Coffee Origins

C O F F E E

O  R  I  G  I  N  S

In the movie Sideways, when one of the characters opens a bottle of wine, she finds herself considering the origins of that bottle—where the grapes were grown, who harvested them, what the weather was like on the day they were picked. Was the sun shining? Was it raining? 

     Here's the thing...I like to approach my coffee-drinking the same way. I marvel at how the beans can arrive at my doorstep from half a world away; how they can be grown by people of vastly different cultures, speaking different languages, living a completely different way of life.

     When I learn about the coffee beans, I also learn about the people who grew them, about their world, about the care they took to cultivate the coffee I drink.

     Scroll up the right column of this Home Page to read about my past "Coffee Picks" or click on links in my archives below... 

Click here to learn
more about this quirky,
award-winning film.
(Not for everyone,
but I loved it!)

 You can read more

about Cleo's previous

Coffee Picks

by clicking on the articles

archived below...

A Coffeehouse Mystery Reader Visits Intelligentsia in Chicago and Meets US Barista Champ Kyle Glanville

COFFEEHOUSE MYSTERY
READER REPORTS

FROM CHICAGO!

Hi there. Cleo Coyle here. One of my CM readers recently posted on my Message Board, asking where she could find a "Village Blend" coffeehouse in her own hometown of Chicago, Illinois.

       I haven't been to Chicago in years, but I knew that one of the best coffee bars in that city (and the country) was a place called Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.

      For two years in a row, Intelligentsia has produced the #1 ranked barista in the country. Mike Phillips won this year's U.S. Barista Championship and last year Kyle Glanville earned the title.

      Frankly, I had only one worry about recommending the place: I didn't know whether Intelligentsia would treat her right—be friendly and welcoming. You see the hallmark of a truly great traditional Italian barista is his or her friendliness to customers. One thing I could be sure of: The Intelligentsia coffee bar would certainly make her a great cuppa joe! So I gave my reader the addresses of the three Intelligentsia stores in Chicago (not really believing she'd actually go there).

     To my happy surprise (and shock actually), she visited their flagship store AND met Kyle Glanville, the U.S. Barista Champion of 2008!

  To meet U.S. Barista Champ Kyle Glanville yourself and watch him create some
classic latte art, click here.

(The above video of Kyle was recorded earlier this year at Intelligentsia's Los Angeles store.)

     To visit the Intelligentsia web site,
where they also sell coffee
online, click here.

   To read my reader's report from Chicago on my message board, 
Click here

If you have a coffeehouse
that you'd like to tell us about, you are
welcome to post on my message board, too!
Message Board? Where's That?!
Just click on the coffee cup in the upper left
column that says "Go to Cleo's Message Board"... 

 Till next time,
—Cleo Coyle

Battle of the Instant Coffee Sticks!

BATTLE OF THE INSTANT COFFEE STICKS!

VS

                   Nescafe Taster's
             Choice Instant Sticks

    Starbucks Via
Ready Brew Stick Packets

 
Who will emerge as
the coffee stick champ?

No. I am not going to be drinking instant coffee. Ever. Okay, I can think of a few situations . . .

      Say, a hurricane hits Flushing and all I can get my hands on are Saltines and a jar of Folgers crystals . . . or I'm stranded by the side of the road in the NJ Pine Barrens and a family of campers rescues me, and all they have is . . . well, you get the idea . . .

      If civilization remains intact, however, I will only be using coffee sticks as a flavor enhancer to my recipes....

Click here to get
my recipe for
Cuppa Joe
Mocha Drops

(PDF format).

Adding coffee flavoring to recipes usually involves dissolving instant coffee or espresso powder into brewed coffee or espresso before adding it to the recipe.

     Here's the good news: Starbucks VIA is a great instant coffee for recipes. If you're only buying it as a flavoring, then the higher price shouldn't be an issue because you're really getting value for money. (I mean, have you seen the cost of cloves lately?)

     If you're really drinking instant every day, however, and money is an issue, I can see where you'd rather choke down the Nescafe. (Sorry, but you know my feelings about instant!)

To read about a recent taste testing
between Starbucks Via Ready Brew Stick packets and Nescafe Tasters Choice
Instant Sticks: click here.

Till next time,

~Cleo Coyle

An Angel in Queens

ANGELS

 Don't believe
in them?

Well, I do. They're right
here among us...

Click here to meet one.

He's a Queens
School bus driver...
 

 Click the picture to meet this angel
via Toan Lam's YouTube video...

This story also
appeared on CNN

I donated to help him with his work.
I hope you will consider helping too...

Click here to visit
"Helping an Angel" on Facebook.

Click here to donate direclty
to "An Angel in Queens"

Reading Guides

READING

GUIDES!

Have you ever wanted to hold your own
Coffeehouse Mystery discussion group? Maybe over coffee
or in a coffeehouse?

(Well, here's a little help...)

Free Reading Group Questions
are now available in PDF form!

 *

 For a free reading guide to
Coffehouse Mysteries #1 and #2
On What Grounds & Through the Grinder
Click here

#1 ON WHAT GROUNDS

&

# 2 THROUGH THE GRINDER

For a free reading guide to
Coffeehouse Mysteries #3 & #4
Latte Trouble & Murder Most Frothy
Click here 

#3 LATTE TROUBLE

&

#4 MURDER MOST FROTHY

Now
Available!

 Reading guide to

Decaffeinated Corpse

For the free guide:

Click here.

  *

Free guides
to Coffeehouse Mysteries

#6 French Pressed
&
#7 Espresso Shot

will be posted in October.

 If you need the Adobe Reader software to read
the above PDF files, you can get it free. Click here to go to the Adobe site and click on the download
Adobe Reader button. 

To come

How to Store Strawberries

HOW TO SHOP FOR
STRAWBERRIES

When shopping for strawberries, choose berries that are bright red in color. Look for firm berries with fresh, green tops. Pass by any containers that have berries that are molding or mottled with dark patches. If the berries are staining the container, they’re past their prime.

HOW TO STORE
STRAWBERRIES

Strawberries will not keep long, so try to purchase them a day or two before you intend to eat or cook with them. Because strawberries retain water, do not wash them
until you’re ready to use them. To keep the
berries fresh for as long as possible, I store
them in the refrigerator in a single layer on a
paper towel within a moisture-proof container.
They keep well for several days this way.

To get my free recipe for
Fresh Glazed Strawberry Pie,
click here and . . .

Eat with Joy!

~Cleo Coyle, author of

The Coffeehouse Mysteries
"Where coffee and crime
are always brewing..."

Joanna Ellis and Moosehead Quilters of Maine

COFFEE BREAK 

with...

Joanna
Ellis

I am attaching a photo that my daughter took of me this morning while I posed by one of my recent quilts, Mexican Star. This is my interpretation of a design by Annette Ornelas. As you can see, I have just had another cuppa joe and am rarin' to go! 

Joanna Ellis (above) posing before one of her many quilts. Joanna, a lover of coffee and an enthusiastic reader of Cleo's Coffeehouse Mysteries, is the founder of Moosehead Quilters of Maine. To see their 
Blocks and Patterns page, click here!

Joanna writes...

After working as a technical writer in various fields, all involving computers, for 40 years, I retired last summer to have more time for quilting, outdoor sports, and playing with grandchildren.

     Coffee has always played an important part in my existence, starting each day and sustaining me through my adventures. We are pretty remote here, so sampling coffees vicariously through your Coffeehouse Mysteries is great fun.

I have been quilting for over thirty years, starting when my children were small. I joined the Clueless Quilters in Stetson, Maine, the year they formed, and after moving to Beaver Cove, Maine, nine years ago began to go stir crazy and formed the Moosehead Quilters, thinking there might be eight or ten other quilters hiding in the woods. Much to my surprise we had almost a dozen attend the first meeting at my log home on the shores of Moosehead Lake in 2003.

This map shows the location of the Moosehead Lake
area in Maine.

     We have grown to about 50 members and meet twice a month in nearby Greenville. Some of our members travel 15 to 20 miles to attend our business meetings and workshops. We have a spring and fall quilt retreat for a change of scene and fresh inspiration. To stay in touch with each other, since some of our members are seasonal to this vacationland, I created our Web site, which is loaded with photos, a calendar, meeting information, etc.

Our annual quilt show is held at Di's Kitchen and Beyond, in an old Victorian home overlooking Moosehead Lake. Di creates the most wonderful gourmet meals, desserts and coffee, too!

CLEO NOTES:

"Di" aka Diane K. Bartley (pictured right) has a wonderful life story. She is a graduate of Johnson & Wales school of culinary arts and served as a TA there, too. Her passion (running a restaurant and gathering place out of a beautiful Victorian house) sounds like my own Fiona Finch (friend to Penelope McClure in my Haunted Bookshop Mystery series). Fiona just loves running the Finch Inn out of her husband's old Victorian home. But, of course, the Finch Inn is fictional and it's located in Rhode Island. Di's lovely Victorian is located in Maine—and it's real, so you can actually visit her place! Click here to meet Diane and read her bio. You can learn more about Di's business, DKB Catering, by visiting her Web site. 

 The thumbnail photos of Di, her Victorian restaurant, and her Veranda are from her Web site. Click any photo to visit. ~Cleo

 JOANNA'S NOTE CONTINUES...

Di is most gracious and allows us to take over her house for our show on the first Saturday in September. Our quilts are displayed throughout the first floor and on the veranda. We have crafts and items for sale in her barn, too.

      Last year we presented Di with a wall hanging quilt that depicts a mug rack. This quilt hangs in one of Di's dining rooms...

The removable quilted coffee mugs (on the hanging pictured above) actually hang on real wooden pegs and can be rearranged or changed to suit the season. One mug is attached in the lower corner and has wisps of steam rising to represent freshly poured coffee! What fun!

Sincerely,

~Joanna

P.S. I am a breast cancer survivor (over 2-1/2 years now, but who is counting?!!) and escape into your coffeehouse, put my feet up and read the mysteries. I'll even admit to re-reading them after a few months! 

      My thrill of the summer, aside from visits from children and grandkids, has been the transformation of my long held Apple stock into a new John Cooper Works Mini. What a blast to drive! This former SCCA racer sure enjoys the 6-speed manual, turbo-charged, 208 HP, little car. Of course, I obey speed limits and drive defensively ... most of the time!

Life is full of fun
if you only follow your dreams and persist!

~Joanna Ellis

 Cleo here again. Sending a warm Java thanks to Joanna for dropping by and letting us take a virtual little trip to Maine with her today! (And inspiring us all with her get-up-and-make-it-so caffeinated attitude! LOL!)

SAVE
THE DATE!

Saturday, September 5th

If you live near Maine's Moosehead Lake, then be sure to drop by the Moosehead Quilters annual Quilt Show!  (And tell Joanna that Cleo Coyle says Hello!) The location of the show is Di's beautiful Victorian restaurant: Di's Kitchen and Beyond. Click here for information about Di's "DKB catering" and directions to the restaurant. For more information about the show itself, visit the Moosehead Quilters' Web site by clicking here.

Till next time,
~Cleo Coyle

Happy Birthday, Mr. Chandler - Cleo Coyle on Raymond Chandler

Posted July 23, 2009 

 

Did you know that Raymond Chandler didn't publish his first story until he was 45?

     He worked his way up in an oil company, from bookkeeper to executive, but he came to hate his job and took to drinking heavily as a result—as well as doing things like threatening to jump off the roof of the Mayfair Hotel and trying to sell the entire oil company over the phone.

     Fired at the start of the Great Depression, Chandler couldn't find another position, so he turned to writing to make some dough.

     Lucky for us he did...

No post

no post 

Industrial Design & the Coffee Cup Lid - Coffee Break with Josh Harris

COFFEE BREAK

with...

 JOSH HARRIS,

the design student

who figured

out how to

get this...

to fit
into
this...

 Behold Josh Harris's Coffee Top Caddy, a nifty solution to those coffee runs for groups of friends and co-workers. "Okay, who gets two creams, one sugar; and two sugars, one cream?" 

Hi there. Cleo Coyle here. Industrial design is a marriage of art and engineering that we often take for granted in our busy lives.

Take the Moka Express. This beautiful, little eight-sided stovetop espresso pot didn't just appear off an assembly line—it was conceived and produced with care in the 1930’s by a talented metal worker and engineer named Alfonso Bialetti.

        I'm always curious about the creative process (be it writing or architecture) so when I noticed the "Coffee Top Caddy" posted online, I contacted the man who designed it:

       Josh Harris is a 21-year-old college student at Syracuse University, majoring in industrial design, which he explains is the study of product development.

      "This includes everything from tennis shoes to User interfaces on cell phones," Josh notes, "Everything that is unnatural had to be designed. My major makes sure we design these things to be useful, thoughtful and beautiful.”

 Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle

MAY - JUNE 2009 COFFEE PICK: Bishops' Blend

 Cleo's May - June

Coffee Pick:

Bishops

Blend

Regular & Decaf

Hi there. Cleo Coyle here. 
My Coffee Pick this month is an incredibly smooth and satisfying coffee called Bishops Blend.

     As those of you know who've been reading my Coffeehouse Mysteries, a "blend" is a coffee that the roaster creates by literally blending a few types of single-origin beans. (Single-origin simply means that the coffee beans come from a single area—for example, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is a coffee that is grown in the Yirgacheffe region of the African country of Ethiopia.)

     Creating blends is a culinary art (something that my amateur sleuth, Clare Cosi, does as part of her job managing the fictional Village Blend coffeehouse), and I'm happy to report that the roasters for Bishops Blend have done a masterful job at creating theirs.

