COFFEE NEWS

Earlier this year Intelligentsia made waves by getting rid of its 20-ounce drip coffees in the name of retaining quality coffee flavors throughout the drinking experience. But on this last day of 2008, the venerable roaster and coffee brewer pushed the quality envelope even further: It has ditched the coffee urns at its flagship Lakeview store (3123 N. Broadway; 773-348-8058) in favor freshly brewed cups for every customer.

Doug Zell, CEO and founder of Intelligentsia, said he was inspired to switch to the new freshly brewed single cup policy because, he said,  “it lets us offer great seasonal choices to every customer–more akin to a wine bar than a cafe. We want to push people’s understanding and engagement of how great coffee can be.”

In the coming months all of the official Intelligentsia cafes in Chicago and Los Angeles will adopt the all-freshly brewed practice, and Zell said that they are going to encourage cafes that serve their coffee to do the same. Will this slow down your coffee pickup during your  morning commute? “Only marginally,” Zell said. “We will be taking orders while people are in line so that when they get up to the register their coffee will almost be ready.” 

So just to clarify: Now when a customer visits the Lakeview store–and, eventually, the others–the default choice will be a clover brewed coffee of the day for $2 to $2.65 for an 8- to 16-ounce cup. But when they choose one of the pricier beans,  Zell said, “customers will be allowed for the first time to participate in the process of rewarding great growers for their work and allow us to remunerate the grower accordingly as you would a great winemaker.” 

Zell believes this will “change the face of coffee by allowing customer to always select exactly the cup they want to drink, drink it fresh and be part of the equation of appropriately paying the growers for their coffee.”

More changes to come for the coffee geeks and aficianados: ” We will soon have vacuum pots” as a new brewing choice at Intelligentsia locations, Zell said.

When we called the Lakeview store earlier today, a busy barista said that customers this morning have been “pretty positive” about the moves. Other changes, he said, include using real ganache to make mochas and hot chocolates.

Source: http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2008/12/intelligentsia.html

Plans to Introduce Cafés in D.C.; Execs Say It Could Fare Well in the Java Wars.

The coffee wars have a new combatant: Subway.

As Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s go after Starbucks, a Washington-area franchisee is testing a Subway café concept. While it’s a relatively small step for the sandwich chain, the coffee push could pose a big threat if Subway ever decided on a rollout.

According to Ron Paul, president of Technomic, Subway could quickly become a player in the coffee wars based on the convenience factor alone. The chain has nearly 22,000 U.S. locations — far more than any other fast-food chain. “Trial would be pretty high,” he said. “They’re going to be a value player, and it’s surely going to have an impact.”

However, Subway isn’t viewing this as much more than a test. “Starbucks created a huge market for that type of product,” said Alan Warmund, president of mid-Atlantic development at McLean, Va.-based Subway Development Corp. of Washington, which has more than 1,000 Subway locations. “If the store is open for breakfast, you have to have a great coffee product.”

Espresso, gelato
Mr. Warmund’s company has approval to build up to five Subway Cafés. The cafés will be larger locations with Wi-Fi and more-comfortable seating. Espresso drinks, gelatos and paninis will be added to Subway’s standard menu. The new items are expected to be incremental to sales, but sandwiches are expected to account for 90% of volume.

“We’re not looking to get into the coffeehouse business,” Mr. Warmund said.

The cafés are going into office buildings in high-density areas. Mr. Warmund said his company developed the concept in response to requests from landlords in those spaces. The concept, he said, probably wouldn’t work in a rural area. “There just wouldn’t be a need for it.”

Subway spokesman Les Winograd said that even though the franchisee is building cafés with the parent company’s blessing, the push is purely the franchisee’s. It’s also true, however, that the closely held chain has a history of letting its franchisees try out the big ideas first.

“Many of our franchisees are very entrepreneurially minded,” Mr. Winograd said. “After all, it was a franchisee that first suggested we serve turkey. It was another franchisee that explored … opening locations inside convenience stores.”

