A fictional true crime story?

Click on the orange link below to read a review of No One You Know by Michelle Richmond (The Year of Fog).

http://josephsreviews.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/mystery-to-me/

That was The Week That Was @Starbucks!

Click on the orange link below to read about what happened last week in the land of Pike Place Roast.

Starbucks week in review: undercover Starbucks, protests, petitions and pastries

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Starbucks and Hershey's Agree on a Divorce!

Click on the orange link below to read about the split between the King of Pike's Place Roast - the McDonald's coffee knock-off (OK, well it tastes like it!) - and the King-Kong of Chocolate!

Starbucks and Hershey's end partnership to offer premium chocolate

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Next to Caffeine Goodness in Seattle!

Click on the orange link below to read the Seattle Examiner review of the Victrola Beacon Hill coffee shop.

Victrola Beacon Hill

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Photo: flickr (litlnemo)

The great coffee wars continue...

Click on the orange link below to read this great article from Michael Bauer's "Between Meals" column in the San Francisco Chronicle. McCafe, anyone?

http://tinyurl.com/mw7jbr

Even on the East Coast you can sample a fine cup of Peet's coffee!

Just click on the orange link below to see how you can sample what is arguably the West Coast's finest coffee in the New York City area.

Craving Peet's Coffee in New York? Then Book a Flight Out of JFK || Jaunted

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Photo: flickr

Discover the Columbia City Bakery of Seattle!

Click on the orange link below to read all about this must-visit gem in the fine city of Seattle.

Columbia City Bakery

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Photo: flickr (Peacock Modern)

Bold coffee as a digestive health issue...

Some of us have expressed our online frustrations over Starbucks' failure to have a bold coffee option available after the noon hour. It might seem like we're being picky, but the truth is we are far from alone in our complaints - see the chart above (click on the chart to see a larger version) - and for some coffee drinkers, the blend served is important to digestive health. Yesterday I was in Java City, a Starbucks competitor with shops all over the U.S. and in Asia, and one of their baristas explained to me that bold coffee has not only less acid but much less caffeine than the lighter brews. Most people will assume that just the opposite is true, that dark or bold equals heavy and strong...

You can do some quick research of your own. Using a search engine like Google, enter terms like Crohn's disease coffee caffeine; or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) coffee caffeine; or Colitis caffeine coffee. You'll find that for persons with these digestive conditions, minimizing their caffeine intake is important. Bold brewed coffee helps in this respect, and every little bit helps.

So, here's a kudos to Java City and Peet's, two of the coffee companies that make a point of offering at least one bold coffee blend choice whenever their shops' doors are open! As for Starbucks, we're still waiting - and waiting and waiting and waiting - for them to get with the program.

Note: The chart above represents issues raised at My Starbucks Idea. As of early November 2008, over 17,000 respondents had expressed their desire - their idea in action, if you will - to have "Bold Coffee (Served) All Day."

Visiting High Point Coffee in downtown L.A.

We've mentioned before that blogdowntown is one of our favorite southern California websites, and we especially love the Touring Downtown WiFi feature. Here's one of the Touring posts, which makes me feel like I've already visited High Point Coffee in the downtown portion of the City of the Angels:

http://tinyurl.com/mlogpm

Photo: flickr (Ballistik Coffee Boy)

If Seattle's Best can do this, why can't Starbucks?

Yesterday afternoon I visited my local Borders Books. On the positive side, my store is no longer running its "please don't ask us for a bag" campaign. I bought a music CD and was, nevertheless, asked if I wanted a bag. I said yes and was given a full size bag to go. (The bag was subsequently used when Munchy's litter box was cleaned.)

The counter signs discouraging customers from asking for a bag have also been either removed or covered up. See, the customer is always right!

We're posting the link, below, to our earlier write-up about Borders when we were not so pleased with the chain.

But while I was at Borders, I went to the Seattle's Best coffee counter and ordered a bold coffee. Even though it was mid-afternoon, this was no problem. The bold coffee served by Seattle's Best is about an 85% scale version of Peet's Major Dickason bold. But then something is far better than nothing.

This, then, begs the question... If Seattle's Best, which is fully owned by Starbucks of Seattle, can serve its customers bold coffee whenever they're open why can't Starbucks?

http://tinyurl.com/re8kov

Photos: flickr (bottom photo of Seattle's Best in the Ginza, Tokyo, by cloganese)

And Here's Another...

Here's another Starbucks Bearista, which reminds us to remind you... Don't forget to visit us at our Twitter site:

http://twitter.com/troybear07

A bold coffee for everyone, on the house!


Photo: flickr (Jepster)

Next: Bob Dylan warms our lives.

Yes - There Really Are Bearistas at Starbucks!

This is a Starbucks Bearista imported from Portland, Oregon... far, far, far away. Let's hope he's ready to brew up a pot of bold coffee! Ethiopian, Sumatra, French Roast?

Is the planet shaking...?

Is the planet shaking, or have I just had too much bold coffee?

Isn't this a nice graphic? It reminds me of something, I just can't quite remember exactly what it is.

A fun coffee blog for caffeine fiends (and bold coffee lovers)...

Mackenzie Shieck of the online newspaper, Seattle Post Intelligencer, has a fun blog that deals with her experiences as a former bearista for a major chain of coffee shops... Let's see: Seattle, coffee, bearistas...

Gosh, do you think she could possibly be talking about her days at Starbucks?

Here's the link to her blog, It's Just the Caffeine Talking:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/caffeinetalking/

Photo of a Starbucks in Portland, OR: flickr (cafemama). Sure I could have used a pic of a Starbucks in Seattle, but that would have been too predictable, don't ya think?

