far away lands are visible everywhere. Even the bins, chests, and scales, with which these products are stored and handled, date back to the previous century.”

The service was polite, if a bit distracted, and my impression was that more effort was devoted to displays of tea than coffee. My beans (and the chocolate-covered nuts) were weighed in the old-fashioned scale.

I inquired about the roaster and was told with a shrug that the shop used an unnamed roaster in Long Island City, Queens. Presumably the beans had been roasted recently.

Many coffee sellers now offer tasting notes as florid and adjective-rich as wine descriptions, but there was none of that at McNulty’s. The country of origin was listed, and in some cases beans were described as organic or free trade. No details were offered about the specific growers. I didn’t realize how hooked I have become on knowing this information, even though I am not an expert who can make useful judgments based on it.

This is in some respects just a difference in marketing. A place like McNulty’s relies on the mystery and mystique of foreign lands. A roaster like Intelligentsia and shops Stumptown andCafe Grumpy appeal to a different type of consumer.

This type of customer is obsessed — perhaps too much so — with authenticity. For these consumers, coffee is no longer an exotic product arriving by ship from third-world places with unusual names. Knowing the details of origin improves the taste. Coffee is also a product with a politics, a mix of foreign policy, economics and environmentalism. Knowing something about how it arrived in the cup is important to some people.

So how was the Organic Peruvian French Roast? It was merely O.K. Maybe I picked the wrong bean. I’ve been drinking this as a regular Americano for the most part. Light in the mouth, maybe a bit of a citrus kick at the end, some bitterness, a trace of nuts — hard to say for sure, I’m not a coffee taster. It was not captivating, but not overpowering, either. Just coffee. I guess I’m looking for something more interesting these days. Data.

Inside Third Rail Coffee at 240 Sullivan St. in Greenwich Village.

This is a quickie coffee post, dashed off while watching the U.S.-England World Cup match and discussing the propriety of promiscuously using “tweet” in news articles.

First, a word about B. Koffie‘s Yirgacheffe and Kenya French Mission offerings. Kudos to La Columbe, the roaster. I sampled the latter and refilled my Mason jar with the former on a May 29 visit. Both were tasty and in line with the descriptions on the boards.

Read my earlier post about this Hell’s Kitchen shop, a relative newcomer to the neighborhood.

On June 6, I found myself near Washington Square Park for the Wrs. orld Science Fair and in need of coffee. It was a short walk to Third Rail Coffee, which offers beans from Intelligentsia, one of my favorite roasters.

A friend encouraged me to try the “cold brew,” a form of iced coffee (Stumptown offers it too, but I haven’t tried it). To brew coffee this way, you soak the beans overnight in room-temperature water. Some say cold brew — also known as “cold press” coffee — is less acidic and easier on the stomach, while others seem to think it offers a bigger caffeine punch.

I drink hot coffee year-round, but I’m not above switching to iced coffee at this time of year. I’ll probably have to try cold brew again. It was delicious, but this one experience was not enough for me to conclude anything.

Third Rail is a cute shop, comfortable, humming with traffic (see the photo at the top of the post). This was my first visit, and I expect I’ll be back.

The coffee scene is taking off in New York. (I am slowly making my way down the list of top coffee shops in that TImes article; see my post on Birch Coffee.) It’s going to be a great summer.

The decor gave me a warm feeling right away. True, you’re not going to find a half-dozen varieties of obscure single origin coffees from as many countries, as you would a couple of blocks away, but there are chairs and stools, something Stumptown eschews. And food. And wine. And beer. And a lending library upstairs.

Coffee Birch Blend

Purchased June 4 at Birch Coffee, 7 E. 27th St. (between Fifth and Madison Avenues), Flatiron District

Roasted Within the week by Coffee Labs Roasters of Tarrytown, N.Y.

Description “A well-balanced cup with pleasant smokey walnut undertones, and milk chocolate dipped cherries accompanied by a refined finish.” A blend of Nicaraguan, Guatemalan and Indian monsooned Malabar coffees.

In the Cup Birch offered just three coffees — the signature blend described above, “Emma’s espresso” and a decaf. A simple user experience with limited choices, as if Steve Jobs had designed it.

I started with a shot of the espresso, which was served in the thick, muddy style that has become fashionable.

It was a perfectly fine, with a nutty flavor, and the advertised bittersweet chocolate, with more emphasis on the bitter than the sweet. Then I had a cup of the Birch Blend (no milk), which was a revelation.

Perhaps I had been primed at that point by the cozy atmosphere, but it was a sublime cup of coffee. It certainly delivered a smokey something, in a smooth and light package with chocolate behind it, no bitterness, and a gentle finish. I was ready to buy a T-shirt and move into the library.

As at most high-end coffee shops in New York that take service seriously, the baristas here are fast, friendly and polite, and the owner himself happened to wait on me when I asked to buy beans, telling me the details about the blend and roast. (No special treatment: On trips like this, I never identify myself as anything more than just a customer who likes coffee, which is what I am.)

Before this, I had not focused my attention on “Monsooned Malabar” coffee, one type of bean in the blend.

The name refers to a practice on the West Coast Malabar section of India, where beans are exposed to monsoon winds repeatedly during the curing process. The humidity helps to create a distinctive flavor, including a hint of chocolate, according to various sources.

These coffees are said to be more potent and pungent, sharper, than other Indian coffees, which tend to be mellow. But in this case, thanks perhaps to the Latin American beans, there’s no trace of overpowering flavors in the Birch Blend.

The result is something special.

A day later, I am at home, polishing off this blog post and an Americano made from the blend, wishing Birch Coffee happened to be closer to my usual daily travels and thinking of reasons to head back to the neighborhood. (Well, it is a couple of doors down from the Museum of Sex.)