Lot of beans
So franchisees will be watching the D.C.-area tests closely. “We will be very interested in our area to develop this new Subway Café,” said Hardy Grewal, who owns the franchise rights to Subway restaurants in Southern California.

The coffee market is, of course, becoming increasingly crowded. McDonald’s is in the midst of its McCafé rollout, and Dunkin’ Donuts is on an expansion binge. Other chains have conceded testing various coffee drinks: Wendy’s is testing iced coffee in some areas, spokesman Bob Bertini said.

Burger King also boosted its efforts on the coffee front. The chain relaunched its coffee as BK Joe and added a mocha flavor. Other flavors are being tested, along with some espresso-based drinks, said spokeswoman Heather Krasnow.

However, Ms. Krasnow stressed, “We’re not getting into it like McDonald’s.”

The industrywide coffee frenzy appears to run counter to the problems at Starbucks, which recently said it would close 600 stores and later launched a value promotion.

Subway’s Mr. Warmund said he isn’t losing any sleep. “Starbucks has expanded very rapidly over the last several years and they may have put some stores too close together and it cannibalized existing stores. I don’t think it’s a systemic problem with people getting away from coffee.”

Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=129585

Ed. The coffee shops that I visited on my travels in Eastern Europe were very upscale. The drinks were priced above what the normal citizen could afford. People would go there on a date or conduct business generally. The cafe’s also served alcoholic drinks and small meals. Most of the coffee origins offered were African due to their proximity to the continent. Origins such as Burundi, Congo, Malawi, Rawanda, Kenya, Uganda etc. were offered. Patrons were expected to consume their beverages at the cafe. The idea of of drinks to go has not taken off there, except in the case of vodka. Patrons would often walk into a cafe and grab a shot of vodka like an Italian would walk into a cafe, down an espresso and run. Almost every restaurant had an espresso machine, Lavazza was the most popular brand, and drip coffee was never avaliable.

Bologna-based Segafredo Zanetti Espresso, a roaster and café operator has opened another café in Miami, Fla.

It is almost 800 square meters and located in one of the hottest Miami areas for residential and commercial use.

The café “mixes the well known décor of typical of Segafredo Zanetti Espresso elements and the local Art Deco’ style very “en vogue” in Miami, said the company, which operates over 600 cafes worldwide.
 
The grand opening on Dec. 27th and the New Year’s party showed great public acceptance of the newest venue and the management is already facing good problems such as turning people away for lack of space. For this reason the location may go through an enlargement quite soon, it said.
 
The position of the location is very important: it is downstairs from the Miami light metro rail system final station and faces two top residential projects, Infinity II and Capital, with more than 1000 luxury apartments. A few steps away there are other very important buildings as the Millennium (Four Season), the Conrad Hotel (Hilton) and commercial centers such as the Mary Brickell Village, packed with top restaurateurs and retailers.
 
Moreover, the outlet is located in the heart of the economic district of Miami with one of the highest concentration of banks and financial institutions in the world, with an obvious focus on the Latin American markets who also have their headquarters and branches in the area.  In the years to come this part of the US will be very comparable to and indeed has already been dubbed, “the Manhattan of the South of the US.”
 
Developer VIDA Y ESTILO Corp. intends to open more Segafredo Zanetti Espresso Cafés in the next few years in Miami Beach, Aventura, Coral Gables and Doral, said the company.

Segafredo Zanetti belongs to Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group, a holding which unites 37 companies across the world with a yearly business amount of US$ 1.2 billion represented in 100 countries. It is the first private group in the coffee world with 120,000 tones manufactured every year. Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group has a unique business design since thanks to the direct control of the whole production chain it is totally integrated.

In recent months, the company has expanded its presence in Panama, Germany, Qatar and Thailand.
 


