The Art of Coffee

International competition here.

COFFEE CUPS AS ART

Gwyneth Leech makes art on paper coffee cups, even marks the type of drink, the date, location and occasion where she acquired each cup.  She started in 2007 and her work of over 700 cups is currently on display at the Flatiron Building's Prow Artspace in NYC.  She was sitting in the window, drawing, from September and to February 18th, adding more cups of art to the collection. 

  Visit a collection of her cups at her blog, Gwyneth's Full Brew

AMAZING ARTWORK MADE WITH COFFEE CUPS

Visiting artist from Malaysia, Red Hong, makes creations with unusual items including coffee with circles. See photos of his work here.  

OF COURSE, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

Grant Snider created this coffee graphic to explain the origins of coffee:

My initial idea was to draw this diagram and paint it with black coffee for a watercolor effect. Unfortunately, the coffee didn't show up well and warped the paper. So I drank the coffee.

 The graphic is available as a poster here.

Laptop Friendly Cafes?

As conscious coffee consumers, we are on the eternal quest for three things: good coffee, free wi-fi and power for our laptop, tablet or smartphone.

To help people find cafes with free Wi-Fi, and handy power outlets, Craig Barber  launched LaptopFriendlyCafes.com in 2009, a website that lists local spots to set up shop. The site features listings for cafes in 34 countries and recently launched its own iPhone app. 


While the site includes information about the basics, it doesn't address things like:  'how's the coffee?'
It also would be nice to include whether or not there is a expenditure-per-hour policy, how good and friendly the wait staff is, and if the music is bearable. 


For those of us who travel, it's a start in getting acquainted with a new city and there's always that opportunity to discover a new cafe to add to the list of friendly places.

COFFEE JOURNAL?

This coffee journal is designed to keep a log of your coffee experiences.  It’s a notepad that provides boxes to check and space to add some comments.

From Portland, Oregon, the pocket sized 33 Coffees Journal is made with 100% recycled papers and printed using US-grown soy-based inks.

Taking notes with 33 Coffees has a flavor wheel to mark and a fill-in the blanks review box. 

RECYCLE COFFEE BAGS INTO FURNITURE

This ottoman іѕ upholstered using repurposed hοnеѕt trade coffee bags, each piece іѕ unique аnd mау hаνе different logos аnd markings thаt аrе used tο identify thе original commodities.

Available from 2Modern, the Gus* - UpCycle Ottoman is upholstered using repurposed jute.

Other uses of all things coffee over at the Unconsumption blog.

TEN WAYS TO REUSE YOUR COFFEE CAN

photo - Athens Rood Tours

A wine rack!  Who knew?  From the folks at Athens (GA) Food Tours.

IF YOU LIKE COFFEE. . .

Great T-Shirt from Natalie and Drew Dee, limited edition available at Sharing Machine.

A LONDON HISTORY OF COFFEE BARS

ON THE OTHER HAND, MY BARISTA IS VERY NICE

VIA sprunge.com

AH, NEW YORKERS

THREE REASONS WHY COFFEE IS THE BEST BEVERAGE EVER!

Coffee makes you smarter, makes you healthier, and tastes better--oh, and it can make you happier, so really four reasons from Coffee Cup News.

TRACK YOUR CAFFEINE CONSUMPTION

In Caffeine We Trust: Infographic Print For Tracking Your Coffee Consumption Data, a cool limited edition print to measure your caffeine addiction.  Best idea:  you can fill in the columns using coffee instead of a pen!  From Column Five Media.

KIDS AND ESPRESSO

I know, it's a commercial, but they're so cute!

S'More Latte

Catalina Cafe

MORNING

H. Caldwell Tanner

GUIDE TO COFFEE DRINKS

London-based graphic designer David Staffell

CLEVER DRIPPER?

[Photo: Liz Clayton]

Serious Eats features a Japanese device called the Clever Dripper that makes coffee through a hybrid of the principles of immersion brewing—or steeping like a French Press—with the principles of extraction via pouring water over the grounds into a conical brewer.

AFOGATTO YOU

COLLECTING MORE EVIDENCE: COFFEE IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN

Like all of us, I gravitate toward news and information that support beliefs I already hold:

A new study, which was published online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, shows that caffeinated coffee may be good for our brains and may, in fact, help keep Alzheimer’s at bay. Caffeine has been sited in previous studies as having potentially positive effects on the brain. and specifically Alzheimer’s.

The study looked at mice whose DNA had been tweaked to contain a human Alzheimer’s gene. Just like humans with familial Alzheimer’s, these mice become increasingly forgetful as they age.  The equivalent of four to five cups of caffeinated coffee every few days led to much improved memories in these Alzheimer’s mice.

COFFEE EXPLAINED

FROM fooducate.com

COFFEE: GREATEST ADDICTION?

Too much coffee makes you hear voices, really?

Reported by MSNBC and filed by me under the category of--
"We're really using some pretty thin science to prove we hate coffee," a recent Australian study claims to show a link between heavy coffee consumption, stress -- and auditory hallucinations.

The volunteers listened to white noise played through a computer's headphones for three minutes. Every time they heard even a snippet of Bing Crosby's White Christmas, they were told to press a hand tally counter. (They weren't aware of the real point of the study -- they were told it was about auditory perception.)
The song was never played.

Let's just stop there for a minute.  

Is it truly a valid science experiment for hallunications if the subject is TOLD what they will hear?  It wasn't an 'auditory perception,' it was a study group thinking they better push the button at some point because they were told they were going to hear ole Bing crooning--whether they actually heard it or not.   

But the participants who said they were very stressed, and very caffeinated -- those who regularly drank five or more cups per day, at 200 milligrams of caffeine each -- were more likely to imagine they'd heard it.

Whoa!  If I drank five or more cups of anything, I'd be stressed and thinking: I gotta hurry up and press this buzzer so I can get out of this experiment and go pee!!!!

"We believe that high stress, in addition to taking high levels of caffeine, makes people yet more stressed and thus makes them more likely to 'overreact' to the environment -- i.e., to hear things that just aren’t there," explains Simon Crowe, the lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at Australia's La Trobe University, located in Bundoora, Victoria. The report was published in the April issue of the Journal Personality and Individual Differences.

It's worth noting here that there are some limitations to the study: The levels of stress and caffeine consumption were both self-reported by the 92 volunteers who participated in the experiment. And what if, somehow, the caffeine-stressball combo made participants more eager to try to please the researchers -- yes, of course we heard the song! It's lovely, isn't it?! 

sigh. . .