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.

Coffee Rwanda Rwabisindu

Purchased May 16 at B. Koffie, 370 West 51st St., between 8th and 9th Avenue, closer to 9th.

Description According to the hand-lettered chalkboard (pictured): “Chocolate tones, jasmine, fruit and nuts.”

In the Cup: This was a smooth, rich and delicious coffee, prepared as an espresso and an Americano at home. It seemed fresh, though I don’t know the roaster or roasting date, or the precise origin, presumably a cooperative associated with the Rwabisindu washing station. I was in a hurry on my visit, so I forgot to ask about those details, and they were not posted.

[Update: I was told on a later visit that the beans were imported and roasted by the Philadelphia-based La Columbe Torrefaction, which also has its own shop in SoHo.]

The little shop on West 51st Street is easy to miss on the south side of the street. When I visited, there was no sign out front, the overhang said something about an electronics shop, and I almost walked by. Inside, there are no seats, but the decor is pleasing, and the staff was patient and helpful.

According to the shop’s Web site, B. Koffie was created by Tanya Hira and her partner Roberto Passon. The Xpress lid is a clever gimmick, a disposable contraption designed by Jeff Baccetti of Smartcup.

The barista put the ground coffee in the bottom and poured in the piping hot water. I waited four minutes and then pushed the plunger down until it clicked.

This results in a considerably fresher cup of coffee than something that has been sitting around the shop.

And I mean it about the piping hot part — I walked several blocks before the cup was cool enough to drink.

I think I still prefer the precision that a skilled barista can get from a Clover, and I generally don’t mind the wait. When I go back, I think I’ll try an espresso pulled from the shop’s FAEMA E61 espresso maker, which seems to be a fetish object for some coffee geeks.

But the real reason to visit B. Koffie is the coffee, of course. And now that the Mason jar is empty, it’s time to take a stroll over for a refill. (Update: I did just that and also gave the French press cup another try, with a smooth and smoky Ethiopian Yergacheffe that satisfied].

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.

Coffees Brazil Serra do Bone, Brazil Fazenda Sertãozinho and Seasonal House Blend

Roasted Late April by Ecco Caffe

Purchased May 3 at Joe the Art of Coffee, 405 West 23rd St.

In the cup Ah, Brazil. When it comes to old school coffee, I’ve come to think there’s nothing like beans from Brazil. Cue the Sinatra. “They put coffee in the coffee in Brazil.”

On the morning I visited, the featured coffee was from Brazil, the Serra de Bone.

The tasting note said: “Malted chocolate and praline with a balanced acidity and a creamy, caramel finish to yield an approachable cup.” It was so delicious and amazing that it didn’t even bother me that one guy was sprawled with stuff across all three chairs in the window of the shop.

I decided to go heavy on the Brazilian flavors with the two bags of beans that I bought.

The seasonal house blend (Mogiana from Brazil, Tingo Maria from Peru) lived up to its tasting notes: “Cocoa-nosed sweetness with lovely tones of brown sugar and a lingering honey finish for an elegant and approachable cup.”

That’s a description right up my alley, and this didn’t disappoint me. For the past couple of weeks, I made this at home as both espresso and Americanos.

At the office, using my Aeropress, I have been enjoying the Fazenda Sertãozinho.

The bag described it as “drenched in rich, dark chocolate. Tons of sugarcane, caramel, Satsuma tangerine, honey, vanilla and malted milk imbue this with an elegant and approachable sweetness.” I didn’t pick up much tangerine, but this is accurate.

Another nice thing about my Joe experience: The bags are generous with 12 ounces of beans, and not overpriced — generally $11 to $13 per bag.

Maybe I got lucky. Maybe the tasting notes were spot-on (despite the overuse of “approachable.”) Maybe I should thank Ecco Caffe or the nation of Brazil.

But it is rather rare for me to buy three coffees in one place and like them all.

Of the three, I like the Fazenda Sertãozinho best, and wish I had some at home right now. Alas, the bag is sitting in a cupboard in the office.

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.

Coffees Columbian Supreme Italian espresso and Obama Blend

Roasted Late March or early April.

Purchased April 5 at Empire Coffee & Tea, 568 Ninth Avenue, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.

Description The espresso was recommended to me as rich and full bodied but not too strong. The Obama sign said it was a “smooth, hopeful, confident blend of African, Indonesian and Hawaiian coffees.”

In the cup I had no idea that Empire had such a long history until I started researching this post. A worker at the store, when I asked if the beans were fresh, said his owner had roasted them upstate that week, and that the outfit had only one other store, in Hoboken. Its Web site claims the shop has been on Ninth Avenue for more than 90 years — since 1908.

The staff was quite polite and helpful. There was a wide selection. I was put off a little by the storage of the beans in open bags so close to the door. A friend of mine worries about dust and grime from Ninth Avenue settling on the open bags. But that strikes me as overly finicky. I’m sure that any growing, roasting and drying operation would give a consumer pause.

But if you’re expecting precise labels listing roasting dates, the names of the plantations, precise varieties, growing elevation and other particulars of the coffee origins, you won’t find it at this shop. The prices are certainly more economical than the high-toned coffee snob shops downtown. For the same price you pay for a sealed, light bag at some outfits, you can get a generous pound of beans here.

I had the shop grind the Obama for use in the Aeropress, and have been enjoying it in my office for most of the month, just running out the other day. The name is a bit gimmicky, but it sounded like an interesting blend, and I found it to be a pleasing, rich flavor, smooth and not at all acidic.

I took the Columbian espresso home as whole beans, where I enjoyed it each morning. It was a smooth, rich, satisfying, relatively mild coffee, just right for my taste.