 
 

Source:
www.coffeenetwork.com

Editor-I visited this cafe several times during my stay in Miami while attending the Tea & Coffee Exhibition.  What did I think of their espresso?  They had some of the worst espresso that I have ever had!  They tamped and pulled the shot right, there was proper extraction time but no amount of effort by the barista could mask the overwhelming bitterness of cheap robusta beans in their blend.  So why did i keep coming back?  They have a great location, wonderful service- by real Italians no less, and plenty of outside seating that lent itself to a perfect people watching cafe atmosphere.  Here are some photos that I took while there-

Table top FishPong uses magnetic coffee cups to slap digital fish back and forth across a sky-blue table. The game was designed by those geeks at MIT as an “icebreaker technology to encourage spontaneous social interaction among coffeehouse patrons.” How nerdy do you have to be to think that a giant fish-themed video game is going to get you some action?

Source:

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1031607.1031669

 

Nothing says portable gaming like free coffee! Or something. Starting today in the Ginza Sony Building, you can get free coffee and stare at TV playing on PSP 2Ks. The portable’s Japan only TV tuner outputs a fairly nice picture — as nice as the TV phones. The PSP Cafe runs until the 16th. Those who live in Tokyo, swing by and check it out. Those who don’t, don’t.

Source:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/psp/drinking-free-joe-in-ritzy-ginza-with-psp2k-298961.php

Beijing Perfect World Co., Ltd. announced today the signing of a strategic agreement with Nestle, producers of the renowned ‘Nescafe’ brand. Keen online gamers this summer will see attentions absorbed by ”Zhuxian Online,” the fantastic game produced by Beijing Perfect World, and now, as part of this new agreement with Nestle, players will also benefit from deliciously tasty coffee. The agreement, signed in July 2007, will see a co-operation between Beijing Perfect World and Nestle’s premier brand, Nescafe.

As the ”favorite brand of domestic students”, Nescafe applies itself to the continued improvement of coffee products. Nestle has kept the top spot in coffee production in China for the last couple of years, and in January 2007, with the upgrade of their fresh new Nestle website, the majority of young consumers have been absorbed by the modern and wonderful items available.

”Zhuxian Online” has occupied the whole world so far in 2007. As one of the biggest developers and publishers in the field of domestic online-games, Beijing Perfect World, developer and publisher of ”Zhuxian Online”, has kept its high-improvement momentum since their establishment in 2004. Its products of different levels receive high praise from both domestic and overseas markets.

”Zhuxian Online,” the main product in first half of 2007, not only initiated several world-new systems, but they have also created the new game- style featuring in jump-puzzle-solutions. Also, Perfect World has carried out the novel-online game model. International celebrity, Richie Ren, has also already signed up to be the star representative of ”Zhuxian Online”, with Perfect World investing a large sum of money into the shooting of the fantasy film MU and the composition of the theme music,
maximizing the entertainment value.

The two companies have seen big success through the original 3D online games. The young game fans will have the opportunity to be awarded with superior VIP equipments for free in order to better experience the wonderful ”Zhuxian Online” while enjoying the rich taste of Nescafe. It is believed that the work between Perfect World and Nestle will not only contribute to the fastening of relations, but also the trend to promote games from Beijing Perfect World and products from Nestle, drawing even
greater attention from online gamers.

Source:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/advertising/nestle–beijing-perfect-world-enter-partnership-288505.php

The idea of a stylish space where one could enjoy quality coffee and kink has been with us for a few years now and has finally come true. It came out of our frustration with a lack of a stylish, upbeat space where we could enjoy three things we like most in life - coffee, cake and kink!

We serve Monmouth coffee only, fairly traded, freshly roasted, ground while you wait. With almost everything you see for sale (with a possible exception of the personnel), you can enjoy cakes but also much more. From gifts, mugs, postcards and coasters to books, prints and art to cuffs and jewellery, all our merchandise is top quality kink.

Coffee, Cake and Kink is a brainchild of Alan whose online magazine www.whatsyours.com (“Website of the Year 2001″ Erotic Award) and London Fetish Maps have made numerous headlines over last five years for quality and accessibility of information and friendly, open-minded approach to kink and sexuality.