      The beans are roasted medium dark and the package came to me (via UPS) freshly roasted, beautifully oily, and smelling of chocolate. The coffee itself is a perfectly balanced cup. In no way flat—but not overly bright, either. It’s very smooth, almost creamy on the palate without a trace of bitterness. The finish is excellent, as well, with the slightest, pleasant "juiciness" you would get from an African bean but without the lemon or flowery notes, which makes it a cup that can be paired with almost any cake, cookie, muffin, or dessert.

     As the coffee cools, the notes include a slight vanilla flavor and even a touch of cinnamon; it’s a very “coffee” tasting coffee—one I could easily drink all day. In fact, I made a few pots of a Sumatra (sold by a major national company) and found myself not too eager to finish the cups. I couldn’t wait to get back to the Bishops Blend again; and when I did, I found myself downing every last drop.

     Even better, when you purchase a bag of Bishops Blend, a percentage of the money goes toward ERD (Episcopal Relief and Development), a charity that provides disaster relief around the world as well as enabling people in the poorest communities on our planet to climb out of poverty by offering long-term solutions in the areas of food security and health care.

 Click here to learn more
or purchase for yourself.

Buy a bag.

Change a life.

 Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle

Meet Shirley Jackson: A Queen of the Red Hat Ladies!

MEET THE
QUEEN!

Shirley Jackson, 78 years young and
Queen Mother of the Totally Eccentric,
Adventurous Red Hatters of Vienna, Virginia!

Hi there. Cleo Coyle here. A short time ago, I received an intriguing e-mail in my VillageBlend@aol.com box, which said:

"I can not put these books down and am sharing with all my Red Hat ladies and we just
love them . . .  After reading your Coffeehouse books, the ladies comment on how much they've learned about coffee and are out there tasting all kinds . . . please keep writing. Faster and Faster.

Well, of course, I was thrilled to hear from royalty (LOL) and even more intrigued by the idea of a crew of CM readers getting together in red hats. So I wrote back to Shirley and she enlightened me!

     You see, the "Red Hat Society" is a national organization (with a delightful story behind it, click here to learn more). The worldwide sisterhood has more than 30,000 chapters in all 50 states of the U.S. and in more than 25 foreign countries. Shirley is the head of her chapter in Vienna, Virgina.

"We are 8 years old," Shirley told me, "and have 81 members in our chapter. Our chapter does lots of fun things. We just had a breakfast for 161 ladies all in purple pj's and fun red hats . . . some bras and all sorts of silk undies."

 (Cleo is working on getting photos of this! Stay tuned!)

"I make almost all my hats," Shirley explained to me when I asked her for a photo. "I keep looking for bigger and bigger ones. Doing one now covered with little tea services and roses and feathers. Found the little sets at the dollar store and bought 4, will let you see it when I get it all glued down . . ."

Bruce Porter's Java Art

Behold...

 Bruce Porter's

Java Art

"I love drawing what I call Java Art,"
Bruce told me via e-mail. "I call this one
'French Roast'."

Artwork courtesy of Bruce Porter.
Click here to visit his blog/website and
see more of his work.

Hi there. Cleo here again! Bruce Porter hails from Buhler, Kansas. He and I corresponded after he won my weekly Free Coffee Drawing. Like Clare, his wife works at a coffee shop (The Mustard Seed in Buhler - click here to visit!) and when I saw Bruce's art, I flipped over it and asked if I could post it on my site . . .

"I’m not a professional artist," Bruce told me. "I just love to draw. I’ve got a field notebook filled with what I call my Java Art. Most of them are just pencil and pen. Occasionally I’ll colorize them if I really like them and give them to friends as gifts. 

     "'French Roast' was my attempt at a Picasso style piece. It was done in pencil and ink on white paper then scanned into Photoshop where I painted and enhanced it. 'Rod' (posted below) was done the same way."

"Rod"

Artwork courtesy of and
Copyright (c) Bruce Porter

“I’m currently finishing up building our house,” Bruce told me. “In my spare time, I sketch, write and illustrate children’s books (still looking to be published), ride my motorcycle, practice my barista skills, play guitar, garden, and take road trips with my beautiful wife (who works part time in a pretty decent little coffee shop in town). We love finding great little coffee shops in small towns in the mid-west. And, there’s nothing better than sitting by our fireplace, sipping on a good latte’ while reading a Coffeehouse Mystery.” (Cleo appreciates the naked plug!) I asked Bruce about his writing, and he told me one of his book projects is called Growing Up Small. “...comical musings about all the stuff small people deal with while growing up,” he explained. “I even have an extended chapter titled ‘Coffee will stunt your growth’ where I reflect on the experiences of how I got my love for coffee and how it could be part of the reason I only reached 5’8”.  (Cleo laughing.)
     “I’ve also started work on a series of short essays titled And God Made Coffee and said ‘It is very good!’ - What I’m learning about life from brewing and drinking coffee. I don’t know if I’ll ever get published, but it’s just been fun writing.” (Cleo says: In my experience, if you have fun writing it, the reader will have fun reading it.)
     “My 12-year-old Gaggia Classic espresso machine just went belly up,” Bruce admitted. (Cleo says: There's a lot of that going around! Another CM reader, Cathy Lane from Texas, posted a hilarious obituary for her espresso machine. Click my green message board in the right column. Her post is dated April 17.) 
     “I’m currently researching for its replacement," Bruce assures me. "What a chore! In the meantime I’ve reverted to my good old stove top espresso maker – what a treat.”

The treat was mine in hearing from Bruce
and getting a chance to share his art
with all of you. If you’d like to visit Bruce
and see more of his Java Art, check out his blog and website by clicking here.

Till next time
—Cleo Coyle

SPRING 2009 COFFEE PICK: Rooster Brother (La Minita Estate)

Cleo's Spring '09

Coffee Pick:

ROOSTER
BROTHER's

La Minita Estate

"...there’s a lot of bad, defective coffee out there so you have to cup regularly to find the good stuff. The coffee team of myself, Gene and Mike cup green coffee on a regular basis all year. This kind of evaluation is very time consuming and labor intensive, but it’s the only way to maintain the level of quality our customers expect. We also roast in the store, everyday.” 

—George Elias

Rooster Brother
The Store for Cooks

29 Main Street
Ellsworth, Maine 04605

Hi there. Cleo here. I’m thrilled to tell you about my Spring '09 Coffee Pick. It's a coffee grown in the Central American country of Costa Rica and roasted and sold by a little shop in Maine, USA, called Rooster Brother.

This outstanding coffee from the La Minita Estate was recommended to me via e-mail by a Coffeehouse Mystery reader in Bangor, Maine, named Bud Knickerbocker. (Hi, Bud!)

 Pictured above: Coffeehouse Mystery reader Bud Knickerbocker of Bangor, Maine. “Hi Cleo!” Bud wrote to me via e-mail. “Your reply has warmed my heart especially after the 18”+ of snow we had over the past weekend (picture shoveling, snowshoeing, five deer under the apple tree, and soft gray quiet along Route 15)…”

It took me a little while to try Bud's favorite coffee, and when I did – WOW. Java heaven! This cup is obviously very freshly roasted.

 Rooster Brother's
roaster > > >

 The coffee tastes both smooth and sparkly (yes sparkly!). It’s so brilliantly bright in the mouth that it’s a delight to drink. There’s a touch of citrus juiciness, like the best African coffees, plus a nice body (not too heavy, just right), and my husband (who has a better palate than I) even detected notes of berry – “blueberry,” he says.

      This La Minita Estate is clearly a primo bean, but the absolutely outstanding micro-roasting is also the story of excellence here. The roaster is a little shop in Ellsworth, Maine, called Rooster Brother. They roast everyday and cup green coffee (not all roasters do this – and it’s an indication of the care and quality at work here). 

Pictured above: Gene - Rooster Brother's Master Roaster. (Hi, Gene! Your roasting is awesome!)

If I lived anywhere near Ellsworth, Maine, I’d be visiting Rooster Brother at least once a week - no doubt! As soon as I saw a picture of their shop online, I thought of my Haunted Bookshop mysteries and all the great Victorian buildings in New England. (Remember the Second Empire mansion that mailman Seymour inherits in The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion? 'Nuff said!)

 Pictured right: The Victorian building that houses the Rooster Brother store in Ellsworth, Maine (There's only one)!

George Elias and his wife, Pamela, started Rooster Brother 22 years ago. According to George, their building is one of the largest wood-frame structures in Maine. “It was built in 1895,” George wrote to me. “Originally built as an Odd Fellows Hall, it has been a car dealership, a general store and bicycle shop, a hardware store and now us. The building has approximately 12,000 square feet of floor space on four floors.”

   In addition to coffee, Rooster Brother sells wine, cheese and bread. On another floor they have cookware, knives, china, textiles and kitchen tools. On floor three, they have a kitchen that bakes bread, cookies, croissants and other goodies. (I’m SO there!)

     “The Rooster Brother store is a wonderful place to shop for coffee, tea and kitchen supplies,” Coffeehouse Mystery reader Bud Knickerbocker told me via e-mail. “We love going there for the smells and tastes they provide. Acadia National Park isn’t that far from their store and makes for a great day in Downeast Maine.”

Pictured right: Donna, who's worked at the Rooster Brother coffee counter for 22 years.
(Hi, Donna!)

Their online store is equally impressive. The care Rooster Brother puts into their cupping and roasting extends to their packaging and shipping.

(I say this after having recently sampled coffees from other roasters who not only poorly roasted their beans but shipped them to me stale. Ugh.)

     Needless to say, my experience with Rooster Brother was a high-quality one. I totally felt the love! Like Clare Cosi, these folks obviously care about the integrity of their product, have pride in their business, and want their customer's experience to be a good one. Their online store was easy to use, the confirmation of order was quick, and the UPS delivery flawless (with tracking). As for the Costa Rican source of their La Minita, George explained to me:

“We have a special relationship with La Minita, the estate in Costa Rica where this coffee is produced. All of us on the team have spent time on the farm and at the mill so we understand the process."

Pictured left: Mike from Rooster Brother's coffee team, picking ripe coffee cherries on the La Minita Estate farm in Costa Rica.(Hiya, Mike!)

I really enjoy learning about the origin of the coffee I drink—the long journey those beans take from soil half a world away to my little coffee mug. Well, thanks to Internet magic, you can *virtually* visit the Costa Rican farm where this coffee is grown by clicking here.

 According to George at Rooster Brother, the farm's owner, Bill McAlpin, is devoted to not only the quality of the coffee, but also the quality of the workers’ lives. There is housing, a medical clinic and even a soccer field on the Estate.

     Finally, George let me know that La Minita is often referred to as the “Lafite” of coffees because it is one of the world’s best and most consistent.

     Agreed! If you'd like to learn more about Rooster Brother or purchase the La Minita Estate coffee (or any of their other coffee or products), visit their web site by clicking here. They have a newsletter, too!

Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle
author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries

A "Coffee Pick" P.S...

CM reader Bud Knickerbocker definitely knows his coffee! His brother (Dickie) and sister-in-law (Lisa) run St. John’s Coffeehouse in Covington, Louisiana, a place that has a lot in common with my fictional Village Blend! For one thing, it has a great history (the building it occupies is over 100 years old), and for another, St. John's obviously strives to be a warm and welcoming place for its community....

Pictured above: St. John's Coffeehouse
in Covington, Louisiana

According to Bud, “Dickie and Lisa lost their house as a result of Hurricane Katrina, but their coffeehouse never closed down. They provided their City with a quiet place to sit for a while.”

     That's just awesome. If you’re near Covington, Louisiana, Bud invites you to stop in at St. John’s Coffeehouse and say: "Bud says hi from Maine!"

      Click here or on the link below to *virtually* visit Dickie and Lisa’s St. John’s Coffeehouse online.

http://www.stjohnscoffeehouse.com/index2.html

JANUARY COFFEE PICK: Kopi Luwak? - NOT!

Posted January 13, 2009

CLEO'S JANUARY COFFEE PICK:

Kopi Luwak

NOT!

 Hi there. Cleo here.  I've been tasting coffees for the past few weeks and have just selected my first Coffee Pick of 2009, which I'll be announcing here very soon.

For today, however, I thought you'd get a few yuks (or possibly even yucks ) hearing about one coffee that's NOT going to be my pick: Kopi Luwak. 

Yes, I did consider giving away this exotic coffee in my weekly Coffee Drawings, but (alas) I just can't afford it! Check it out...

I just received an e-mail from a vendor in Indonesia, pricing the green, unroasted coffee at $123.76 US dollars a kilogram (a little over two pounds) with a 5 kilogram minimum. If I order it roasted, it's a little more affordable - only $52.92 for a half-pound. (Stop gagging, people, that's only the cost of feeding a small family for two days!)

"So what IS this coffee anyway?" some of you may be wondering. Kopi Luwak is one of the rarest coffees on earth. In a scene near the end of my latest Coffeehouse Mystery, Espresso Shot, my fictional coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi brews up the luwak for a taste test with her baristas. To quote the text...

“What do you think, Esther?” Clare asked.

     Esther Best pushed up her black rectangular glasses and peered at me with her big, brown hypercritical eyes. “I think I can’t get my mind around where these beans have been..."

Ah! And WHERE have they been?
There's the rub...

“The luwak is a feral forest animal,” Clare explains in the book. “It eats coffee cherries, digests them, and voids them whole. The Indonesian farmers collect them, process them, and sell them as the most expensive coffee on earth...”

So why would anyone want to pick coffee beans out of animal droppings? Well, the digestive tract of the cute little cat-like luwak (also known as a civet) changes the chemical composition of the coffee bean.

The cat-like civet (also known as luak or luwak)
helps (uh-hem) "produce" the Kopi Luwak Coffee

Typically, a coffee bean’s proteins contribute to its bitterness, but the luwak’s digestive process breaks down some of the proteins in the bean, making the coffee extremely smooth.