Dance Lessons of the Thirties... (a poem by Donald Justice)

Wafts of old incense mixed with Cuban coffee
Hung on the air; a fan turned; it was summer.
And (of the buried life) some last aroma
Still clung to the tumbled cushions of the sofa.

At lesson time, pushed back, it used to be
The thing we managed somehow just to miss
With our last-second dips and whirls - all this
While the Victrola wound down gradually.

And this was their exile, those brave ladies who taught us
So much of art, and stepped off to their doom
Demonstrating the fox-trot with their daughters
Endlessly around some sad makeshift ballroom.

O little lost Bohemias of the suburbs!

Photo: flickr (gerardov)

Like Chocolates on the Pillow...

In the book Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough, Jonathan Tisch - CEO of Leows Hotels - makes the following comment about AOL: "This is the mark of a company desperate to keep its link to customers alive while behaving in ways that only increase alienation."

While reading this, I had to stop for a second to see if he was referencing AOL or Starbucks...

Photo of the Starbucks in Ripon, California: flickr (suendercafe)

Some Tough Words for Starbucks...

This is an abridged version of an article ("More Bad News for Starbucks as McCafe Moves in For the Kill") printed on the BNET Industries website; BNET Food subcategory. The original article was posted on the morning of April 20, 2009 and was written by Katherine Glover.

Months ago, this same publication had high hopes for a Starbucks revival based on the return of CEO Howard Schultz. Now the view is not so optimistic...

Things are not looking good for Starbucks. McCafe's continue to spread - almost 70 percent of McDonald's outlets now offer specialty coffee, and the Chicago Tribune has reason to believe that McDonald's will launch a national advertising campaign for its coffee starting in May.

"McCafe is a game-changer in coffee," a Deutsche Bank analyst wrote in a recent memo to clients. "We expect McDonald's will extract a significant toll on Starbucks' performance, beginning this summer..." Deutsche Bank has downgraded Starbucks stock to "sell." And as McCafe expands its reach, Starbucks is moving in the opposite direction, closing 200 U.S. stores this year.

But the problem isn't just that McDonald's offers cheaper coffee than Starbucks. The problem is that Starbucks doesn't necessarily have anything to offer for its higher prices. The Starbucks phenomenon itself led to higher standards, and, as a result, more cheap coffee options that don't necessarily taste like dirt water.

QSR Web recently did its own blind taste test and found that a majority of its testers actually preferred McDonald's coffee drinks to Starbucks. So the question is not "Are customers willing to pay more for a better drink?" but "Is the drink really even better."

Photo: flickr

Note: For even more Starbucks-related updates, see http://twitter.com/Melody206

Wrong About Starbucks?

In a Motley Fool article posted on MSNBC on Monday, April 13th, Tim Beyers reconsidered some things he'd said in a pre-Christmas article. At that time he wrote that Starbucks had lost its appeal as a destination, "(as) a place for writers like me to sit, sip, get connected (wirelessly), and write." In his more recent article, Beyers took the stance that he was wrong about Starbucks as revealed in the full title of his article: I Was Wrong About Starbucks: Wi-Fi is worth paying for, after all.

Interesting, especially as the final words in the article were these:

You want to blame customers for your woes? Look in the mirror first, Starbucks.

Very clever. Good stuff, almost as good as the bold cup of coffee that I can't get in the afternoon at Starbucks. On to Peet's...

Note: Earlier this week I had a change in schedule so I made what is now a rare stop at a Starbucks for a late morning brew. I was the only person standing in line... Nevertheless, the bearista barely listened to my order for a tall (small) bold coffee with room for cream; she was busy talk, talk, talking to a co-worker. Before handing me my coffee, she walked away and grabbed an ink pen for some unknown reason... I was not charging my order.

When she did finally hand me my coffee it was filled to the rim - she clearly did not listen to my order - and with the current supply of bad lids, the coffee spilt all over my hands and my formerly-clean pair of pants. Great, and another reminder of why I almost never pop into a Bucks anymore.

Photo: flickr (chrisdejabet)

Drink another cup of coffee and savor your mental health?

According to an article in yesterday's New York Times - "Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk" - a study that tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-aged men and women found that drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day might lower a person's risk of developing dementia. Dementia is defined as the loss of mental processing ability, including communication, abstract thinking, judgment and physical abilities. It affects everyday living through short-term and/or long-term memory loss, disorientation, difficulties with money and math, etc.

The men and women in this research study group who drank this amount of coffee over an average of 21 years were 65% less likely to develop dementia than those who drank 2 cups or less per day. There's also an apparent, but not statistically significant reduction in risk, for those who drink five or more cups a day.

If you drink two cups a day, like I do, you might want to consider increasing your consumption by that extra cup of Peet's or Starbucks. However, if you do not currently drink coffee, according to this study, there's no evidence that starting to drink coffee will have any protective effect.

Earlier studies have suggested that drinking coffee may also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and/or Parkinson's disease. Of course, the possibility of error exists because study participants may "innacurately" recall how much coffee they consumed over the course of many years. Oh, well...

Just in case, I'm ordering an extra cup of Java today.

(Pictured is the Peet's coffee shop in downtown Portland.)

Where in the world...?

Is this Starbucks coffee shop located? Hint: There are twelve Starbucks locations in this city.

Yes, it is located in Seoul, Korea. One of the Starbucks coffee shop locations in downtown Seoul is reported to be the largest and maybe the busiest Starbucks in the world. Alas, there's not an El Pollo Loco in sight!