I’m glad I remembered this place was there, and I’ll certainly be stopping back.

There’s a glut out of them out there.

And I’m not a tech reviewer. I’m a gadget nut, so feel free to discount my enthusiasm by the appropriate percentage. After all, I did pre-order this thing sight unseen so it could be delivered on Day One.

So this post will be impressionistic, just some notes on my first week with the device.

First: It’s fast. Snappy. It makes the iPhone and the iPod Touch seem slow. It makes a Macbook seem slow.

Second: The battery life is amazing. You don’t even think about the battery. I plug it it in every night, and have used it heavily many days. It has never dropped below 50 percent.

Remarkable for an Apple product: It doesn’t get hot — unlike my Macbook Air, or my iPhone, which can get uncomfortable to the touch and sluggish with heavy use. I have often thought that Steve Jobs was trying to brand me with his products. No more.

A negative: At a pound a half, it’s kind of heavy. Not as heavy as a MacBook Air or a Thomas Pynchon hardback, but heavier than a Kindle. The answer to this problem is the Apple case. I like it. It’s simple and functional. You can hold it like a book. You can prop it at an angle. You can stand it up like a little TV, a far better experience than watching movies on a laptop or a desktop computer.

Another negative: In bright daylight, reflections can be distracting if you’re trying to read or watch something. And it shows every fingerprint. I don’t imagine using it in sunlight all that much.

Something I didn’t expect: The photo frame function is great. I put thousands of pictures on the iPad. Then I just prop it up on the mantle and let it shuffle through them. I’ve never enjoyed having everyone crowd around the computer to look at pictures, and showing them on the TV involves too much rigmarole. This is more akin to paging through hard-copy photo albums.

Not entirely Apple’s fault: Some apps are crashy or lack obvious features. You can’t turn off Twitterrific‘s bird noises. Tweetdeck’s beta won’t let you click on links in tweets. What! (Update: This may have been fixed in recent days.) The ABC app crashed, but seems better after an update. That one has a touch of evil. You can pause and fast-forward/rewind programs, but not the commercials. I flash back to pre-TiVo days, plan my bathroom trips around them. Still, it’s not as crashy as the original iPhone was after third-party apps started showing up.

Public use: I remember when I first got an iPhone, and a Kindle. I felt self-conscious taking them out on the subway. For one thing, while crime is down, you have to be a little nervous riding underground with a $700 piece of hardware. It’s a bit nerve-racking to think about taking it out, feeling eyes on me. That’s not my thing. I like to be left alone in public. I can’t wait until everyone has one of these things, or something like it. And they will.

Mostly I expect to use this at home and on long trips. For that reason, I didn’t really need the 3G version, and the lack of connectivity outside WiFi-enabled locations has not been a problem. In New York, WiFi is rarely far away.

Something else I didn’t expect: I didn’t think I would listen to music on the iPad, but I’ve surprised myself. First of all, the speaker is great, so it makes a nice little radio. I can play things for my wife without using the computer or the stereo or the Apple TV, and I’m not isolated by my headphones. So it’s a great way to share NPR or Pandora or whatever I have on the device. I also listen to music or podcasts on the headphones while web surfing. It’s a lot easier than juggling a second device, an iPod or an iPhone, for the music. But the lack of multitasking is a negative here: I’d like to be able to see what’s playing at a glance, or pause it, without exiting my app.

About some apps: My employer’s app, Editor’s Choice [iTunes link], is beautiful, but it should allow link sharing through Facebook or Twitter and have more content. But reading the paper on Safari for iPad is great, so it doesn’t really matter, I guess. And I do give credit to Apple for having the Amazon Kindle app on the iPad from day one. All my Kindle books, many of them untouched since my Kindle died, are there. I keep it next to the iBooks app. Amazon has the better selection and prices, and you can make notes in the app. The iBooks app and store has some cooler flourishes and feels better designed (the page-turning illusion is cool). E-book reading was my main reason for getting the iPad now as opposed to waiting for a future model.

The good news is that many iPhone apps, like iChess, work and look just fine with the pixel-doubling function.

Money grab?: It’s annoying that some developers have decided to charge a second time for the iPad versions of apps I own for the iPhone. If you make a good one, I’ll buy your other apps. Or give me a free trial version at least. And Time magazine — $4.99 for a single issue, in an app that only works once? Give me a break. Another magazine app, Zinio, has a free selection, but it’s a bit awkward to navigate.

An annoyance: I don’t know if it’s a bug or not, but I get tired of entering my iTunes password every time I open the iBooks app or the iTunes store. Other people don’t report this problem, so maybe it’s just me. The whole iTunes tethering business has been criticized in many reviews. Why do you need to hook the iPad up to a computer to get it started? Seems like a ploy to get iTunes downloaded onto PCs or to sell Macs. And why can’t I just move documents and other user files directly from my computer or network without ramping up iTunes? (Yes, I know, there are apps for that — I like Readdledocs, which just released an iPad version.)

A third thing I didn’t expect: YouTube is back in my life. I was never one to surf around the site. I usually only go there with a link. The iPhone app was cool, but it crashed a lot, and the video was too small. The iPad is the perfect device for YouTube. The videos are just the right size. It’s not as crashy as the phone. I spent an evening lost in the site. In general, it’s a great device for video.

I’ve spent a lot of time streaming Netflix and watching TV. I’ve watched three shows on the ABC app, and skimmed comics on several of the comic applications. It’s a cool experience, but I don’t think I’ll buy many comics this way. It’s not the same as owning the art.