     Lovers of the luwak say it has the cup characteristics of a really good Sumatran, heavy and earthy with hints of caramel and chocolate, as well as a superlative smoothness and a unique, lingering mustiness.

      Given it's origins, however, the unfortunate nickname "cat poop coffee" has come up a time or two (stop laughing). 

 Pictured Left:
Kopi Luwak in it's natural state...

Click here to see step by step illustrations of how one Kopi Luwak coffee producer processes these beans.

Hey, maybe someday I'll be able to afford giving the winners of my weekly Coffee Drawings a free pound of luwak. But today ain't it!

     Anway! Stay tuned for my REAL January Coffee Pick, a tres delicious and affordable one, which I plan to post next week.

     In the meantime, click here to read more about Kopi Luwak coffee.

Till next time,
—Cleo Coyle

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER '08 COFFEE PICK: Bouchon Blend

 Posted November 21, 2008

  CLEO'S
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER
COFFEE PICK:

Bouchon
Blend

A great coffee for the holidays. Silky smooth and perfectly balanced, it pairs especially well with cookies, desserts & seasonal goodies. This coffee was also featured in Cleo Coyle's latest Coffeehouse Mystery Espresso Shot.

Hi there! Cleo here. Every book I write in my Coffeehouse Mystery series includes some amount of research into the culinary world and coffee trade. One of the reasons I started this Website was to share my discoveries with my readers. One such discovery was Bouchon Blend.

     If you've already read Espresso Shot, then you know why coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi loves Bouchon Blend. (Among other things, she uses it to exorcise the foul temper out of a jet-lagged Italian artist named Nunzio.) As Clare herself describes this coffee...

"The Bouchon Blend smelled heavenly: woody and sweetly dark, like caramelized nuts with traces of cocoa and spice..."

—Espresso Shot, p. 120

Bouchon is roasted and sold by Equator Estate Coffees & Teas, a women-owned roasting company located in northern California. They created it especially for award-winning Chef Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakeries.

Keller's bakery
in Napa Valley, CA.

Equator also supplies the coffees for Keller's other restaurants, including The French Laundry in California and per se in New York, two of the finest restuarants in the United States (and probably among the ten best in the world).

     If you go to Equaltor's online store, you'll see blends for all of Keller's restaurants. I sampled a few and thought the Bouchon would be the best pick for the holiday season precisely because it's made for service in a fine bakery.

The blend has a full, rounded mouth-feel, thanks to the Sumatra beans, which provide a deep, harmonious backdrop to sweet desserts and chocolates. The African beans give a slightly tingly acidity that balances the heavier Sumatra perfectly. The roasting process brings notes of caramel to your tastebuds, and my husband and I both detected hints of vanilla as the coffee cooled.

Bouchon is also a fun cup to serve to guests simply because you can share the fact that one of the top chefs in the country has chosen this coffee to serve in his bakeries.

 Click here to learn more about
the amazing Chef Thomas Keller.

Chef Keller operates three Bouchon Bakeries. They are located in northern California, Las Vegas, and New York City. The Bouchon I patronize is on the 3rd floor of New York City's Time Warner Center, one floor below Keller's exclusive per se restaurant. (Sadly) the man's renowned restaurant is too pricey for me, but I can (happily) afford the much more democratic counter service at his bakery, where I not only purchase his amazing chocolate & coffee eclairs, but I also buy Bouchon Blend to take home by the pound (yum). And, yes, the Time Warner Center's bakery counter is exactly where Clare gets her coffee beans in Espresso Shot!

     The good news is: You don't have to travel to New York, Vegas, or Northern California to try this delcious coffee. Equator Estate Coffees & Teas sells all of their coffees online.

     Click here to visit Equator's online store. I find their service to be efficient and reliable. They'll send their coffee to anywhere in the country and their prices are competitive (about the same as Peet's and Starbucks).

Drink With Joy!

—Cleo Coyle

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER '08 COFFEE PICK: Joe's Vienna Roast

Posted September 15, 2008

 Joe, the Art of Coffee flagship store at
141 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, New York.
CLICK HERE to visit Joe's website, order coffee online,
get directions, or sign up for their newsletter or
"Joe University" coffee classes...

  One of the best places in NYC for a great cuppa joe is Joe:
Joe, the Art of Coffee. Ever since Joe opened its doors in 2003, New Yorkers have named it a fave, and Food and Wine magazine recently crowned it among the best coffee bars in the country.

     So, frankly, it was a no-brainer making my September Coffee Pick the excellent Joe's Vienna Roast, served in Joe’s New York stores, including the original flagship store in the West Village (a short hop from my old neighborhood—the East Village aka Alphabet City.)

Archive update: Joe now serves a different house coffee, but it's equally delicious!

Click here to visit
Joe's online store
and purchase one of
Joe's excellent
coffees for yourself...

This is a sweet, subtle coffee that gives a rich, smooth, almost creamy mouth feel. It's versatile and will pair as well with your morning muffin as your evening pie. (I just enjoyed a cup with a caramel apple - yum.) Not overpowering or extreme, this is a cozy cup of comfort to enjoy every single day, any time of day.

   "Vienna" refers to the roast style, which is medium-dark. The bean hails from Panama. The roaster is Barrington Coffee (based in MA). And the cup is excellent. Which brings me to Joe, the actual coffeehouse, and it's visionary owner, Jonathan Rubinstein...

  Above is a pic of Joe's owner, Jonathan Rubinstein,
as featured in a must-have book for coffee lovers who
either live in or plan to visit NYC:

CAFÉ LIFE NEW YORK:
An Insider's Guide to the City's Neighborhood Cafés.

Learn more about
this wonderful, illustrated book
by Sandy Miller

with photography by
Juliana Spear by clicking
on the link below...

Jonathan's vision
has truly inspired me...

Anyone who's watched Greenwich Village's flamboyant bohemian color fade into a banal backdrop of slick chain stores and galleria clothiers has got to give major props to this man.

     In opening Joe, Jonathan provided (as he puts it himself in his Cafe Life interview): "...a community-based gathering place with the focus on excellent coffee."

     Yes, it's EXACTLY the goal of my fictional Village Blend. Oh, sure, there are still century-old Italian cafés in the Village (now largely tourist attractions), but it's Jonathan's cozy little spot that's the closest in philosophy (and heart) to Clare Cosi's place.

       While researching today's coffeehouse culture, I also took classes from Joe's adorable head barista and Director of Coffee, Amanda Byron...

THE AMANDA PROJECT!

A Seattle transplant, Amanda Byron is one of the top baristas working in New York today, and her advice and insights on working as a barista were a great help to me in writing the Coffeehouse Mysteries.

      Check out her pic below: Last year, Amanda appeared on The Martha Stewart Show (now seen @11 AM on Channel 4 in NYC). Click here for your own local listings...

 Joe's Director of Coffee, Amanda Byron,
shows Martha Stewart how to create latte art.

Below is her handywork...
With a flick of her wrist, she creates a
beautiful rosetta using steamed whole milk.

Sure, I could go on and on about Joe, but that would delay your ability to CLICK HERE and try Joe's cozy, subtly sweet Joe's Vienna Roast for yourself!

     If you're planning a trip to NYC, check out one of Joe's locations. There's the flagship Village store (pictured above), one on 13th Street in Union Square—right next to the legendary New School, a bohemian institution (no doubt!). There's a 3rd store on West 23rd Street in Chelsea and even a spankin' new location in Grand Central Terminal.

So now you know
why Cleo loves Joe.

Till next time,
—Cleo Coyle

Hi there. Cleo here.
I’m often asked to
recommend a favorite
New York coffeehouse.
Well, listen up, people!
Here it is...

Cleo's

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER

Coffee Pick:  

 JOE'S VIENNA ROAST

Sold by the Greenwich Village café
that's been one of my inspirations
for my fictional Village Blend...

JOE, THE ART OF COFFEE

CLEO GOES TO JAPAN! - CM Japanese Covers...

CLEO GOES
TO JAPAN!

Here are some of the Japanese covers for my Coffeehouse Mystery series. (Funny...even though Clare Cosi's cat, Java, isn't exactly featured in every book, she's become the star of the Japanese cover art.)

 —Cleo

Cover of the
Japanese edition

On What Grounds

Java enjoying a delish cookie with her coffee...

U.S. version

 Published in Japan
by Random House
Kodansha

Cover of the
Japanese edition

Through the Grinder

Java grinding beans
and frowning at mice stealing sack of coffee

 U.S. version

Published in Japan
by Random House
Kodansha 

Cover of the
Japanese edition

Latte Trouble

Java reading a "New Fashion" mag with a bottle of "Latte" in her arm.

U.S. version

Published in Japan
by Random House
Kodansha

CLEO'S KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL: An Interview with an Exec. Chef

Posted August 23, 2008

 CLEO'S

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL:

Cleo's interview

with Executive Chef

Andrew Bales.

Article is posted above

on the Home Page.

JULY - AUGUST '08 COFFEE PICK: Solar Roast Coffee

Posted July 10, 2008

 Cleo's JULY - AUGUST

Coffee Pick:

SOLAR ROAST COFFEE

Pueblo, Colorado

Mike and Dave of Solar Roast Coffee in their Pueblo coffee shop. Click here or on the picture to visit their online site and see photos of their amazing self-built solar roaster, the only one of its kind in the world. Photo courtesy of and (c) Mike and Dave Hartkop. All rights reserved. Thanks, guys!

 §

What better "coffee pick" for summer than the only coffee roaster in the world to roast their coffee using a roaster powered by solar energy.

     The two brothers who own the business, Dave and Mike Hartkop, invented their first solar coffee roaster in their parents' back yard (in Oregon) using mirrors, a broccoli steamer, and old satellite dish. Today they roast with a custom-built solar machine in sunny Pueblo, CO. Their giant roaster, which they call Helios 4, uses sunlight in place of fuel on sunny days.

     I ordered a sampler pack of their own unique blends and thoroughly enjoyed it. (They also offer a sampler pack of single-origin coffees, which is a great way to sample coffees from around the world.)

     My husband and I were especially impressed with the "Zeus Blend" French Roast. Too many French Roasts taste too woody or smoky. The Solar Roast Zeus French Roast was smooth and refined. Richly dark and bold yet not overpowering. Very nice for an after dinner cup, especially since, as Clare Cosi would put it: The darker the bean, the less caffeine! (Zeus Blend, mmm-yum!)

    I found the answer to why their French roast is so good. Under FAQs on their site:

    Q: Does Solar Roasted coffee taste different from other coffees?

    A: Yes, but not only because it is roasted using solar energy! Our roasters are also designed to hold in the steam and hot gasses from coffee beans as they roast. Because of this aroma roasting, the beans retain a richer flavor and are not overly dried during the roasting process. This makes for a smooth rich flavor, without any burned bitterness.

     Cleo says: "Awesome!"

     Our second favorite of the Solar Roast blends was the Van Dieman. Complex and delightful on the tongue with a bright citrus note. Truly delish and great for a morning or afternoon pick-me-up cup. We also enjoyed their Willow Spring Blend, medium and dark roasted coffees blended together in a cup that was full bodied and smooth to the last drop. If you're looking for an espresso roast, they have one under the name "Aristotle Blend" - we didn't try this one, but if you do, let us know what you think!

     As to service: After I ordered online, they confirmed the order quickly by e-mail and sent the coffee in record time. Very efficient! Thumbs up for service, reliability, and even enthusiasm (they wrote a little personal note on my invoice, too)!

     Click here for the link to learn more about this unique American business. Props to you Dave and Mike. You've found an ingenious way to address the energy problems facing us all.

     Now will somebody please give these guys a plane ticket to Washington, D.C.?

Until next time,

—Cleo Coyle

   Congratulations to the winners of my July-August Coffee Drawings:

ELLIE of New Orleans, LA

SHARON of Harleysville, PA

JENNIFER of Glenolden, PA

& MARSHA of Pawling, NY!

 Ellie, Sharon, Jennifer, and Marsha

each won a free package of java from
Solar Roast Coffee!

MAY- JUNE '08 Coffee Pick: Papua New Guinea

Posted May 24, 2008

CLEO'S MAY - JUNE
COFFEE PICK:

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

 "Jamaica Blue Mountain"
of the South Pacific

As usual, my article below
includes a link for purchasing
this coffee online...

   Click here to see more PNG images.

For those of you frustrated with the high cost and limited availability of Jamaica Blue Mountain,
the coffees of Papua New Guinea should interest you! This tiny Indonesian island is a great source
for the very same Blue Mountain varietal...

My coffee pick this month is grown by the Agoga plantations, which are located in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, west of the rural township of Kainantu.

     Agoga is composed of 2,000 family, clan and village members. Each member has been involved with the production of coffee his or her whole life. But let's backtrack a moment...

   Where exactly is
Papua New Guinea?

     Papua New Guinea (PNG) is located on an island north of Australia. It's a diverse country with an ancient people who've developed unique cultural traditions (in art, dance, costumes, music) and speak over 800 languages.

      Most of Papua New Guinea's population live in traditional villages and communities and practice subsistence-based agriculture. Over 70% of this countries' coffee crop comes not from huge corporately-owned farms but from tens of thousands of small village coffee gardens that range in size from 20 trees to 500 or 600.

     (By the way, one coffee tree will yield about one pound of coffee during a growing season. So when you drink a pound of coffee, you're essentially drinking an entire tree's worth!)

     Much of the seed stock on Papua New Guinea is planted from the Jamaican Blue Mountain varietal, so it's no big surprise that many of the coffees offered from PNG share the same unique flavor characteristics as Blue Mountain: a mild, medium body with fruity undertones.

