Fresh Brews: Blame It On The Rain

Coffee Cup And A Newspaper

A lot has been going on in my world last week, computer crashing, losing all of my files and having to spend an entire day and night fixing it. But things are just as busy in coffee land.

Coffee Price Too Steep? Blame the Weather
Looks like wet weather in Columbia and other coffee producing counties is increasing prices behind the scenes. So far, there hasn’t been much change in the price of what consumers drink, but the article predicts that it could we’ll be paying more in the near future.

Coffee Wars, Starbucks Still #1, McDonald’s #2 and Rising, Dunkin’ Donuts #3
The early numbers are in! Starbucks still leads in where people buy their coffee the most often, but McDonald’s is catching up. McDonald’s numbers increased, while Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts actually saw a decline between February and May.

His mission is to visit all Starbucks shops in the world
Coffee fan ‘Starbucking’ through Britain
“Winter,” the Starbucks obsessed fan who is trying to visit as many Starbucks locations as possible, is taking a swing through Great Britain this week. I think this guy has a little bit too much free time on his hands, I just don’t see the reason to spend so much time and money to visit all of these Starbucks. I love Starbucks too, but that’s a little too much. However, I keep reading every article about him, so what does that say about me? You can see where he’s been at Starbucks Everywhere. He’s stopped at just about every Starbucks that I’ve ever been to.

Coke CEO sees canned coffee growing despite recession
Not too long ago Coke and coffee producer Illy teamed up to create a coffee drink in a can. It’s supposed to be on the high end of canned coffee drinks, which probably means a higher price, but that isn’t going to stop them from launching the product during the sluggish economy. Right now, you can find it mostly in Europe, but it’s starting to make it’s way through the US via Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. I’ll definitely give this drink a shot when, if it every makes it here.

Wolfgang Puck Heads to the Coffee Aisle
I’ve read that Wolfgang Puck came out with his own coffee line, but I haven’t seen it here yet. This is another coffee that I’d like to try.

Grind your own beans, brew coffee manually for a better drink
For you coffee experts, this probably old news. But here’s further proof that you should by whole beans and use a French Press to make your coffee, along with a few other tips to get better coffee.

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Photo by cafemama

Fresh Brews: Asthma, Dunkin Donuts And iPhone Apps Trying something a little different this week, instead of just...

Tagged as: Coffee Prices, Coffee Wars, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks, Winter, Wolfgang Puck

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Chameleon@CoffeeBreak May 31, 2009 at 12:49 pm: I’ve been expecting higher coffee prices because I’ve been following the weather and other news out of Africa, South America and Indonesia. Some of my favorite coffee varietals are hugely affected – Ethiopian farmers got to battle not only the weather, but also coffee wilt (which is partly caused by too wet weather) and coffee pest infestations. Result – their coffee imports are down.. way down. You can also blame it on global climate change – something I wrote about at my other blog, Wet Wednesday at http://www.blogonsmog.com.

BTW – how about some love for us peeps that signed up for your newsletter BEFORE you wrote your cool ebook? Whatta we gotta do to get a copy?

Mike May 31, 2009 at 1:25 pm: I knew about the rains and the earthquakes, but I didn’t know to what extent the other things were affecting the coffee crops.

Check your email a little later today. I’ll be emailing current subscribers the link. I was going to do it yesterday, but my computer decided it was a good idea to crash and it took me a good 12+ hours to fix it.

I wish I could say I wrote it. I just purchased the rights. Soon, we’ll have my own ebook. I’ve been having a lot of fun in the kitchen.