Coffee shop makes sizeable donations to charity
If you visit the St Helier central market in Jersey, make sure you keep your eye out for the Pure Charity Coffee Shop. Doors will be open from 8am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday (til 2pm on Thursday). Not only can you get a caffeine fix, but you will also be contributing to local charities as you have a pitstop and a cuppa. This coffee shop is not a run-of-the-mill commercial venture, but rather it donates sizable chunks of its profits to charity.
Impressed? In fact, over £31,000 has been given to charities, including the Jersey Hospice Care charity and also to the Mont a L’Abbe school to buy educational equipment. The Jersey Hospice Care charity will use the money towards the Clarkson House redevelopment scheme. The money is split 80:20 each year – the larger percentage is earmarked for the Hospice and the smaller percentage goes towards a children’s charity. The Hospice has gone on the record as congratulating the shop for its kind and innovative contribution to its coffers. This year, the children’s charity of choice for 20% of the coffee shop proceeds is CLIC Sargent Jersey, an organisation which supports young people who have cancer.
In order to keep a rein on costs, many volunteers help the two workers at the coffee shop. As one would hope, as well as offering delicious coffee and other drinks, the shop sells a selection of homemade treats (cakes, biscuits…), soups and sandwiches.
Surrey has a new coffee treat
The residents of Reigate in Surrey are in for a treat – 31 Church Street has taken on a new identity: it is now to be known as Simply Bread. What is so special about this? The new shop has a dual personality – it is, as one might guess, a bakery, but it also includes a coffee lounge so that local residents and visitors can enjoy a decent cup of coffee and a relaxing atmosphere as they visit the town.
Recently refurbished in a contemporary style, the lounge offers freshly baked goodies including bread, cakes, tarts and sandwiches, together with a coffee menu. There is a bakery at the rear of the shop to ensure that the produce is, indeed, freshly baked and ready for sale. In order to ensure that the bread is super-fresh, there are two baking sessions each day.
The owner, Mariusz, has a Polish background and also has experience with this fresh produce. In a recent interview with This Is Surrey Today, he admitted to sleeping only a few hours a night. He is seen as being a passionate and work-driven, determined soul and certainly reports of the variety and quality of the produce in his new shop show that this determination is paying off. He is paying close attention to the needs of his client base – even offering a student-targeted package of hot-dogs and early morning bacon muffins and breakfast rolls for those who rise at the crack of dawn and need some decent sustenance to take them into the new day.
Photo: Mélanger
Coffee: for baking as well as drinking..
As we were reminded in the Guardian by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, the uses of coffee are not limited to our coffee cups. Much as many of us enjoy our caffeine fix and look forward to our first, second and even third coffee of the day, the humble coffee bean is far more versatile than we may think.
Of course, coffee itself is rather a sophisticated affair – many of us turn our noses up at the idea of drinking instant coffee because we have been treated to the virtues of a more exotic and fine drink. Lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, flat whites, Americanos…. The list goes on and on.
But this is not the end of the coffee repertoire. It is also an excellent ingredient to use in the kitchen when preparing food. I remember all too well, the delicious coffee and walnut cake my mother prepared on a Sunday for tea, giving the baked treats an extra dimension. Similarly, think of one of the favourite Italian desserts, Tiramisu, now loved in many countries, which also owes its success, in part, to the zing of the coffee ingredient. We can also flavour ice-cream with coffee, or as Hugh suggests in his Sunday article online at the Guardian, use it experimentally to flavour biscotti or add to other more adventurous cake recipes.
The next time you dabble in the kitchen, remember to open the cupboard and the coffee jar and start to consider how you might add a little pizzazz to your next culinary masterpiece. It may well be that coffee could be just the right thing.
Ambitious plans from Kenyan coffee farmers
Kenya has a successful coffee heritage and current farmers in Meru would like to bring back the heyday of their country in terms of the coffee industry. The Golden Age for these farmers took place in the late 70s and 80s and success was there for the grabbing. Africans have spoken, too, of their fondness for the countryside which was transformed with green coffee plants.
Farmers in Meru are drawing up a plan so that they can aim high. After the boom years, economic forces changed the agricultural landscape and farmers were diverted into products such as macadamia plants, tea and miraa. However, they now want to return to the more traditional Kenyan business of coffee.
…continue reading Ambitious plans from Kenyan coffee farmers
How to have the most environmentally friendly coffee
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research have been on a mission: they have been carrying out detailed investigations to try to work out what makes coffee as green as possible. We all want to save the planet and be environmentally conscious these days and so the results of the report are relevant to all coffee-drinkers.
What did these researchers investigate? They were rigorous – from reviewing capsule systems and coffee machines, together with investigations into filters and soluble coffee practices, they reached a conclusion in how to make the morning cup of coffee as environmentally friendly as possible.
And the results?
The most significant factor was the coffee bean itself – the choice of blend had most influence on how green the beverage was. Capsule systems have become popular recently and the research team discovered that the aluminium packaging was the most environmentally friendly form of packaging, provided of course it is recycled.
How else can we be especially environmentally savvy? Choose coffee with an ecological label was one recommendation and coffee machines such as the espresso maker and the cafetiere are also reasonable ways to produce coffee, provided that they do not make too much surplus coffee that is not drunk.
The researchers also looked into practices in the production and preparation of coffee that can be improved on to make sure that the coffee culture pleases Mother Earth as well as you and me.