     The harvesting of coffee in Papua New Guinea begins in April and peaks in July and August. So now is a good time to purchase this coffee if you're interested in trying it.

     My interest in the Agoga plantations coffee came about because of their fantastic showing in this year's SCAA competition for the world's best coffee. (SCAA is the Specialty Coffee Association of America - the world's largest coffee trade association). More than 30 SCAA judges ranked Papua New Guinea's Agoga Plantation Limited submission as the 7th best in the world (over 100 coffees were judged).

     I was eager to try the coffee grown by Agoga, so I searched for a vendor or roaster online who would sell their coffee to me retail (one 12-oz bag at a time as opposed to giant lots of it). Lucikly I found one: Williamsburg Coffee & Tea. Click here and scroll down to the PAPUA NEW GUINEA selection on the Williamsburg Coffee & Tea website. It's organically grown and fairly traded, and I was pleased with my experience ordering from WCT, which is based in Williamsburg, VA. My order was confirmed by e-mail and came quickly by post, freshly roasted.

    I was extremely pleased with the coffee, as well. My husband and I both tasted the Agoga plantations coffee. Here are our impressions:

"Fruity-citrus-lemony notes balanced with an earthy-woody favor and a slight chocolaty/spicy finish...

Like a cross between an African coffee and one from Sumatra – lighter than a Sumatra yet still substantial in body and flavor. Hard to believe this is not a blend! High notes and low notes, like a wonderful blend, yet it’s single origin. Remarkable amount of flavor...brightness without bitterness..."

     The Agoga plantations grow the Blue Mountain varietel at altitudes of 4,500 to 5, 000 feet. "High grown is high quality," as Clare Cosi would say!

     Congrats to "Kristen" from Huntsville, Alabama, who won a free package of the Papua New Guinea coffee during my last Free Coffee drawing. My next drawing will take place June 22. Good luck!

Until next time,

–Cleo Coyle

A Conversation with Founder of CozyLibrary.com - Diana Vickery

A CONVERSATION

WITH

DIANA VICKERY

Founder and "Head Librarian" of

Cozy Library

Have you ever wanted to review cozy mystery books for a review site? Have you ever wanted to start your own Web community? Well, read on, because his month, I am delighted to welcome a very special guest to my virtual Village Blend—Diana Vickery, founder and "head librarian" of the very popular Cozy Library website.

Diana Vickery
in 1954!

If you’ve never dropped by the Cozy Library, you should! It’s an impressive community of Cozy Mystery fans and writers, boasting over 500 pages of content, dozens of author interviews, 275 author website links, and reviews of over 300 cozy author books, with new reviews filed every month, including a regular newsletter.

     Diana provides a real service. Her review "librarians" introduce readers looking for good reads to authors looking for new readers. Most of all, Diana’s story is a true inspiration, showing us that retirement from a full-time job isn’t the end of anything, but the beginning of finally being able to pursue a long-held passion. Below is my recent conversation with her...

CLEO: Welcome to my virtual Village Blend, Diana! First of all, tell us your favorite coffeehouse drink and snack, I’ll (virtually) get it for you! Secondly, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up? Where do you live now? And what did you do before you retired?

DIANA: I’m certain you’ll be disappointed, Cleo, but I usually get my coffee at McDonald’s at the mall where I walk every morning. My “senior decaf with one cream” sets me back a whopping 54 cents. When I’m at my favorite (real) coffeehouse, Grinders in Grayslake, Illinois, I order a small decaf breakfast blend and an Orange Blossom muffin. Not very adventurous, I’m afraid. (Although, after reading French Pressed, I think I should expand my coffee horizons!)

     I was born and raised in northern Illinois and have spent all but one year of my life within about 60 miles of where I was born. I live in Gurnee, Illinois (one of Chicago’s far north suburbs), with hubby of 37 years, Ray.

     Most of my working life was spent doing public relations. I was PR director at three different community colleges; then I spent 15 years running my own small PR agency. After that, I spent eleven years “semi-retired,” working for a Fortune 500 company, where I edited two monthly employee newsletters, one national, one regional. I began the Cozy Library in February 2006 and fully retired in June of that year.

CLEO: So, after you retired from your full-time job, what led to your creation of the Cozy Library site and what did it entail?

DIANA: Writing has always been a part of my life and I knew when I retired that I’d want to continue writing. The only questions were what I’d write about and for whom. At that time, I’d been reviewing cozies for Mystery News (www.blackravenpress.com) for several years and thought doing more of that would be fun. Plus, I thought it would be a kick to help match readers with new authors and to write a newsletter for kindred spirits.

The idea for the Cozy Library came to me at about 3:00 one morning.

     In December 2005 I called my friend Kim Washetas (www.scoutcr.com), a website developer, at about 7 a.m. and asked her to get secure the domain name www.cozylibrary.com. Kim, an avid reader herself, immediately said, “I can see it now.”

     That day, while my husband was at work, I put everything down on paper: what the site would be, the kind of content I envisioned and the cost. After dinner that night, I gave my pitch to Ray, a very practical guy. He gave it about 30 seconds of thought and said, “I think you should do it.” Kim and I scurried to come up with a design and content and the site was up and running by mid-February 2006.

CLEO: In his Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery, Bruce F. Murphy includes an entry on the “cozy” mystery. He says, “If the noir writer is a pessimist, the cozy writer is an optimist.” Would you agree with that? And if so, is that the reason you love cozies so much?

(Click hereto learn more about this wonderful reference book or purchase it for yourself.)

DIANA: I definitely agree that cozy readers are optimists – we always look for that happy ending.

      When I read for pleasure, I want to enter a world I wouldn’t mind being in. Not in a forensic laboratory. Not an interrogation room with a serial killer. Not where coarse language is the norm. My real life is pretty doggone cozy -- and I believe that’s why I like to read cozy mysteries and gentle fiction.

      BTW: I covered the topic of why I read cozy more fully in my guest blog for Clea Simon earlier this month. It’s here: http://cleasimon.blogspot.com/

CLEO: If anyone reading this is inspired by your story and thinking about pursing his or her own passion of creating a community on the Internet, what would you advise them? Any suggestions are welcome.

DIANA: I was very fortunate in having a good friend who knew so much about putting together a website. My best advice is to find an expert, negotiate a price you can afford, and take that expert’s advice. A blog may be an easier (and less expensive) way to do much the same thing and there are many options.

CLEO: Here’s a challenge for you. For Cleo Coyle’s fans, what three cozy mystery (or not-quite-cozy mystery) authors or books would you suggest they try between Cleo’s books? Ditto for Alice Kimberly’s fans?

DIANA: For Cleo’s fans—three books whose authors, like Cleo, have a knack for integrating their protagonist’s profession with the mystery. I know cozy fans like to get in on the ground floor, so here are three first books in new series.

Julie Hyzy’s State of the Onion (White House chef)

Lorna Barrett’s Murder is Binding (“Booktown”)

Sarah Atwell’s Through a Glass, Deadly (Glassblowing)

Few mysteries compare to Alice’s, so I’m going to recommend three non-mystery novels with elements of fantasy for her fans.

Earthly Pleasures by Karen Neches (angels)

A Shortcut in Time by Charles Dickinson (time travel)

Passage by Connie Willis (near-death experiences)

CLEO: Those are wonderful suggestions, thank you! Now, if anyone reading this is interested in reviewing books for Cozy Library, what should they know and what should they do?

DIANA: When I started reviewing for Mystery News, the editor gave me a “tryout” before taking me on as a regular reviewer -- she sent me a book and I sent her a review. That’s what I like to do, too.

Anyone interested in being a
(volunteer) reviewer for Cozy Library
should send me an e-mail at

cozy.library@sbcglobal.net

or

diana@cozylibrary.com.

I’ll mail a book we agree on and we can go from there. Reviewers need to have read quite a lot of cozy books (mystery or general fiction) and have some experience writing for publication.

CLEO: Finally, I suspect someone with your energy and imagination has other passions. What do you do when you’re not reading or writing reviews?

DIANA: My husband and I enjoy taking road trips, hiking and enjoying the great outdoors. My favorite hobby right now is genealogy – in fact, much of our travel lately has been in pursuit of my husband’s Vickery and Fuller family histories. That has led us to discover, in addition to dead ancestors, some living relatives. We’re planning to attend reunions this spring and summer – and meeting face-to-face with new cousins we’ve found. Genealogy has led us down some strange and wonderful paths.

CLEO: Many of my readers are real foodies. More to the point, they really see the connection between food, family, memory, and love. Would you like to share a special foodie memory with us (a recipe or a link to a recipe is most welcome, too!)?

DIANA: Christmas dinners in my childhood didn’t feature turkey, ham or prime rib...

     For breakfast, lunch and dinner, my sisters, cousins and I spread cold pork pâte on doughy, white Rainbo-brand bread and topped it with salt and pepper. Accompaniments included Jay’s potato chips and a tall glass of cold milk from Pike’s Dairy in Aurora, Illinois, where my dad worked.

Click here for a link to our
family’s recipe for Creton.
It was published in
Ancestry.com’s
online newsletter.

     I also have a coffee-related memory to share. While in high school, I worked at a drug-store soda fountain. Each summer, one of our specials was a coffee soda. It was made with coffee ice cream and carbonated water, along with coffee syrup we made up using sugar, ground coffee and boiling water in a drip coffee pot.

     Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what it tasted like because I wasn’t a coffee drinker at the time. But it was very popular with our customers. (My favorite soda fountain concoction was peppermint ice cream topped with hot fudge, marshmallow sauce and whipped cream.)

CLEO: Thank you, Diana, for taking the time to visit with us here at the virtual Village Blend. To visit with Diana and her librarians at Cozy Library click here.

To find out more about Grinders,
Diana's favorite coffeehouse click on their logo.

Grinders is located at

82 Center St.
Grayslake, IL  60030

Memorial Day 2008 - Patriot Guard Ride by Jim Kerick

MEMORIAL DAY

The Return of Java the Cat!

 §

(Scroll down for more archived articles...)

OH, SNAP! Rachael Ray Makes Gaffe Over...Coffee?

So there's this daily blog written by New York magazine called "Grub Street," which has the inside track on New York's foodie scene. The editors recently reported a hilarious story that caught my attention merely because it's about coffee.
     Click here to read about Rachael Ray's apparent gaffe on the set of her show (off camera), calling Dunkin' Donuts coffee, well, merde and asking for "MY" coffee, which was, apparently...(oops!) Starbucks.
     Yeah, I know, this wouldn't be a big deal at all if she wasn't promoting Dunkin' Donuts. But then I can't blame her. I myself have given up on the Dunkin' Donuts coffee at the stores near me.

     I think this gaffe (if it's really true) is just a passing thing, and all will be well with her growing Oprah-like empire, to which (despite snarky comments by fiftysomething TV guys like Tony Bourdain!) I have to say, YOU GO, GIRL!
     I actually love Tony, too. C'mon, his sexy arrogance, hidden under too-cool-for-school hipness, actually inspired me to create my very own chef character in my latest Coffeehouse Mystery, French Pressed , so how could I not admire the cat?

Cleo's reply: 

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY,

QUEEN OF BEANS!

Here's a virtual doughnut to you for stopping by and letting me know about your hilarious DD birthday bash! Thanks for sharing. I LOVE all the clever coffee-themed kitsch that you thought of doing for her, too. What a great sis you are!

Java joy to you and your java-loving sister.

And from one Queen of coffee beans to another: Happy Birthday, girl!

—Cleo Coyle

APRIL '08 Coffee Pick: Purple Princess

CLEO'S APRIL
COFFEE PICK:

PURPLE

PRINCESS

also known as...

"Finca El Puente,"
from the country of Honduras

Pictured above is Marysabel, the owner of the farm
that produces this amazing coffee

If you've read even one of my Coffeehouse Mysteries, then you know what an important role coffee plays in each story. In French Pressed, coffeehouse manager and barista Clare Cosi must stage a coffee tasting for the demanding exective chef of a top New York restaurant.
     "So, okay," I said to myself, "if Clare has got to impress someone as hard to please as Chef Tommy Keitel, then I've got to find some really excellent coffees out there for her to serve the man..."
     Coffee beans grown in Kenya are among the finest in the world, which is why I put Kenyan coffee on Clare's short list. (Kenya was also my March Coffee Pick, and you can scroll down to read more about this wonderful coffee)...But I knew Kenya alone wouldn't be enough to persuade Chef Tommy Keitel to include Clare's coffees on his precious restaurant menu. I needed something really different, a coffee with a flavor profile that would get the attention of a world-class chef. That coffee was actually easy for me to choose: It's a coffee grown in Honduras, on the farm of Finca El Puente—a coffee nicknamed the "Purple Princess." Everything I write about the Purple Princess in French Pressed is true (see page 100 of your mass market edition). It's an elegant, award-winning coffee that's greatly desired at coffee auctions. How does it taste? Silky smooth with floral and fruity notes of lavender, plum, and grape. These "purple" fruits along with the "regal" elegance of the silky body is what led Peter Giuliano, coffee director of the boutique roaster, Counter Culture Coffee, to nickname this amazing offering "Purple Princess" —a name now widely used to refer to this superb coffee.
     Another wonderful thing I discovered while researching this coffee was that the farm on which the Purple Princess is grown is owned by a woman: Marysabel Caballero Garcia.

Pictured above is Marysabel, owner of the farm that produces the excellent "Purple Princess" coffee. Click here or on the photo to go to the Counter Culture Coffee Web site and read what Marysabel's says about running her coffee farm. You can also order "Purple Princess" coffee from Counter Culture. The company delivers freshly roasted whole beans via UPS. Click here to order the coffee for yourself.