Bottom line: Is this a laptop replacement? Definitely not. Even if I get the keyboard stand or the bluetooth keyboard, it is hard to imagine writing long memos, blog posts or articles on this, or editing them. Perhaps I might get used to it, but from what I hear I expect it will be odd to have to use the screen as a touch-mouse while editing with an external keyboard. I still prefer the visibility of a larger screen for actual work.

I also like the ability to switch between a photo app, files and the document I’m writing. Even when multitasking is added in the fall with the new operating system, it is hard to imagine that being satisfactory except when I’m on the run. Having to sync Keynote or text documents through iTunes also seems like a hassle. Yes, I know there are ways to do some wireless document sharing, printing and storage on the cloud. But it seems complicated for big projects and day to day use.

Is this a phone replacement? No, it’s too big, and I didn’t get the 3G. There are apps that will let you make calls over the Internet, and I could imagine this as a Skype device, but there’s no camera, front-facing or otherwise.

Is this a Kindle replacement? Yes. Reading on it is superior, and you don’t need a booklight.

What I’m finding is that I am migrating certain functions to the iPad. Some things are simply not all that comfortable on a laptop — watching video, playing casual games. My daughter loves the Phineas and Ferb game for the iPad, above.

It’s fun to curl up on a couch or in bed with this thing. I’ve done that with a laptop, which is a bit awkward, and with my phone, which is a squinting experience much of the time.

I wish my laptop did email the way the mail app on the iPad does it. It’s a better interface, and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on a computer.

The iPad is better for using Twitter than either a laptop or a phone — the touch interface and the size of the screen makes it an immersed experience.

The third-party developers just need to fix their apps; once Tweetdeck has links, this will be my main device for using Twitter. The large, touch-based experience is superior to the computer and the iPhone.

Ultimately, though, it’s a toy, not a work device, at least for me. Do you need one? That’s a bit like asking, do you need a flat-screen TV? No, you don’t need a flat-screen TV, or any TV. Do you need to buy books? No, not really. You don’t have to read newspapers or surf the Internet, either. And there are plenty of ways to do all of those things without owning an iPad.

But sooner or later, I suspect, you will see an iPad (or a device like it) doing something you love in a better way than you are doing it now. And it will be cheaper than it is now.

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.

And try as I might, I could never get soy milk to froth at all, which was sad for my wife, who doesn’t use dairy but likes a decaf cappucino every now and then.

So my family gave me one of these for my birthday last month.

It’s a revelation. It purrs quietly. It whisks up some hot (or cold) foam in a matter of seconds. It is easy to clean up. And it works fine with soy milk.

I’m drinking a fine soy cap right now, listening to a Pandora station on my new iToy and writing this post.

Mmm, creamy and foamy.

The iPad can’t do that!

But I have another problem. I’ve run out of coffee. And that takes me to this week’s selection — the last drop is going down the hatch.

Coffee Monserrate, Huila, Columbia

Roasted March 14 by Café Grumpy in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Purchased March 16 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Hazelnut aroma, butterscotch sweetness, smooth body and ripe red apple brightness. Caturra & Typica. Washed, sun-dried. Producer: Grupo Asociativo Productores del Nuevo Milenio”

In the cup This is a perfectly fine but ultimately undistinguished coffee in my mind, but I’ll admit to being a little distracted this week. I’ve had it at home in the Jura and at work in the Aeropress (it is better than the previous selection for that). I’ve never been a big Hazelnut fan, associating it with the worst sort of break-room or gas-station coffee. This is nothing like that flavored stuff. It is just a hint. The butterscotch sweetness and smooth mouthfeel saves the whole thing. And of course, much of the time I have been drowning it in foam and milk, so I can’t really be trusted to give it a fair assessment. I do love the Aerocinno.

One note: A small amount of milk is enough to make foam for a few drinks, so it’s good to have company when you use it. I will have to experiment before I learn to draw little pictures in the cup the way pro baristas do.

So I just made this cappuccino and a decaf latte for my wife (using the Novo decaf — sure, we have plenty of that left). We’re listening to Pandora’s iPad app play a Phish song (“Contact”) while I blog this (on my MacBook Air — I don’t see the tablet working for my workflow even on this simple blog, which still requires simple picture uploads and easy typing, but I’ll discuss the iPad’s limitations in a future post).

I guess I’ll have to tear myself away from my new toy(s) and ride my bike to get some more beans today.

While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and “why can’t I do that, Mr. Jobs” revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.

At some point I’ll list the pros and cons. But I’m done with the posting and tweeting today. I doubt there’s much new that I could say about it.

Technology isn’t my beat, so I’ll leave the iPad news and reviews to my colleagues at Bits. (Here’s an earlier post about how I made the purchase decision.)

For me, the iPad is first and foremost a book and media reader. My Kindle died a while back. I expect to make heavy use of not only the native iBooks reader but the Kindle for iPad reader [iTunes download], and a variety of customized apps from newspapers, magazines and comic companies, including this new app from The New York Times [free iTunes download].

I also expect this device to be good for casual gaming and for watching movies and TV, as well as casual Web surfing. It doesn’t seem like a work device to me. It’s more of a toy.

And if you wonder why I need a book reader, just look at this picture below. I have six more like that in our tiny Manhattan apartment. I do not want to be a latter-day Collyer brother.

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.

Coffee Fazenda Chapadão de Ferro (Patrocínio, Cerrado Region, Brazil)

Roasted March 14 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased March 16 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Juicy and sweet cup with notes of vanilla, almonds and milk chocolate. Tropical fruit brightness & a floral finish. Award-winning farm rich with volcanic soil owned by Ruvaldo Delarisse.”