Living like those below the poverty line
There is a new project underway that will fly the banner for those who live in poverty – aptly named the Live Below the Line Project. The campaign is set to run in several countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States – even stars such as the actor Hugh Jackman have become involved. The project aims to raise awareness of the problems of poverty and tackle some of its causes.
What are participants going to do to raise the profile of this social problem? One of the campaigns is to ask participants to raise funds by living in poverty themselves for 5 days. In the United Kingdom, there is an invitation to live on £5 for five days (that’s just £1 per day) or similar amounts in different countries. In Australia, participants will try to live off just $2 per day.
A published interview with Sydney-based Sara Saleh, comments that this is going to be a punishing regime to follow for five days. She notes that her usual daily cup of coffee costs $3.20 which is already breaking her meagre budget of $2. The hardships she will suffer will highlight the daily struggle of those in poverty.
What does Sara intend to live on during the Live Below the Line project? The menu is likely to be restricted to pulses and oats.
In addition, participants will be raising funds for the project which is to take place during the week 16-20 May.
Take a look at their site here
Clever coffee solution to give job to inventive graduate
We are living in hard times – the global credit crunch, job uncertainty, redundancies, reduced income, cost-savings, the list goes on and on. All this spells doom and gloom for many graduates who are struggling to find employment at the end of their university career.
Not so, the resourceful Anna Phipps. Recently graduated from the Hallam University, this tenacious lady has made her own plans for future income.
What is her money-earning solution to beat the money blues? Anna has created a mobile coffee business, called Caffe Carino, to take coffee to the punters, rather than expecting them to find her.
The coffee culture is well-ingrained in our society, but this canny plan can help those who are a little off the beaten track easily purchase their caffeine fix, without going out of their way to a coffee house.
Caffe Carino has a custom-designed Piaggo Ape van which is fully equipped to prepare various coffee products quickly and with expertise. Lattes, cappuccinos, espressos
New device to keep coffee temperature constant
No-one likes to drink scalding coffee and burn their tongue. And how many of us have got distracted after making or buying a cup of coffee, only to find that it has gone cold in the meantime? As was said in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we don’t want our coffee too hot or too cold ? we want it just right.
Fortunately, scientists have created metal ‘beans’ which do precisely that. Recent news reports state that this little device that you can slip into your coffee can work to either reduce the temperature of ‘too hot’ coffee by absorbing the heat. The beverage can be cooled by these beans at a rate that is three times faster than if the coffee was left to cool naturally. Subsequently, as the coffee becomes ‘too cold’ the beans release that thermal energy to raise the temperature of the cooling beverage.
These magic beans, named ‘Coffee Joulies,’ can work on this basis for up to five hours as reported in the Daily Mail. Now there is no need to rush to drink a coffee drink before it would cool naturally, nor to scald your mouth when drinking a beverage that is too hot.
These beans could be useful whether you pick up a coffee drink to take on a journey, to work or buy in advance of a meeting with friends.
The people responsible for this new idea are inventors Dave Petrillo and Dave Jackson.
USA Barista Champion crowned ready for world championship in June
The race is on. Country after country is determining its national barista champion in preparation for the great World Barista Championships in June this year. Over fifty countries will put forward their champions to go head to head with their counterparts from other nations in Bogota in Columbia, South America in June 2011, to determine the world’s greatest barista.
The USA Barista Champion has just been crowned as the Americans settle on the best of the best in their coffee-loving nation. Who won? Pete Licata is the winner in the USA for 2011. Licata brings more to the table than simply excellent skills as a barista. He is also the first US Barista Championship winner who comes from Hawaii and also the first to use pure Hawaiian coffee at a national championship.
Licata’s attention to detail also made him stand out ? he actually prepared his own coffee from scratch. The winning barista personally picked and prepared the coffee to be used in the championships ? from Ka’u Coffee farm and also Kona Coffee & Tea Company’s Wai’ono Meadows farm. This was apparently the first time a barista champion in the US had prepared his beverage, right from plucking the bean from the tree. It was commented that this effort was commendable as it is time-consuming to develop the skills necessary to perform all the tasks in each stage of coffee development and preparation.
It remains to be seen in the World Championships as to whether other national barista champions can beat Licata’s expertise and dedication.
Philippine success with rehabilitation of coffee trees
The Philippines is yet another country that has aspirations to increase its coffee industry and culture and treat the world to the delights of its own brand of coffee. To this end, the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc. has been trying to rehabilitate coffee trees to boost production.
The programme started in 2008 and over the past few years almost one million trees have been rehabilitated over 1,791 hectares of coffee farms (exceeding the projected target of 1,379 hectares by some 27.5%). This year, the target has been set even higher and will hopefully be achieved in collaboration with other governmental departments, such as the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Why did the PCBI decide to make this effort in production? Recent studies showed that the country’s population had a higher consumption rate for coffee than the production rate ? as such, the inhabitants of the Philippines were reliant on importing their coffee to make up the balance from other countries such as Vietnam. This is one of the main reasons for the PCBI to seek to rejuvenate the local coffee market.
Other strategies which are to be used to increase coffee production are to develop the plantations in certain areas of the country and also planting new trees. Some 180,600 new coffee trees have already been planted in 452 hectares within the country. The PCBI also holds coffee farming courses to train the locals, coffee shop seminars, trade events and farm tours. There is also a Coffee Originals festival annually in October to raise the profile of the industry.