Marysabel was also recently profiled as one of "Ten Incredible Women in Coffee" in the April-May issue of Barista Magazine, a great magazine to read if you work in the coffeehouse trade. (Click here to learn more about Barista Magazine.)
     Marysabel inherited her farm from her father. And, like many women who must prove themselves where men have gone before, it wasn't easy...
    "At the beginning," she told Barista Magazine, "it was difficult to take over my father's role as the head of the farms; the employees refused to obey my instructions because they couldn't accept that a woman could be in charge in this work. But little by little, I gained their trust...Over the course of a few months, we became a good team and in addition to respecting me, they all came to care about me, as well..."
     Even though 70% of the world's coffee is grown in South and Central America, Honduras is not a country known for its coffee, but there's a great story behind that, too...a love story.
     Marysabel credits her husband, Ezri Moises Herrera, for figuring out that the area where they ended up cultivating the Purple Princess coffee had the conditions similar to excellent coffee-growing regions in his native Guatemala, a country well known for many excellent estate and cooperative coffees.
      Ezri and Marysabel married in 1996 and together began planting and cultivating their award-winning crop.

Above is a map of Central America. As you can see, Honduras—the country where the Purple Princess is grown—is bordered by Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, three countries far better celebrated than Honduas for exporting superior coffee. The Purple Princess is a great exception to that!

If you'd like to try this coffee for yourself, it's imported and sold through two excellent coffee roasters. Click here to purchase it from Counter Culture Coffee of Durham, North Carolina (that's where I get mine because I live on the East Coast).
     The other excellent roaster where you can purchase Finca El Puente is Stumptown Coffee of Portland, Oregon. At this time, Stumptown is not offering Fince El Puente for sale, but this boutique roaster is a top one, so if you're curious to take a look at their other coffees, just click here. 

Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle  

MARCH '08 COFFEE PICK: Kenyan

CLEO'S MARCH

COFFEE PICK:

 KENYA

 One of the coffees featured in
my 6th Coffeehouse Mystery:
French Pressed

Click here to read about
Kenyan coffee farm tours.

Africa is it, folks, the continent where the first coffee plant sprang from the earth. That’s one reason why I chose to begin Cleo’s 2008 World Coffee Tour in January with Ethiopia, where coffee was first discovered.

(Scroll down to read about my  picks for January - Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, and February - Rwandan Village Blend.)

For this month’s coffee pick, I’m pleased to take us to another African nation: Kenya.
     Kenya has wonderful growing conditions for coffee, especially the slopes around Mount Kenya (remember high grown is high quality). Mount Kenya is located about 95 miles northeast of Nairobi, Kenya's largest city. The mountain is actually a dead volcano (it last erupted around 3 million years ago), so the soil is rich in its foothills and the rainfall is good, providing great conditions for growing Joe. Despite Ethiopia's location just to the north—where the coffee plant was originally discovered around 1,400 years ago and still grows wild—the coffee farmed in Kenya came to the country only a few hundred years ago via missionaries who hoped to create a cash crop for the country.
     These "Bourbon" coffee plants (mutated versions of the Ethiopian plant) were then cultivated by the Kenyan farmers into a crop that's become one of finest and most respected in the world.
      March and April is the time when Kenya's top grade lots come to auction—this is another aspect of the country's coffee farming that's unique, the trading of the coffee itself. You see, in Kenya, the farms are small. The farmers form cooperatives to market their crops. By law, these cooperatives must sell their coffee through the auctions held at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange.

Click here or on the picture to see more photos of the NCE.
    

Coffee buyers request samples, evaluate them, and bid on them through a licensed bidder. Most of these lots are bought by exporters, who mix this higher quality Kenyan coffee into blends with lesser varieties. However, savvy buyers like Counter Culture Coffee roasters of Durham, NC, and Peet's Coffee and Tea of San Francisco, CA, are very particular about bidding on pure, uncut lots.

 The late Alfred Peet (2nd from right)
cupping coffee in Nairobi in 1985

Here's how Peet's describes its buying process...
     "...we narrow down hundreds of offerings to the few we bid on. It’s a frenzied and exciting time, with intense competition to secure the most sublime lots. We’re sent samples direct from the auction, and have just a day to taste, debate, compare and then finally make our bids. Only a few select lots meet our standard for Kenya perfection: wonderfully aromatic, juicy, lively, with complex flavors hinting of citrus and blackberry."
     I haven't tried the Peet's Kenyan yet, but I trust the company's quality and have no problem linking to it. Click here to read more about Peet's Kenyan.
     I have tried Counter Culture Coffee's Kenyan and loved it. What I especially like about Counter Culture is their offering the coffee in a lighter or darker roast.
     When I was writing French Pressed, I knew I wanted to use a Kenyan coffee for the scene in which Clare must persuade a top New York chef to serve her coffees in his restaurant. I specifically ordered the Counter Culture French roast Kenyan to sample for this–and it was one delicious cup!

The hints of spice in the Kenya make it a great coffee to pair with my Banana Crunch Muffins, a bonus recipe I'll be sending to my newsletter subscribers before the end of March.

Counter Culture's Kenyan lot has wonderful body, and a clean, bright finish with notes of spice, clove, raisin, and sweet lime. Ah, but this is the lighter roast. So what happens when you French roast these same beans? It's like covering sweet cherries with chocolate. The depth of the dark roast is there but so is the fruitiness of the African bean. Yum.
     (As Counter Culture warns, beware of roasters who don't know how to handle these beans, then you'll just get an overpowerig carmelized smokiness without the subtler flavors.)
    If you'd like to read more about Counter Culture's Kenyan coffee or puchase it for yourself, click here for the lighter roast and click here for the French roast. FYI: My March free coffee drawing winner—"Pat" from Cordova, Tennessee—chose the French roast. (LINK UPDATE 7/09 - CLICK HERE for the most current Kenyan coffee roasted and sold by Counter Culture Coffee.)
     Finally, Kenya is also the country where Danish author Karen Blixen, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen, owned and ran a coffee plantation in the early 1900s, near the final years of European colonialism in the country. If you've never heard of her, I highly recommend the film based on her life and memoir of the same name: Out of Africa. To learn more about the film, click here. To learn more about the author Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen) click here.

Till Next time

—Cleo Coyle

How Cleo Spent St. Patrick's Day '08 - NY Parade Pics!

How I Spent
Saint Patrick's Day 2008

New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade is the largest in the world with 150,000 marchers and 2 million spectators lining Fifth Avenue. Here are some of my pics from the celebration...

 The weather was glorious on March 17,
chilly enough for sipping hot Irish coffee but with a cloudless blue sky above and a bright contrast of sun and shadow on the city's sidewalks and streets.

Click here for a history
of Irish coffee
and a great recipe.

My husband and I took a subway from our home in Queens and watched the parade from the corner of Fifth Avenue and 77th Street, across from Central Park. Below is the banner for the NYPD's Emerald Society. There are over 35,000 police in New York City, of all races and creeds, but the Irish cop is an institution that's been around well over one-hundred years.

The NYPD and all of its divisions are always well represented in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Even detectives marched in plain clothes with their tres cool gold shields hanging around their necks.

NY police department band.

The NYPD's pipes and drums.

No, ma'am. Do NOT ask me to smile—and that better be coffee in that cup.

 New York's Finest...

...and cutest!

(Yes, I'm very happily married, I'm just sayin'!)

Brooklyn North Detectives pipes and drums

Bad guys beware- a Brooklyn detective with rhythm

U.S. Marines - Semper Fi, dudes!

U.S. Coast Guard - Semper Paratus, dudes!
(motto translation - always ready!)

Excuse us, is this the set for John Adams?
 Woops! Right country, wrong era. These guys are Civil War reenactors.

Fiddle-dee-dee, I'll think about the 21st Century tomorrow!

Yes, the wearing o' the green is just as important among the parade spectators!

After many hours of watching the parade, my husband and I headed down to Greenwich Village for the best fish and chips in New York at a little shop with chefs from the UK called
"A Salt and Battery"

Click here for info and location on A Salt and Battery.
It's a great place to grab a delish bite when you're touring around the Village. It's cheap and fast, no sit down service, just walk up to the fryer and place your order. A few cozy seats in the shop and a bench out front. Friendly peeps and very UK. Even the radio on the speaker is tuned to the BBC.

 (Click here for a great recipe for Fish 'n' Chips!)

Since we were in the West Village, we stopped by the 6th Precinct (home of Detective Mike Quinn) to take a look at the Police Museum (uniforms and badges from all over the country and the world, including Italy, where my grandfather was a mounted policeman.)

Finally, we stopped by the 6th's Wall of Honor, a tribute to the officers of the precinct who died in the line of duty, including the heroes of 9/11.

And that was my Saint Patrick's Day for 2008!
I hope you had a good one, too!

—Cleo Coyle

FEBRUARY '08 COFFEE PICK: Rwanda's Village Blend

  CLEO'S FEBRUARY

COFFEE PICK:

 Rwanda's

Village Blend

Our coffee world tour continues! As I mentioned with last month's Yirgacheffee pick, Africa is where coffee was born – every variety of coffee plant throughout the world’s coffee belt is some form of hybrid that originated on that continent.
     Like Ethiopia and Kenya, the Republic of Rwanda grows some of the finest coffee in the world. It has great conditions for it – good rainfall, volcanic soil, and high altitude mountains. But just over ten years ago, the country was scarred with one of history’s worst genocides. Over one million people were slaughtered in under 100 days.
     These days, the Rwandans are working hard to rebuild their country. 30,000 independent coffee growers still climb the hills, tend the soil, and carry the beans on their shoulders down to cooperative village wash stations.

      When Bill Gates’s recent grant put the Rwandan struggle in the news again (click here to read more about the grant), I thought it would be great to support the farmers and buy some Rwandan coffee. Around the same time, I learned about Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Co. from a reader’s post on my Coffee Talk message board (Karen from Deland, Florida. Thanks, Karen!).     

I went to the site and saw that they offered a coffee called Akadugudu Blend. As soon as I learned that "Aka-dugu-du" is the Kinya-rwanda word for "Village," I knew I just had to feature this amazing coffee.
     (As you know, if you are a reader of my Coffeehouse Mysteries, the stories are set in the fictional landmark coffeehouse called the Village Blend in Greenwich Village, New York.)
    I give high marks to Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Co. for confirming my order fast via e-mail. I chose to have my coffee sent in their foil bag, and it came to me very freshly roasted with paperwork that included information about the coffee and even the DATE on which my coffee was roasted. 
     I opened up the package and was immediately impressed with the freshness of the beans. When brewed this blend of medium and dark roasts combines the best of both worlds - the brightness of a medium roasted African bean, including some hints of the trademark floral and citrus notes you'd find in a good Yirg; yet it also has the full body and base spicy and chocolate notes of a darker roast. This blend produces a really good cuppa joe with good body, a clean finish, and not a trace of bitterness!
    This was also literally good to the last drop. Sometimes even good coffees don't make it to the end. But this one's flavor and smoothness held up through the cooling process. Even as it sat in the cup, it maintained its flavor. My compliments to the roaster - and, of course, the Rwandan farmers!

 DRINK COFFEE
DO GOOD

I was also extremely pleased to learn that when you purchase this coffee, you are also helping a group of over 150 women from the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa ethnic groups. A portion of the money from each bag is donated to a fund that provides the widows with micro-financing loans to start small businesses.
     That’s why, on this Saint Valentine’s month, my coffee pick is the Rwandan coffee "Village Blend" from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Co. Just a little but heartfelt valentine to the widows of Inyakurama.
     If you would like to learn more about ths coffee and coffee roaster, click here and look for the coffee labeled Rwandan Blend: Akadugudu. This page also has the medium roast and dark roast coffees available unblended. I'm going to be purchasing these in the future, too!

Till Next time

—Cleo Coyle

P.S. Here is Karen's original post that told me about the site. Thanks again, Karen! I'll keep my eye out for those chocolate-covered espresso beans on the site, too!

Posted: January 16, 2008

Coffee Talk Message Board
(green board in right column)

Dear Cleo,

I'm addicted to coffee and mysteries so your wonderful series is perfect for me— I love visiting Clare's world. Thank you for creating it! I know of a company that sells phenomenal Rwandan coffee. Twice a year, they also sell dark chocolate with ground espresso beans that is simply to die for. Warning: if you prefer milk chocolate this probably is not the candy for you. Sadly, it's only been available prior to Easter and Christmas. The website is www.DrinkCoffeeDoGood.com

Take care,

Karen
DeLand, FL

THE AMANDA PROJECT

  THE
AMANDA PROJECT!

Hi there. Cleo here. While researching today's coffeehouse culture for my series of Coffeehouse Mysteries, I took classes from Joe the Art of Coffee's adorable head barista and Director of Coffee, Amanda Byron.

     A Seattle transplant, Amanda is one of the top baristas working in New York today, and her advice and insights on working as a barista were a great help to me in writing the Coffeehouse Mysteries.

      Check out her pic below: Last year, Amanda appeared on The Martha Stewart Show (now seen @11 AM on Channel 4 in NYC). Click here for your own local listings...

 Pictured above: Amanda Byron, director of Joe the Art of Coffee, the Greewich Village coffeehouse that's been one of my inspirations for my ficitonal Village Blend. Amanda is showing
Martha Stewart how to create latte art.

Below is Amanda's frothy
handywork...

With a flick of her wrist, she creates a
beautiful rosetta using steamed whole milk.

If you're planning a trip to NYC, check out one of Joe's locations. There's the flagship Greenwhich Village store on Waverly Place, a second store on 13th Street in Union Square. There's a 3rd store on West 23rd Street in Chelsea and even a spankin' new location in Grand Central Terminal.

So now you know
why Cleo loves Joe.

Till next time,
—Cleo Coyle

THE "SKINNY"
AT
STARBUCKS

Starbucks recently released a new directive to employees to use the coffeehouse term "skinny."