In the Cup This is a fine coffee, though it has those floral and fruit finishes that sometimes annoy me (it’s a personal thing). It was tolerable as an espresso at home in the Jura automatic machine, but I was less impressed with this bean in the Aeropress. (Update: I should also note that fans of the Aeropress have found some better ways to prepare coffee with it than in the official instructions, and that this is really a high-quality filtered coffee, not an espresso. A hat tip to Christian, down in the comments.)

As an Americano, this Grumpy Brazilian is less overpowering, so I can only conclude that this has to do with temperature or the method of extraction.

Of course, many coffee snobs think that some coffees are never meant to be prepared as espresso.

Certainly, not all beans are recommended for preparation at the lower temperature that Aeropress recommends in its directions.

My next experiment with the Aeropress will be with a bean more suitable for this, perhaps something from Intelligentsia.

The promotional copy for the Aeropress bills it as “the best coffee maker X ever owned” and a source of coffee nirvana that makes better “espresso” than many a machine. It is certainly better than a lot of mediocre coffee I’ve had in restaurants. (Read more about the promotional language in these Aeropress tips from Sweet Maria’s.)

The coolest part: When you’re done, you can eject the grounds cleanly in puck form into the trash. A quick rinse cleans it. Far better than the mess I usually make cleaning a French press.

The first shots I made with this device — not using this Brazilian bean — were indeed exquisite. But the results do vary, perhaps because of the beans, how well I manage to press the coffee, the temperature of the water (which I have to estimate based on two-thirds the time it takes for a full boil) and so forth. Some of the alternative methods suggest an upside-down brewing method that keeps the water from seeping through the grounds too quickly.

But in a coffee wasteland like Midtown, the device is a life saver on a drowsy afternoon — and a source of amusement for the coworkers who are not yet bored with watching me demonstrate it.

Now if only I were not surrounded by so many tea drinkers.

Roasted Feb. 18 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Feb. 24 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “Violet and raisin aromatics open the flavor gates to perfectly clean notes of plum, black cherry and orange zest that are complimented by a syrupy body.”

In the Cup I wanted to like this coffee more, because beans from Burundi in East Africa are apparently a rarity.

This direct-trade coffee from the Kayanza province did not really work for me as an espresso, perhaps because the fruit notes were simply too intense when it was prepared that way. I’m not a big fan of bright and shiny fruit flavors in coffee.

This was much better as Americano, smooth and pleasant, easy to drink without milk.

Stumptown says: “Bwayi is one of the pearls in our East African Direct Trade program. We’ve been working closely with this group of farmers over the past three years. In addition to improved cherry selection and a return to double fermentation, a la the Kenyan style, we’ve now installed a pre-drying stage to the Bwayi process. This addition has given the coffee’s mouth feel pronounced depth. Our quality control team cupped through each day of the harvest to construct this lot of coffee.”

The Drinks With Nathan blog has some more interesting detail about the coffee growing scene in Burundi. A poor economy has made the country late to the specialty coffee game, but the farmers have benefited from a Stumptown-supported program that supplies bikes to them and growers in neighboring Rwanda.
Thumpology also points to some resources about Burundi coffees.

Several of my favorites are listed — Cafe Grumpy, Stumptown, Ninth Street Espresso, Joe…

Enjoy. Yes, I work at the paper, but I had nothing to do with it. I was pleasantly surprised to see it. Maybe I’ll expand my espresso quest this spring and bike to them all, starting with the ones in Manhattan.

Before I get to the latest installment of my endless coffee quest, I must mourn the end of my brief reign as a Twitter list maven. At the start of this week, I made the mistake of using the latest crashy build of Firefox while playing around on the Tlists site with my lists.

Because of a glitch, several of my lists, including the Linkers list, which had 1,940 followers and was among the top Twitter lists, briefly became “private” and shed all followers in the blink of an eye.

Alas, after some consultation, there seems to be nothing Tlists or Twitter can do. (But I am grateful that the Tlists folks are trying to help with a prominent placement of my list on their home page).

So if you enjoyed that list, or if you would like to have 100 top linkers and retweeters (as selected by me) comb the Web looking for interesting stuff for you, then please follow it on Twitter. Given all that is going on in the world, this is not particularly important.

Only about 70 people have bothered to re-follow the list as of today, which makes me question the whole Twitter list concept anyway.

It was obviously not an essential part of the experience for those 1,940 people who signed up when Twitter lists were the hot, new thing. And that sounds about right. Some news organizations are using the lists for useful crowd-sourcing efforts around news events like earthquakes, but for most people a list is a personal matter. Still, I put a lot of work into that one over a period of months, and people say they like it.

Others are more upset about this than I am. I credit my equanimity to years of sitting meditation and the soothing effects of high-quality coffee. Which reminds me…

Coffee Kenya Gatomboya

Roasted Feb. 21 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Feb. 24 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “This classic Kenya profile moves seamlessly from a creamy apricot aroma to rhubarb pie, black cherry, fruit punch and a clean chocolate finish.”

In the Cup Yes, it’s back to Stumptown, where the prices are high, there are no chairs, business is cash-only and the coffee is delicious. I walked through a brisk snowy Manhattan landscape to get there, picking up this coffee and another that I’ll write about later.

The Thumpology blog reports that the Gatomboya cooperative is made up of 700 small coffee growers at high altitudes in Kenya. You can read all the coffee-porn details at the link.

I don’t know that I caught much in the way of apricot, rhubarb or cherry and fruit tastes in the many cups of this that I have consumed black in the last couple of weeks. But it is creamy, with a sweet finish, and this coffee goes down easy, letting you forget troubles, for a little while.

I’m sure that the people who worked hard to pick, wash, dry, roast and ship these beans have more serious things to worry about than the destruction of a Twitter list. And that reminds me, why the hell haven’t I created a coffee list? I should get on that.