     So what is a skinny exactly? It's a latte made with sugar-free syrup, non-fat milk, and no whipped cream.

     Skinny is NOT a new term for coffeehouse slang. My characters use it in the Coffeehouse Mysteries. What got my attention was Starbuck's announcement that it was introducing a sugar-free MOCHA syrup. Until now the lower calorie syrups were limited to hazelnut, caramel, cinnamon dolce and vanilla—

still the best-tasting of all the skinny syrups, including the new mocha, which I'm not entirely thrilled with now that I've sampled it.
     Ah, but not everyone is happy about the "skinny" at Starbucks. The very idea has set off some lively debate on the Worldwide Web .

     Click here to read a posted letter in which a Starbucks barista opens up a can of whup-ass on her company for the directive to use the new term.

     Since I believe in freedom of speech, I say, "You-go, girl!"

     However, as to the woman's argument that customers will be confused, I really do think she should give us a little credit! After all, we figured out Tall means small on Planet Starbucks; Grande means medium; and Venti large, didn't we? (Well, most of us did, anyway!)

     Anyway, I DO respect and applaud this woman and any employee who goes to this much trouble to articulate a passionately held belief to make her store function as well as possible!

     Her letter to the Starbucks corporate office certainly gives a sharp picture of how much there is to consider as a barista in a busy store. AND the website itself is fascinating. It's called "Starbucks Gossip."

To read more about Starbucks and their skinny plan, Click here.

—Till next time,

Cleo

MOVIE REVIEW: What is Cloverfied?

Posted 1-18-08

W H A T   I S

 C L O V E R F I E L D?

Posted 1/18/08

Cloverfied is a movie, as you can see from the giveaway poster above, which I picked up at an exclusive early screening in New York City four days before the film opened.
      (And before you go getting all impressed, let me tell you that there was no red carpet involved, no champagne, no stars. I threw on a hoodie, jumped on the subway, sprinted through the rain to the theater lobby, said hello to Joe M. at the door—the very nice guy who invited me—and settled into a seat with a bunch of guys in sweatshirts. Real glamorous, huh?)
     It was surreal watching Manhattan being destroyed while sitting in the middle of Manhattan. That's basically the story. A bunch of twentysomethings are throwing a party for a friend when a giant monster attacks the city. I LOVED it. But then I adore amusement parks. And that's what this film is. If you liked Blair Witch and you like rollercoasters, you'll love this movie, too.
   The filmmakers never explain the title, but my guess is that Manhattan actually becomes a "Cloverfield" after the U.S. military loses its battle against the attacking monster and has to nuke the place.
     Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a B+, Ebert gave it a thumbs up. The Washington Post liked the film, too. But the New York press disagreed. For a variety of reasons, every publication had a real hate on for this film.
     I found this interesting. Maybe New York critics are freaked because it shows TOO well what we'd be enduring if 9/11 happened on a larger scale. Maybe they forgot what it's like to be 15, out with your friends, ready for a rip-roaring thrillfest.
     Granted, Cloverfield is no War of the Worlds (the Spielberg version of the H.G. Wells classic). There's virtually no character development or nuanced political statements. 
     It's no Miracle Mile either, although there are some things in Cloverfield (including its ending) that reminded me of this forgotten classic, which I highly recommend! Click on the picture or title to read more about Miracle Mile, now on DVD.
     Anyway, despite the snarking NY critics, I'll tell you what Cloverfield is going to be: the NUMBER ONE movie in America after its first weekend. And it deserves to be because it delivers BIG SCREEN thrills. Skywalker Sound should receive an Oscar for the sound effects in this baby. Amazing!
     One last reason to consider seeing it. Paramount has attached a preview trailer to this film that got me at least as excited as Cloverfield's Brooklyn Bridge scene: the new Star Trek movie, which is in production with the amazing J.J. Abrams at the helm. (This one will take Captain Kirk all the way back to Starfleet Academy.) Woo-hooo!

 My cat "Clover" - who I've been calling "Cloverfield" for weeks. She's sitting next to the souvenir cup I received for attending an early screening of the movie. The cup reads: "What is Cloverfield?" Clover hopes the answer involves catnip.

Till next time

—Cleo Coyle

JANUARY '08 COFFEE PICK: Ethiopian Yirgacheffe

CLEO'S JANUARY

COFFEE PICK:

Ethiopian

Yirgacheffe

If you have any interest in expanding your understanding of what distinguishes one coffee from another (from country to country and region to region), the exotic Yirgacheffe should be a must-taste coffee on your list. And if you're a tea drinker, this coffee has the aromatics that may convert you!

Above is the community of Harfusa. It is one of the coffee-farming areas in the hills that surround the town of Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia. CLICK HERE to go to the Counter Culture Coffee site that features the sale of the "Ethiopian Yirgacheffe" that farms like this one produce.
(Just SCROLL DOWN the page of "African Coffees" at the Counter Culture Coffee site until you see their Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia, selection.)

For coffee lovers, Ethiopia is it, baby! The motherland, where coffee was first discovered over one thousand years ago and consumed by local tribesmen.
     All the varieties of coffee trees that are grown and cultivated the world over sprang from trees that originally grew in Ethiopia. Today, coffee stil remains the countries main export.
     Yirgacheffee is one of Ethiopia's most famous coffees. It is so distinctive that when cup tasters sample coffee from other regions, they even refer to a coffee as tasting like a "Yirg."

     So what does Yirg taste like? For me, there are two things that make it amazing.

1. Mouthfeel

Yirg gives you a "juicy" feeling. Your mouth salivates in a way that you would when you'd bite into a juicy piece of citrus fruit. (I remember how strange it sounded to me when I first heard a coffee described as "juicy," but when I tried Yirg, I understood!)

2. Aromatics

Yirgacheffe has intense floral notes in its characteristics, usually with lemon and sometimes jasmine and other exotic notes. It's a delightful cup, with a medium body, and good but not overwhelming acidity (acidity is a plus when it comes to coffee. In the trade it refers to a brightness in the flavor not bitterness). In a coffee blend, Yirgacheffe provides the high aromatic notes.

Till next time

—Cleo Coyle

DECEMBER '07 COFFEE PICK: 100% Kona

CLEO'S COFFEE PICK:

100% Kona

Let's face it, the holiday season can be stressful. While seeing friends and relatives is a wonderful thing, it's not always without...um, shall we say friction?

     For those of you feeling especially let down or blue, let me assure you that you are not alone! Holidays can bring up good memories and bad ones, too, and if you've lost a loved one, it can be downright painful. So whether your stress level is mild (traffic headaches) or somewhat higher (that difficult relative really ticked you off this year!), I'd like to give you this short meditative word with my December coffee pick: Hawaii.

     Say it with me now...

Hawaii. Hawaii. Hawaii...

     Doesn't it instantly transport you to white sand beaches with lapping blue waves?

     Okay, maybe not. But Hawaii does happen to be the only location in the U.S.A. where coffee is grown. The very special coffee I'm talking about here is Kona.

     The coffee-growing industry in Hawaii is very small: about a 40 square mile band of small farms on the slopes of two volcanoes. The districts of North and South Kona produce only 1.5 to 2 million pounds of coffee per year, making it a rare and prized coffee throughout the world. (By the way, if you think 2 million pounds a year sounds like a lot, consider this: Americans drink about 400 million cups of coffee per day. With 40 cups to the pound, that's 10 million pounds consumed DAILY in the U.S. alone, which should give you an idea how special Kona is!)

       Over the years, Kona has gotten a bad rap as being "overrated". I'm sure part of this is due to the fact that vendors often create "Kona blends," which have very little actual Kona coffee in them. Consumers buy these blends, thinking they are getting a Kona coffee experience. But Kona is a mild coffee to begin with! Mixing it with other beans will dilute the experience to the point of "why bother"? If you can recommend a great Kona blend to me, be my guest! For my money, however, the true Kona experience is 100% Kona coffee.

    There are many places to purchase 100% Kona coffee. Personally, I was intrigued by the name of the Bad Ass Coffee Company, which I recently heard about, so I decided to try them out. The company specializes in Hawaiian coffee. They have stores in many cities as well as Japan, where Kona coffee has become a very popular premium coffee. Click here to read an article about Japan's romance with Kona coffee.

     As a very special treat for the holidays, I ordered a package of Bad Ass Coffee's 100% peaberry Kona (click here to go to the Kona coffee page at the Bad Ass Coffee site).

    Just the word "peaberry" gets me excited. You see, ordinarily, the coffee cherry comes with two seeds (or beans). "Peaberries," are cherries that produce only one seed, which means they've received more nutrients from the plant and are more flavorful as a result.

     Only 5-10% of beans are peaberries, which is why they are sold as a higher priced delicacy.

Raw peaberry coffee beans. To read more about peaberries, click here.

So, anyway, when I placed my online order from Bad Ass Coffee, it was instantly confirmed by e-mail (something i always appreciate). And my 100% Peaberry Kona came to me freshly roasted with its very own reusable gold clip (with the little bad ass donkey engraved on it—too cute). 

    Included in the package were a few free samples of coffee-flavorted hard candies, which were incredibly good.

     My Kona coffee was smooth and well-balanced on all levels—acidity, body, and aroma. It also imparted a wonderful hint of vanilla, making it a superb dessert coffee.

      It’s a light coffee, too, like a lullaby that's soothing and sweet. I could almost see that restful vision of blue waves hugging a lush Hawaiian landscape and could well imagine the beauty of the volcano slope from which my Kona peaberries were plucked.

     All and all, my Bad Ass Kona cup was a very lovely coffee experience, which I'm happy to recommend.

—Till next time

Cleo Coyle

CONGRATS!

to my

100% Kona Peaberry

Coffee Winners!

Every month, I number the active e-mail addresses that subscribe to my e-newsletter, put the numbers in a bowl, and randomly select a winner.

 My December 2007 winner was:

Davida

from SanFrancisco,

California

&

My New Year's Day LIVE Party winner was:

Kelly

from Rocky Mount,

North Carolina

Author Perfume?

Wow, you smell like...

my favorite writer?!

So I was strolling through my local drug store the other day, looking for toothpaste and shampoo, when I had a surreal moment passing by the perfume counter.

     "Danielle Steel perfume? No way..."

     Somehow I missed the press release on this last year, but apparently the fragrance maker Elizabeth Arden announced the creation of this new scent named after best-selling novelist Danielle Steel.

"Danielle" the perfume
of Danielle Steel

The scent is a combination of mandarin, jasmine, orchid, rose, amber and musk. At the time of the perfume's launch, Steel said that the fragrance would reflect the characters that she uses in her novels.

     Hmmmm...This got me thinking. What about "Cleo"—a perfume inspired by "Cleo Coyle"? What would it smell like? Duh. Freshly roasted coffee, of course!

     Granted, Ms. Steel has written 67 novels, which have sold more than 560 million copies worldwide (a tad under my modest accomplishments!), making Danielle Steel's name at least as recognizable as Brittany's. But how about other best-selling writers? Shouldn't they get their own perfumes, too?

Tom Clancy Cologne

- captures that memorable scent of ozone that lingers after a thermo-nuclear device goes off...

Eau de Stephen King

- when only the stench of fear will do...

J.K. Rowling Body Spray

- so fresh and it repels muggles, too!

    If you have your own great idea for an Author Perfume, I'd love to hear about it, just click on the Coffee Talk message board in the right column and post your ideas!

      I wonder what Dan Brown After Shave would smell like? Essence of Janet Evanovich? Or how about a perfume simply labeled: "Agatha"?

 Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle

Taking care of the one behind...

 'Tis the season for

Coffee Kindness

 I  just came across a wonderful holiday story that I had to share.

     It started Friday morning (December 14) at a Florida Starbucks drive-thru. In a random act of kindness, one man paid for the coffee of the person in line behind him. That person paid for the person behind him, and it went on like that all day!

    In an ironic twist, this chain of Coffee Kindness started with anger. The customer behind the man who started the whole chain reaction was honking and yelling. So the man, a tai chi master, responded with a Zen act.

     According to the tai chi master, he hadn't done it with any intention to start a chain reaction. "It was something else," he explained:

     "It was a change of consciousness. It was my desire to take this negative and change it into something positive."

    Well, the positive certainly won out. The chain of one person paying for the car behind lasted all day long.

     If you're so inclinded, continue the coffee kindness and pay for a cuppa for the person behind you today. 'Tis the season, after all. Maybe we can't change the world with one little gesture, but at least we can change a small part of the world for a small window of time, which is really all any one of us can do.

    (And you know what? If enough of us do it often enough, maybe changing the world for the better isn't so impossible after all...)

Till next time

—Cleo Coyle

 * Click here for the link to the story above.

 Is it REALLY Decaf? 

Consumer Reports recently conducted an unscientific experiment that was included in the November 2007 issue of Consumer Reports. Six 10- or 12-ounce cups of decaf coffee were tested, each from Yonkers (New York) locations of six popular national chains: Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, 7-Eleven, McDonald’s and Burger King. They visited 6 locations of each chain, evaluating 36 cups of decaf in all.

     At one Dunkin' Donuts outlet, a small cup of decaffeinated coffee carried 32 milligrams of caffeine. A cup of Seattle’s Best was found to contain 29 milligrams of caffeine, while a tall Starbucks decaf packed 21 milligrams.

     Results varied at each chain, but the magazine found that the decaf at McDonald’s consistently had the lowest levels of caffeine at under 5 milligrams per small-sized cup.

     Cick here to see the Consumer Reports online post about this. Or click here if you're wondering about coffee and health. While the debate will certainly continue, there IS good health news about coffee, too! 

Cleo Coyle

Alfred Peet and the Birth of Coffeehouse Culture...

If you are new to CoffeehouseMystery.com, Welcome!
Scroll down to read Cleo Coyle's archived article about the birth of Coffeehouse Culture.
The article that follows this one will tell you more about Cleo's past Coffee Pick, Major Dickason's Blend

Why Cleo Loves Alfred

Alfred Peet and the birth
of coffeehouse culture

    So who was Alfred Peet? And why should you care? Well, if you’ve ever strolled into a Starbucks or walked into a small coffeehouse and bought a freshly-roasted batch of coffee from an exotic land, then you owe a great big thank you to Mr. Alfred Peet.

     As Howard Schultz, the chairman and CEO of Starbucks, will tell you: Alfred Peet is the reason Starbucks even exists in the first place.

     It all started with Alfred’s upbringing. He grew up in Holland, the son of an Amsterdam coffee trader. When his father came home with bags of coffee from Indonesia, East Africa, and the Caribbean, his mother would make three pots at a time, using different blends, and then pronounce her opinions.

     As a teenager, Alfred worked as a trainee at one of Amsterdam’s large coffee importers. In the years that followed, he became a tea trader. Not only did he begin traveling to estates in Java and Sumatra, he also began to train his palate. Soon he could detect subtle differences in coffees and teas from different countries and regions.

    In 1955, Alfred Peet moved to the United States. He was shocked at what he found. Here he was in the world’s richest country, the undisputed leader of the Western world, yet its coffee was dreadful.

     Most of the coffee Americans drank was robusta, the inferior type that the coffee traders of London and Amsterdam treated as a cheap commodity. Very little of the fine Arabica coffees ever got to North America, most went to Europe, where (at that time) tastes were more discriminating.

     Starting in San Francisco in the 1950s, Alfred Peet began importing Arabica coffee into the states. But there was not much demand, for a few Americans had ever heard of it.

     So in 1966, he opened a small store, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, on Vine Street in Berkley.

     Peet even imported his own roaster, because he believed American companies didn’t know how to roast small batches of fine Arabica coffee.

     What made Alfred Peet unique was that he roasted coffee dark, the European way, which he believed was necessary to bring out the full flavors of the beans he imported. He always analyzed each bag of beans and recommended a roast suited to that lot’s particular characteristics.

     Gradually, one by one, Alfred began educating his American customers about the fine distinctions in coffee. He sold whole bean coffee and taught his customers how to grind and brew it at home. He treated coffee like wine, appraising it in terms of origins and estates and years and harvests. He created his own blends, the mark of a true connoisseur.

     The next chapter in the birth of the modern coffeehouse culture begins when a customer of Peet's named Jerry Baldwin walked into Alfred Peet's San Francisco store (pictured right).

     Jerry was a student of literature and an English teacher, but he developed a passion for coffee by frequenting Alfred Peet’s store.

     Jerry moved out of California and up to Seattle, but he had no place to purchase quality beans so he began to order Peet’s coffee by mail from Berkley, but it was never enough. So he and his friends opened a coffee store of their own in Seattle. They called their store Starbucks, and bought and roasted fine coffee beans in the tradition of Alfred Peet.

     Starbucks was a local success. It caught the attention of a brilliant East Coast marketing man named Howard Schultz. Howard visited Jerry's Starbucks roastery and store and was immediately intrigued by their coffee business (which, of course, Jerry learned from Alfred Peet).

      Howard Schultz began to work for Jerry Baldwin at Starbucks, helping his business grow. Ultimately, Howard fell in love with the espresso bar culture he'd seen in Italy. He had a vision for Starbucks, wanting to expand it into a national and global franchise of coffee bars.

     Jerry didn't share this vision, so he sold Howard his Starbucks coffee company, and (in an ironic twist) when Alfred Peet retired, it was Jerry Baldwin who ended up buying Peet’s Coffee and Tea company.

      So remember...when you drink Peet’s coffee, you’re drinking from an original—the modern coffee revolution started with the late Alfred Peet and his company.

     And that's why Cleo loves Alfred...

Mr. Peet was born in Alkmaar, Holland on March 10, 1920 and died in Ashland, Oregon on August 29, 2007. 

Till next time,

—Cleo Coyle

Scroll down to the next article in this archive
to read about one of Cleo's favorite
coffee blends: Peet's Major Dickason's

NOVEMBER '07 COFFEE PICK: Major Dickason's Blend

 Cleo's Coffee Pick:

 Major Dickason's Blend

If you’re new to the CoffeehouseMystery.com site, welcome! Every month, I recommend one of my favorite coffees and give it away free to a random subscriber to my newsletter. My newest pick is Major Dickason’s Blend, an outstanding coffee that’s roasted and sold by Peet’s Coffee and Tea Company.

Major Dickason’s Blend produces a first-rate cuppa joe with an amazing flavor profile. It has the kind of full body found in many East Asian coffees, yet it has the bright acidity of an African bean with the distinctive, sultry notes of dark chocolate in the finish, similar to what you’d find in beans grown in the mountains of Yemen (an Arabian Sanani, for instance).

     As with many coffees, the Dickason’s Blend changes its profile as it cools, so it’s a wonderful cup to savor. I can’t imagine any coffee drinker not thoroughly enjoying this one!

     I also love the story of how it was created. The late Alfred Peet was friends with Key Dickason, a retired army officer and a regular customer of Peet’s original Berkeley, CA, store. Together, the two sampled combinations of coffees until they found this blend—so it’s a coffee created through friendship.

     To try this blend for yourself, just click here to go to Peet's signature blends page, scroll down to Major Dickason.

Coffee Shop Wedding and Coffee Peeps!

A Coffee & Donut Wedding

Congratulations to the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. David Smith who were married Thanksgiving week in the coffee and donut shop where they met! Cyndi LaRose (49) and Joseph David Smith (58) exchanged vows before a justice of the peace and with the blessings of store owner Faraq Mohamed.

     The shop owner greeted customers before Wednesday's ceremony with this simple question: "Coffee or the wedding?"

    The newly weds have been regulars for years at the Honey Dew Donuts shop in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. But they fell in love while helping Mohamed with an errand on Veterans Day. Two days later, Smith proposed.

     Cyndi is a homecare giver and Joseph is a Vietnam vet. Said Cyndi of her groom: "He's a country-looking guy, the type I look for, the Grizzly Adams type."

Click here to read to the full story
at the Providence Journal site.

     The doughnut shop's baker made the cake, and the witnesses? The shop's regulars, of course.

     "Remember to focus on what’s right between you," the justice of the peace said during their ceremony, "not the part that appears to be wrong."

    The couple plans a honeymoon at a Connecticut casino. Let it ride, Cyndi and Joseph! And a heartfelt wish of java joy to you from...

—Cleo Coyle

COFFEE

PEEPS!

Cleo here. I always enjoy reading about America's coffeehouses and the people who work in and around them: owners, managers, baristas, roasters, buyers.
     Below is part of a wonderful profile from the Baltimore Sun (now archived) of two good friends who changed their professions and their lives in order to own and run a coffeehouse near Baltimore, Maryland...

Phyllis Greenbaum (63) and Pete Cook (55) were newspaper owners for ten years before deciding to buy a coffeehouse business. Now they operate the Classic Cup cafe in Woodstock, Maryland (about ten miles northwest of Baltimore). (Photo by Doug Kapustin - click here or on the photo to see the entire article - you must now go to the Baltimore Sun's archives to find. )

"People say we must be brave to take on something so different from what we know," Phyllis Greenbaum (63) told the Baltimore Sun. "I say, 'Nah! Crazy is more like it.'"
     "Operating a coffee shop is not unlike running a newspaper," said Peter Cook (55). "The work is so demanding. If you get one word or phrase wrong, people are going to show up in your office. Our customers expect perfection, and we still want to deliver that."
     So intent are the entrepreneurs on building an even better mousetrap, they took a summer trip to Italy, "the birthplace of espresso," together, of course, and with their spouses. They visited centuries-old coffee bars in Venice, where making coffee is an art form, Cook said.

They also visited a coffee shop in southern Howard County (Maryland) and discovered the owner was putting in 100-hour weeks to build her business from the grounds up, so to speak, since she was starting with zero customers, something both Greenbaum and Cook said they couldn't do again...
      The cafe's manager is Christina Heinmueller, 21, and there are eight other employees, including Frank Woodland, a retired police officer who served 35 years with the Baltimore City Police Department. A local resident and former customer, Woodland arrives at the shop at 4:45 a.m. to make the coffee. "There is a special place in heaven reserved for Frank," said Cook, with a hearty laugh...(end excerpt)
      

Good luck to Phyliss and Peter on their new business. The Classic Cup cafe sounds like an outstanding place for an outstanding cuppa Joe and fellowship...to read the entire Baltimore Sun article, please click here and go to their archives. To see exactly where Woodstock, Maryland is located click here.

                                         —Cleo Coyle  

Where CRIME is also brewing...

Telling Fortunes with Turkish Coffee

Turkish Daily News

tells how to see a fortune in your cup...

Click here to read
about making Turkish coffee

"In order to fully integrate into Turkish society," reads a recent post in the Turkish Daily News, "there are some things a foreigner cannot miss out on: One of them is the centuries-old art of reading one's fortune in a cup of Turkish coffee grounds.

     "People do it everywhere: In street cafés, at home with their families, in the office, or in a professional fortuneteller's office. To be in the know the next time your Turkish friends start staring at the bottom of empty cups of Turkish coffee, here are some reading tips for beginners. Don't forget to relax and open your mind for the reading to be accurate.

     "After having drunk your coffee down to the grounds, 'close' the cup by placing the saucer upside down on top of the cup. Make a circular motion in front of you while making a wish and then flip the cup and saucer so the cup is upside down on the saucer...

 "When the cup has cooled the person who will read your fortune will pick up your cup to look at it. Some say that if your cup is stuck to the saucer, your wish will come true.

     "If you are the one reading the fortune, hold the cup in your hands. The most important thing is to be intuitive when interpreting the symbols and figures formed inside the cup.

     "Everything from the sun, a spider, a gate, a wheel, a circle, an eye, to an egg, a dog, an ear, a fish and so on can mean something. Here are some symbols you should know:

     * An egg represents wealth and success

     * A gate indicates upcoming opportunities for success

     * A hand refers to family and friendships.

     * A horse means strength and independence.

For more information on how to read your coffee cup, the Turkish Daily News suggests you click here to visit a Turkish Coffee website. It's a very nice site with interesting information. Be sure to hit "English" for a site translation.

—Cleo Coyle

The Art of Roasting Coffee

 Clare Cosi would make good use of a small coffee roaster like the one above at Mugsy's Coffee Co. in Tennessee.

If you've read the Coffeehouse Mysteries, then you know that Clare Cosi roasts small batches of green coffee right in the basement of her Greenwich Village coffeehouse.

     While many coffeehouse owners use beans roasted elsewhere, some do exactly what Clare does. They frequently micro-roast fresh batches of their own green coffee beans.

     One such place is Mugsy’s Coffee Company, a small, independent coffeehouse located in Clarksville, Tennessee.

     Here's how Mugsy's owner, Ray Hout, describes his shop. "Stacks of burlap sacks fill the room surrounded by busy people...making plans for the day. The roaster is carefully pulling samples...and the fresh roasted coffee beans fill the cooling tray and the aroma fills the air."

     In many ways, Ray's description of his coffeehouse reminds me of Clare's Village Blend.

     "The smell of roasting coffee beans is one of the most comforting and relaxing things around town. Many who don’t even like to drink coffee will stop by Mugsy’s...just to smell the familiar aroma and relax on the overstuffed furniture while watching the roasting process and enjoying good company."

 Pan roaster used to roast coffee beans over an open fire.

Not that long ago, Americans roasted green coffee beans right in their own homes.

     "Because there was no method to keep the beans fresh," Ray Hout explained, "early American homemakers and trail hands purchased raw coffee beans from the mercantile in town, and then took them home or back to camp where they roasted them in an iron skillet on the stove or over an open fire. This method took great skill to determine the degree of roast and bring out the best flavor in every cup."

This small antique roaster was used in the 1930s to home roast coffee beans. According to the Sweet Maria's website, the little roaster carries the name of an Italian sheet metal works in Brooklyn, New York.

During the roasting process, a temperature of 390 degrees Fahrenheit causes the beans to darken. The colors vary from light cinammon to dark cocoa. A guide to roasting terms was published in the back of Coffeehouse Mystery #3: Latte Trouble (I've reprinted it below).

     For a more indepth look at the coffee roasting process, including photos of what the roasted beans look like, click here. This link will take you to "Sweet Maria's," an online store that specializes in selling green coffee beans to consumers. The hobby of home roasting coffee beans is a growing trend (not unlike brewing your own beer at home). Check out this modern home roasting machine to the left. Clearly, things have gotten a lot more advanced in the home roasting appliance department!

 —Cleo Coyle

 §

The Village Blend's Guide

to Roasting Terms...

 LIGHT

Cinammon Roast

Half-City Roast

 MEDIUM

Full City Roast

American

Breakfast

DARK

New Orleans

Vienna (Continental)

DARKEST

French Roast

Italian Roast

Spanish Roast

OCTOBER '07 COFFEE PICK: Gombe Reserve

OCTOBER COFFEE PICK:

Gombe Reserve  

 If you're new to the Coffeehouse Mystery site, weclome!

     Once a month, I choose a coffee to feature on my webiste and also to giveaway to a randomly chosen subscriber from my newsletter's e-mail list.

      I am thrilled to announce that Gombe Reserve is my featured coffee pick for the month of October. Gombe Reserve is a new coffee from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters of Vermont. I'm drinking it now as I write this, and I'm impressed on a number of levels. The beans were freshly roasted (a medium roast) when they came to me (roast date: September 5) and a little more than a month later, they are still brewing up a delish cup.