Coffee Coopac Cooperative, Gisenyi Region, Rwanda

Roasted: Feb. 3 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Feb. 7 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description The bag says: “Floral aroma leads to notes of pineapple, vanilla, and red currants. Sweet key-lime brightness to the finish.”

In the Cup I picked this up on Super Bowl Sunday after spending some time soaking and sweating out toxins at Spa Castle in Queens (great place for grownups and kids).
I would normally have been put off by the complicated description, but I had tried a few cups of this in the shop. The fact that I’m running out of it after just a week speaks to its appeal.

“This coffee is grown on the volcanic mountain slopes in the Western Province of Rwanda and comes to us from the Coopac Cooperative. Washed Bourbon varietal,” the Grumpy site says (this is one of the small chain’s own roasts). There’s more detail at the cooperative’s Web site.

The crema on top is particularly foamy, and whatever there might be of pineapple, currants and key lime is subtle. Sure, you can smell that if you stick your nose in the mug, but on the tongue you don’t pick up much in the way of fruitiness. Even the hint of vanilla did not seem particularly pronounced. This was a rich, delicious, substantial cup from start to finish. It still appears to be on the menu at Grumpy, so if you’re wondering what to try, go for it — and leave out the milk.

Blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows the future, so such pronouncements are justifiably viewed as so much hype.

I’m not a tech or media critic, though I work for a newspaper (and yes, full disclosure, that paper does seem to have a working relationship with the iPad developers, but I had no role in that or the news coverage of the tablet).

I’m approaching this as a gadget lover and a reader. And to this consumer, the iPad vs. Kindle question is the most important one. To my surprise, I find myself leaning toward the cheapest, $499 iPad without 3G or a lot of storage.

Back in August, my Amazon Kindle’s e-ink display melted down. A tragedy.

I had some frustrations with the Kindle. The hardware of the first model in particular always felt a little cheap and poorly designed. I was constantly turning pages by mistake.

While e-ink did seem to reduce eyestrain, I went through a series of booklights that didn’t quite fit the device and had to be positioned just-so to avoid creating glare on the screen.

I actually found the backlit Kindle app on the iPhone to be easier for reading in bed and on planes.

The Kindle did a poor job rendering newspapers and magazines. The user interface was awkward, requiring you to page through endless menus. The device didn’t have enough storage. And the crippled experimental browser was so bad that some users are apparently willing to pay Amazon for blog posts. And I actually paid Amazon for the privilege to email PDFs to myself.

But I forgave all that. I loved my Kindle. Its always-on, free Internet connection made downloading free first chapters and shopping for books anywhere a dream. The eBook prices (and first chapter previews) were easy on my wallet. The selection was Amazonian. I no longer had to lug around so many heavy books on vacation trips. So I really missed it when it died. And I lusted for the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX. The Nook and Sony Reader didn’t measure up. But I held off, because everyone suspected the Apple tablet was coming soon.

Now that I’ve seen the iPad, I think it’s my Kindle replacement. I’ll have to hold one and read on it to be sure.

Do I need another way to watch movies and video? Not really, but it’s cool the iPad does that. Do I need another way to get my email or surf the Web? Not really, but any device that can’t do those things easily loses points. Do I need another way to write or do other computer work on the run? Not necessarily, but it’s great that the iPad has some solutions for that. Do I need another music player? Not one this big. Do I need another mobile GPS device? Again, not one this big. Do I need another way to display digital photos? (Well, actually, that is kind of cool).

But as a book reader, it seems like a winner. This may not be the greatest news for Apple’s bottom line or its dreams of a media revolution.

Consider the iPad’s reading features: The ability to turn pages via touchscreen. Books with color charts and photography. Books with video embedded. Everything in Amazon’s proprietary format via the Kindle app. Everything else that comes in the (relatively open) ePub format, including many Google Books and everything else available on the Stanza reader. (The Kindle limits you to the Amazon library.)

With customized apps, the iPad will render magazines, newspapers and other print items far better than anything out there, including standard Web browsers on computers.

And yes, that will allow some content providers to charge for the enhanced reading experience. That won’t “save” journalism or book publishing. Journalism doesn’t really need saving, but devices like this will be another force working to transform how it is distributed and financially supported. That will be good news for bloggers and small news shops looking for income, not just the big corporate media.

Sure, the Kindle hardware and software will catch up — but it’s still wedded to the proprietary Amazon format. Sure, there will other devices, running Google Chrome or Android, netbook-type devices from the Windows world, and proprietary gadgets from some content providers (which will probably fail). All that competition will be good for consumers and content providers everywhere.

But one other thing tips the balance toward the iPad for me that might not apply to everyone: I am among the minority that live in a Mac world, and there’s a justifiable expectation that the iPad will work seamlessly within that world, from iPhone apps to the iTunes store. I’m not an unreasoning fanboy. If the iPad turns out to be as buggy as my Apple TV, or too locked down (what, no Flash?), I’ll be annoyed.

Much of the commentary has focused on whether the iPad will replace the laptop or even the desktop computer. It might, for people who don’t really need computers for their jobs, who are more consumers of content than creators. It might appeal to casual touch-gamers, but not hard-core PC gamers.

I don’t think an iPad would completely replace my MacBook Air (which I got after flirting with a cheaper, smaller Acer Windows netbook; too awkward to use routinely, and I remembered why I hated Windows).

For work, I need to use Microsoft Word, and I need to run the newsroom’s publishing software, which is a bit of a system hog. I want to be able to run the Firefox browser, with some special plugins for work, and I bet the iPad will be a Safari world. I rely heavily on Bento 3, and the iPhone version of that program is pretty much useful only as a read-only app for me. I need to be able to view my paper’s video players and other Flash content, which the iPad doesn’t do (although it appears that the customized Times app for the iPad does play video, based on the keynote demo). And with a keyboard stand, the iPad looks a bit awkward for day to day office or home use on a lap. I don’t enjoy writing anything longer than a Tweet with a touchscreen keyboard. And the iPad’s maximum 64 gigabytes of storage is not enough.

This would be a third device after the laptop and the iPhone, and I probably wouldn’t carry it every day. I imagine it would mostly be for home use, or trips. It’s for pleasure, a toy, not a necessity.

So that leaves the cost question. The gadget freak in me lusts for the high-end $829 iPad with 64 gigabytes and 3G connectivity. That’s an awful lot for an e-book reader, and might not pass the spouse’s-raised-eyebrow test. At that price, I might not feel comfortable flashing it around on the New York subway, either.

But do I really need 3G and an always-on connection? Looking back on my Kindle usage, I mainly downloaded things at home or the airport, both places where WiFi is not a problem. More and more free WiFi hot spots are popping up, and more friends have wireless in their apartments. It’s becoming customary to give your WiFi password (if you lock it down) to friends and other guests. No device can give me Internet in most of the subway. And with AT&T’s network still overloaded in Manhattan, browsing the Internet via 3G is not all that fun, though it’s great to have a 3G phone in an emergency.

Those factors make the non-3G $499 to $699 models more attractive than the tech pundits realize, as I posted to Twitter earlier this week. Many hard-core geeks can’t imagine not having maximum connectivity everywhere, whereas I can’t imagine paying another $30 to AT&T for yet more slow Internet. I’d rather spend the money on books and other content. So the main trade-off when it comes to cost will be the gigs of storage versus price. I already spend a lot of time managing audio and video files on my maxed-out 32G iPhone. When I travel, I keep extra content on an old 60G video iPod. Books don’t take up much space, but a few movies and TV series will fill this up quickly.

There’s another factor, too — the life of the device. Early adopters might be salivating to have the first generation, but we know that the next one in a year or two will probably be better. It might have a camera, more storage, software improvements, subsidized deals with content providers, and so on. An early adopter with a smaller budget is probably better off with the cheapest model this time around.

That’s where I’m heading. What am I missing?

(One more thing: If this device melts down, Pee Wee Herman points out it could have other uses. Also, it turns out the iPad is better than this primitive tool.)

March 2010 Update: Yes, I did order the non-3G iPad today, but I opted for the one with the biggest storage, 64G at $699. I figure I’ll load it up with media, so I wanted the extra capacity, but I still don’t see a need for 3G. I’ve never needed it for my laptop.

April 2010 Update: I wrote about my experience with the Apple iPad here.)

Coffee: Fazenda Sertaozinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Roasted: Jan. 17 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Jan. 21 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location, 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description: “Dark sweet plum aromatics open into a full-bodied cup. Notes of earthy toasted almond and sugar cane. Pleasant brightness in the finish.”

In the Cup: I have to confess something first. I’ve been drinking less espresso and coffee in general lately, opting for green tea, after reading something or other extolling not only its health benefits but its supposed tendency to deliver a lower, steadier dose of caffeine with fewer peaks and valleys. Ye gads, the coffee blogger has become a tea drinker! But it actually makes me appreciate the coffee more.

Green tea is always the same (in my opinion), and it’s an acquired taste, not nearly as pleasant as regular black tea or the various herbal types. But high-end culinary coffees seem to have endless variety. While I lean toward the sweet and nutty varieties, and much prefer a sugary finish, I’ve come to appreciate what coffee tasters call brightness — so long as it’s not too bright. This coffee had just about the right amount. And I must say, as a bit of a traditionalist, I’ve never been disappointed by any bean from Brazil. Is this coffee amazing? Did it knock my socks off? I may have grown a little jaded in my coffee quest, so I’d have to say no. But it’s certainly delicious, and delivers what the bag says it will.

Also, kudos to Grumpy for including a link to information about the farm, something more coffee Web sites should do. Located in a mountainous region, it has 160 employees and produces on average 720,000 kilograms of beans per year. There’s a whole lot of coffee in Brazil.

Grumpy is an old standby by now for me, and of course it’s great the little chain is now roasting its own beans, but I’ll probably be venturing out again to Stumptown and other venues once the weather gets warmer, and I feel like getting on the bike again. If anyone has any suggestions, fire away.

On the positive side, I returned to a more regular practice of zazen, sitting meditation, which has a calming effect though I do not appear to have gotten any closer to being a bodhisattva. In this age of sleep deprivation, a secret to staying awake on the cushion is strong coffee. Like this one.

Coffee: Helsar de Zarcero, West Valley, Llano Bonito de Naranjo Micro-region, Costa Rica.

Roasted: Dec. 11 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Dec. 12 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Medium, creamy body. Fresh blackberry aroma & mellow acidity. Finishing with honeycomb sweetness.”

In the Cup As I mentioned earlier this fall, Grumpy has started roasting its own beans, a positive development. (The Chelsea shop is also offering classes, something a few of its competitors have been doing for a while).

This coffee is fresh, and tasty, and pretty much matches the creamy description on the bag, reprinted above. It’s an excellent coffee, though lacking a certain something that keeps it off my “wow” list. I’ve tried it as a regular coffee and an espresso, brewing at home. Yesterday I filled a thermos full of nearly the last of it, and took it to my daughter’s gymnastics class. It was deeply satisfying to pour a full mug and watch the kids. I am a little surprised to be running out already. Either I’m drinking more coffee than usual, or these bags are lighter than I realized. Luckily I also bought a bag of the Finca El Carmen from El Salvador, another variety the chain is roasting these days. I may not get around to blogging that one separately, but the bag promises nutty undertones, a sweet citrus aroma and “effervescent sweetness with dark chocolate finish.”