     There's a nice floral note to the taste of this coffee, which is not unusual for a quality African bean, and there's also a hint of honey, milk chocoate, and pineapple. My husband especially tasted this note. He likes to sweeten his coffee with sugar, and he remarked upon the first few sips that he tasted a note of sweet pineapple. The finish wasn't as juicy as some African arabica beans, but the flavor was there and I was impressed enough to recommend it (as I said, I'm drinking it now and thoroughly enjoying it!).

     I'm also especially happy to recommend it because (as you can see from the photo on the coffee package), this coffee is being produced in cooperation with the Dr. Jane Goodall Institute.

     Dr. Goodall is one of the world's foremest experts on chimpanzees. Recently, she held a press conference with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury, Vermont, to promote this new line of Gombe Reserve coffee, which helps protect the chimps' habitat in Africa.

Dr. Jane Goodall's intelligence, courage, and seemingly innate dignity and elegance are a real inspiration to me. When I consider the intrepid charcter of "Madame" in my Coffeehouse Mysteries, I think about amazing women like Dr. Goodall (age 73).

      The Gombe Reserve coffee is grown in the country of Tanzania, which is located on the East Coast of the African Continent. Coffee farmers grow this coffee near the Gombe National Park, which is one of the last remaining habitats in the world for chimps. (This area is also the site of Dr. Goodall's groundbreaking research on chimp behavior.)  

That's why Dr. Goodall is endorsing the coffee. It's the FIRST coffee in the world to receive her seal of approval! The sale of this coffee will help double the paychecks of thousands of struggling coffee farmers in Tanzania, and it will also help restore the habitats for chimps, which are on the brink of extinction. (By the way, I was shocked by these numbers: there were once more than a million chimps in the world. Less than 250,000 remain today.)

     Click here to go the Gombe Rerseve page of the Green Mountain Roasters website, where you can learn more about it or order it for yourself.

     I realize it's an expensive coffee, but if you were going to splurge on a great coffee anyway, this also gives you a way to help a wonderful cause.

 §

“Our effort to involve local citizens in restoring the forests and practicing sustainable agriculture is the most important work we can do to ensure a future for the Gombe chimpanzees and the people of Africa.”

—Dr. Jane Goodall

§

      Beginning this month, Gombe Reserve will become the cornerstone of Green Mountain coffee's "single origin" line of coffees that will be sold in supermarkets. So good luck, Green Mountain and Dr. Goodall!

Cleo says: In my book, your Gombe Reserve is a winner!

—Cleo Coyle

Coffee and Books a Great Combo!

Coffee and Books a Great Combo!

The scene inside a college library Starbucks. This one is located at the University of South Florida (Tampa).

Did you know that Starbucks and other coffee shops are opening up in college libraries?

     Cleo says: This was news to me!

     Apparently, a growing number of the nation's 3,700 academic libraries are opening their doors to coffee service, according to an article recently published by USA Today.

     The libraries say they are doing this to compete with wired coffee shops off campus.

     Cleo says: smart!

     Five years ago, there wasn't a college library with a Starbucks. Now, according to the article, they stretch from California State University (Long Beach) to the University of South Florida (Tampa).

Since Starbucks came to the University of South Florida’s library four years ago, approximately 148,000 additional students a year have used the library. A spokesperson for the college told USA Today that it's become a campus meeting point. A Cal State Long Beach spokesperson said "Every seat is usually taken." He also said something that suprised me: spillage and book damage have actually declined since students no longer are hiding food and drinks in their packs!

     Sometimes other shops are used instead of Starbucks. Louisiana State University told USA Today that they use Community Coffee, a local chain. I noticed some comments posted at the end of the USA article sugesting that student-run shops might be a good alternative.

     According to the article, about one in four college libraries now have some food component—at least an open pot of coffee or vendor cart.

     (This truly is amazing to me since during my years in college no food or drink was permitted! But times have changed...On the other hand, maybe they haven't...)

     "The coffeehouse has been part of academic culture for generations," a Starbuck's spokesperson pointed out.

Cleo agrees. The coffeehouse has been the meeting place for intellectuals, revolutionaries, artists, and writers for hundreds of years.

    And then, of course, there's the economics to consider. Librarians will tell you that libraries (even some college libraries) are funded based on how many people use them.

     In the USA article, once college spokesperson actually said: "Soon, every college librarian in the country will ask: 'Why don't we have a Starbucks?'"

     OR maybe just a coffee shop (whether student run or locally run). Whoever runs it, the concept does seem to be working for the colleges that have employed it. As another college official put it: "We want the library to remain the center of campus."

     Anyway, I'm glad someone else besides me figured out that coffee and books do mix! LOL! If you'd like to read the article on the USA Today site, click here.

—Cleo Coyle

Newbie Barista Wins Canadian Championship

Newbie Barista Wins

Canada's Coffee Championship!

Congratulations to Michael Yung, who won the Canadian National Barista Championship this week. This competition has been held yearly since 2003 (the same year the Coffeehouse Mysteries were launched with On What Grounds).

As part of the Canadian competition, each barista prepared and served three espresso beverages. These included one espresso, one cappuccino and a signature drink of their own creation.

     So what was Michael's signature concoction? It consisted of fig puree, espresso and vanilla bean Chantilly cream infused with coffee.

     Cleo says: YUM!

     FYI: Michael Yung is a barista at Caffe Artigiano in Vancouver ("artigiano" in Italian means craftsman). And guess what? Yung hasn't been a barista for very long at all. He began pulling espressos and foaming up caps only about 18 months ago.

 The scene inside Caffe Artigiano, where the 2007 Canadian barista champion can be found pulling his award-winning espressos.

"I got into the industry and I learned a ton," Yung said. "I'm very happy with everything that I've learned and I can't imagine a day without great coffee."

     Neither can I, Michael!

     As national champion, Yung will represent Canada at the World Barista Championship. Good luck, Mike!

—Cleo Coyle

9/11 IN MEMORIAM

She honors the ones we lost six years ago this month. And we honor and remember, not just the way that they died, but the way that they lived.

–Cleo Coyle, New Yorker

September 11, 2007

Click here to read about those who lost their lives on 9/11.

SEPTEMBER '07 COFFEE PICK: Magnolia Grill Blend

One of my favorite coffees is this "signature blend" served at one of the top 15 restaurants in the United States (Gourmet magazine).

Okay, if I love coffee so much, then what coffee do I drink? Well, I drink a number of types of coffees throughout the year, and I’m always on the lookout for something new and wonderful to try. If you have a coffee suggestion for me, by all means, post it on the Coffee Talk message board! (Click the green chalkboard in the right column.)

     In the meantime, I’ll be sharing my coffee finds with you from time to time.

     My Coffee Pick this month is the Magnolia Grill Blend, which is served by one of the top restaurants in the country and roasted (and sold online) by Counter Culture Coffee, a renowned coffee roaster that was named one of the top three boutique roasters in the United States by Food & Wine magazine last year.

     Now, I already knew that the Magnolia Grill was a “signature” blend, created especially for the award-winning chefs of the Magnolia Grill restaurant in Durham, North Carolina, but there were things about this blend that I didn’t know. Like...

     – How does a coffee roaster go about creating a “signature” blend for a restaurant?

     – Did the Magnolia Grill chef-owners create the blend or did the coffee roaster create it?

     – What different types of coffee go into this magnificent blend?

 Mark Overbay of Counter Culture Coffee.
Click on Mark's picture to read more about him.

According to Counter Culture Coffee's Marketing & Communicaitons Manager Mark Overbay, the Magnolia Grill restaurant was one of Counter Culture’s first ten customers ever.

“It was the summer of 1995 that we created the first iteration of this now classic blend style with Magnolia Grill’s chef-owner Ben Barker,” Mark explained. “Ben worked closely with us, tasting many single-origin coffees, special roasts, and blends to zero in on the flavor profile that he thought would best complement his daring, flavorful cuisine.”

Chef Ben Barker owns and runs the Magnolia Grill restaurant with his wife Chef Karen Barker

(pictured left, click on pic to go to their restaurant's website).

The Barkers have both won James Beard Awards for their genius in the kitchen, and Gourmet magazine named their restaurant one of the top 15 in the United States (2006). And, yes, Coffeehouse Mystery readers, these two do remind me a little of Clare and Matteo, except, of course, the Barkers are still married!

     Their signature Magnolia Grill Blend coffee is full bodied and balanced with a hint of smoke in the finish. I also find it satisfyingly smooth with a delightful brightness that makes it an uplifting cup to drink.

“So,” I asked Mark at Counter Culture Coffee, “what different coffee beans make up the blend?”

     According to Mark, these beans vary. This is understandable because, as he put it, “Over the years, particular coffees go in and out of season (coffee is a tree fruit, after all)...”

     He also explained that their relationships continue to develop with their producing partners throughout the world, so they tweak the ingredients or recipe of the blend at times to keep the flavor, body, and aroma profile consistent.

“In 2004, when we started working with Finca Mauritania, in Santa Ana, El Salvador, the Barkers absolutely loved the coffee.  We decided that that particular coffee was a great component for their signature blend..." Because the chefs at Magnolia Grill loved Aida's coffee so much, the recipe for their signature blend was changed to add it.

Pictured above is Aida Batlle.
She is the manager of the El Salvadoran
coffee farm that produces the coffee beans
that go in the Magnolia Grill blend.
Click on the pic to read more about Aida's farm.

According to Mark, "In addition to Finca Mauritania, the blend is made up of organic coffees from Sumatra and Honduras." (Note from Cleo to readers, this article was written in 2007 so the most current coffee farm origins may not be exactly the same.)

     The beans are roasted fresh every day, then packed and shipped just minutes after they leave the Counter Culture roasters. “We work closely with many restaurants and coffee shops to develop special, signature blends,” Mark added. “We sell some of the more popular culinary blends on our website.”

     To try Magnolia Grill Blend or check out what Counter Culture Coffee is all about, click here to visit their Website. To purchase Magnolia Grill Blend coffee for yourself from Counter Culture's online store, click here.

Till next time,

Cleo Coyle

P.S. I'm sending a quick shout-out to Victoria of Fresno, CA, and Karen of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, who won packages of Magnolia Grill Blend for my first-ever Cleo’s Newsletter drawing. Cheers Victoria and Karen!  

Picture This - Clare's Trip to the Garden

In Decaffeinated Corpse, Clare Cosi must take a trip to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to follow a lead. Before Clare took that fictional trip, I took a real one. Above is one of the research photos I took at the BBG, which features 10,000 plants from around the world.

⇔

Many cities in America have amazing botanical gardens. New York City has five. But did I ever take the time to visit any of these living museums with plants from around the world? Did I ever enjoy the beauty, the peace, the colors, the delicious foods at their cafes? Naw. As a typical wired, always-racing-around, coffee-drinking city-dweller, I could never slow down long enough to make time to visit. Until last fall...

     If you've read the fifth  Coffeehouse Mystery, Decaffeinated Corpse, then you know that Clare takes a trip with Madame to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to follow an important lead. She must interrogate Ellie Shaw Lassiter, one of the Garden's curators, for details about a revolutionary new decaffeinated coffee plant. (The valuable plant sits at the heart of the murder mystery because someone is willing to kill to obtain it.)

     Well, like I said, I'd never before taken the time to visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden - or ANY botanic garden, for that matter! But I was very excited about this trip because it involved research for my latest mystery.

     I drove to Brooklyn on a Tuesday for lunch, picking up a friend on the way, who lives in Brooklyn. The Garden is free to the public on Tuesday, so I entered for free, and I parked in their lot for free, as well (and, yes, when you live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet, FREE, as Martha Stewart might put it, is always "a good thing").

I was amazed at the wonderful time I had for those few hours at the Garden, walking across the well-kept grounds, through the various little gardens, especially the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, which featured foliage manicured in traditional "cloud" shapes.

There was an herb garden, a special fragrance garden for the blind, a rose garden dedicated to over one thousand varieties, a "Shakespeare Garden" featuring plants mentioned in good Will's plays and poems, and a glass-house display of bonsai trees—the oldest collection in the country and the largest public display outside of Japan.

I had a delicious lunch at the Botanic Garden's Terrace café with my friend, and—miracle of miracles—the coffee was even good, too. And you KNOW how I feel about bad coffee!

     That day, I realized how much I missed, during all those years of NOT visiting the Garden. A few hours of peace and beauty were right here for me, all along, in the middle of a crazy city, in the middle of a crazed, stressed life. Now that I know about it, you can bet I'll be going back.

     If you've never visited the Botanic Garden in or near the city where you live, try it! You might like it! At the end of this article, I've listed some Websites for botanic gardens in various cities around the country.

     Many gardens feature concerts, special events, and days that are free to the public. I hope you enjoy discovering your own botanic garden as much as I did.

Until next time,

Cleo Coyle

Quote from Botanic Gardens of Cheyenne, WY: 

"Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best,  that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower, where I thought a flower would grow.."

— Abraham Lincoln        

Click on any of the links below to visit the Websites of these Botanic Gardens across the United States.

Or send an e-mail to Cleo at VillageBlend@aol.com to recommend one of your favorite gardens.

- Oklahoma City Crystal Bridge Gardens  Just recommended to Cleo by a Coffeehouse Mystery Reader (Thanks!) There's an Orchid Show here in October. Sweet!

- Atlanta Botanic Garden

- Cheyenne (Wyoming)

- Chicago Botanic Garden

- Denver Botanic Garden

- Fort Worth Botanic Garden

- Hawaii Tropical Garden

- Idaho Botanical Garden

- Los Angeles Garden

- Massachusetts (Boylston)