According to Grumpy’s informative site, the Helsar de Zarcero is 100 percent Caturra, aquapulped and sun-dried. The coffee comes from a “micromill” started by three families (now 10 are involved) in Costa Rica “with the goal of adding value and providing traceability to the high quality coffee grown on their land.” The farm uses sustainable agriculture practices, including the use of organic fertlizers that are “fermented on-site by mixing coffee cherry pulp and molasses, along with mined zinc, boron, and other minerals. Micro-organisms are cultured from soil collected on nearby mountains and added to the natural fertilizer in order to provide disease protection to the coffee plants.”

I bet it’s warm there right now.

Here in New York City, the snow is still fresh and white, after the snowpocalypse rolled through on Saturday. I’m at home sipping the last of this coffee, while my wife works quietly elsewhere in the apartment and our daughter is off sledding in Central Park with friends. I hope to get back to reading “Buddha’s Brain,” by Rick Hanson, or “Chronic City,” by Jonathan Lethem, the two books I’ve sworn to finish before year’s end. There’s a hush over the city, except for the taxi whistles of a hotel doorman below, and a hush is over the city, and I’m pleased to steal this quiet moment to fire up the blog. I don’t really know who reads this, apart from a few Twitter followers and friends, but let’s hope together for a better 2010.

Also, Jane’s “After Voices” poetry chapbook — published last month by Burning River of Cleveland — is now available at the McNally Jackson Book Store in SoHo, one of the few remaining interesting indie bookstores left in Manhattan.

I’m happy to see all the local culinary coffee purveyors step up their games lately. Perhaps the arrival of Stumptown has something to do with that. Now if only a few more of them creep uptown into the 30s, 40s and 50s, a section of Manhattan that remains a Starbucks-dominated wasteland.

Name: Finca Chichupac

Origin: Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala

Roasted Nov. 3 by Café Grumpy in Brooklyn.

Purchased Nov. 9 at Grumpy‘s Chelsea location at 224 W. 20th St., between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Description “Candy apple aroma leads to a full-bodied cup. Granny smith apple brightness rounded out by caramelized brown sugar sweetness.”

In the cup It stands to reason that a shop that has proven to be such a good judge of others’ coffees would roast a fine one of its own. My only gripe is the lack of other documentation on the Grumpy site, apart from the short and sweet, “Autumn we love you.” Indeed. But through the power of the Internet, I did find this brief interview on YouTube with Julián Alquejay of Finca Chichupac at last year’s Cup of Excellence. The plantation is owned by 13 families in a region with a horrific history of government-directed mass murder and genocide of the Mayan population in the 1980s. Here is an article on the continuing legacy of that time and the civil war that ended in 1996.

Right now Grumpy is offering two of its own roasts, this Guatemalan and a second from Finca Carmen in Panama (presumably from the same farm as this Stumptown selection). I decided to go with Guatemala, and I’m glad I did.

I definitely caught the candy apple aroma, especially when drinking this as a regular coffee. It also makes a great espresso, and I thought I detected a bit of nut, not mentioned in the official tasting description above. The sweet finish definitely takes the edge off the fruity brightness. It’s a great cup of joe.

That does not leave me any less conflicted, sampling these nuanced flavors, made from beans grown in an impoverished nation near former killing fields, as I sit in my comfortable apartment in the middle of the richest city in North America, far from the .bullets and butchers of men. Such thoughts certainly puts one’s own petty troubles in perspective, at least.

Name Panama Carmen Estate

Origin 1700-1850 meters above sea level at the estate, caturra and typica varieties

Roasted: Sept. 24 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Sept. 28 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description “Extremely floral in the fragrance, sweet milk chocolate, notes of meyer lemon, mandarin orange and blackberry.”

In the Cup Again with the meyer lemon, which is apparently a favorite descriptive term of Stumptown’s tasters. For a couple of weeks, this bean has been my steeze. Whatever that means. Here are more details from Stumptown:

Carlos Aguilera’s Carmen Estate is a perennial top 5 finisher at the Best of Panama cupping event held each year to showcase the absolute finest coffees from around the country. His focus on perfect cherry selection, cleanliness in his mill and even drying sets his coffee at the top of the pack. This year’s lot comes from isolated areas of Carmen Estate that range between 1700 and 1850 meters above sea level. It is a 50/50 split of Caturra and Typica varietals which combine to form a sweet and complex varietal blend.

I’ve mainly had it as an espresso. I’ve seen a reference online to this coffee as “crisp and clean, like blackberries steeped in water.” It was the favorite of my much more sophisticated fellow coffee-blogger at Man Seeking Coffee. (His description: “light, floral, chocolate, lime.”) As anyone who bothers to read my coffee ramblings knows, it’s the notes of chocolate, the nuts, the richness, that draw me in, and while I’m not a big fan of overpowering floral and fruit notes, I like them just fine when they are well-balanced. That is the case with this coffee.

Day after day, I have been downing shots of this without complaint. A sweet cup. It is light, goes down easy, dances on the tongue. Am I in love? Ah, not entirely, but it’s good coffee, and I’d try it again. This is the fourth Stumptown coffee I’ve sampled since the shop opened in Midtown — Montes de Oro, Blue Batak and Finca el Injerto were the others. So now I’m definitely a believer in the church of Stumptown. If I had a choice I’d still take the Montes de Oro, but this is a close second.

By the way, I heartily recommend this GQ article on the best coffees in the country, which features some familiar names for anyone who has been following my quest here: not only Stumptown, but Ninth Street Espresso, Ritual Roasters and Intelligentsia, among others. It is easy to imagine a coffee quest across America.