COFFEE NEWS

A cancer-causing toxin has been found in some popular coffee beans distributed here, according to the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA), Wednesday.

It said seven out of 210 brands of coffee beans sold here contained ochratoxin, a toxin caused by fungus growth on various foods. Contamination can occur before or after harvesting and during the packaging and storage process if there is sufficient oxygen, heat and moisture.

Among the brands containing the harmful toxin are Trinidad Coffee’s Hawaii Kona Blend with ochratoxin levels of 4.8 parts per billion (ppb), Mocha Mattari (4.2 ppb) and Mcnulty (1.6 ppb).

The European Union has set its standard below 5 ppb and Italy has set it on 4 ppb, but Korea has not set its own yardstick.

“If someone drinks more than seven cups of coffee a day, which is not unusual for youngsters, the substance could cause serious health trouble,” Rep. Lim Doo-sung of the governing Grand National Party said. “As they are popular brands here, the amount of products sold is huge.”

Authorities plan to set a standard for the ochratoxin this month. KFDA spokesman Park Sun-hee said, “Considering the amount of actual amount of coffee beans used for a cup of coffee, one needs to drink 660 cups a day for it to affect one’s health.”

Ochratoxin is categorized as a “possible class 2B” carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) under the World Health Organization, and can cause nervous and respiratory system problems as well as triggering cancer.

Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/10/117_32379.html

Upper-middle-class homemaker Irene Risser expressed fear Monday that there exists a gourmet coffee superior to the brands she currently buys. “I have Kona Coffee’s peaberry flavor, which is really terrific, and I also like to buy Sumatran Rainforest,” Risser said. “But I still worry that somewhere out there, someone has better, more expensive coffee than I do.” Risser then went on the Internet to search for $25-a-pound breakfast blends.

Source:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31142

A new coffee shop is coming to town, and some people would like to censor its animal-based name. They say it’s naughty and don’t want their kids to see it.

This is the company’s first franchise to open in the Chicago area, but some say it has a bad name.

The town of Antioch has already taken action, passing a resolution condemning the coffee shop.

The village council Monday night took the unusual step of actually condemning the name, which is officially registered as an Illinois corporation.

Families are concerned that their children will be repeating the name — something that doesn’t sit well. It begs the question: what’s in a name? In this case, plenty.

It’s a quiet, tranquil town that calls out American values on the flag staffs and in the windows. Antioch is a town that says welcome to just about everybody — except a new brand of coffee with a bad name.

The village is saying we don’t think this is an appropriate place for a “Bad Ass” coffee shop.

That’s the name of the planned coffee shop, a fast-growing nationwide chain with an in-your-face name.

“Grab a cup of bad ass coffee and enjoy,” the owner said.

It’s not like Marion and Tom Rush don’t like coffee. They don’t like the name.

“We teach our children to speak with respect, to treat people with respect. Bad Ass is not a phrase that appropriate in our family,” Marion Rush said.

The couple has gathered hundreds of signatures of agreement and even got the Antioch village elders to draft this resolution saying the coffee company’s name is “found to be utterly vulgar … to be highly offensive to ordinary sensibilities.”

Tony Liotta, who’s been working on this dream for three years, say’s the coffee company is headquartered in Salt Lake City, no liberal bastion of immorality. It goes over fine there.

He points to the company’s Website and says in Hawaii, where all the coffee comes from, the name is a tribute to the donkeys that hauled coffee up and down the mountainsides.

“You need to explain to your kids like any other word, you don’t call your little sister an ass, but a donkey is an ass,” Liotta said.

The company thrives on the controversy to get its name out.

Local reaction falls both ways.

“Well, it would be nice if they could find another name for it.

The Rushs’ agree that in a bigger city the name might blend in with the roar, but not in quiet, family-oriented Antioch.

“Common sense says in this community Bad Ass is wrong. Bad Ass is just simply wrong,” Tom Rush said.

A corporate spokesman for the coffee company said that regarding any publicity is good publicity. As for the village of Antioch officially condemning the name, the village administrator said that’s about all they can do. Beyond that, their hands are tied.

Source:

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_321181244.html

When the Kauai Coffee Company wanted a cheaper way to monitor the ripeness of its coffee beans, the federal government helped out.

Starting next fall, the sky over America’s largest coffee plantation will be dotted with an unmanned NASA aircraft. It’ll hover over Kauai Coffee’s Hawaiian crops, monitor the ripeness of the beans and inform executives when it’s the perfect time for the harvest.

The NASA-funded team, based at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, received a $3.76 million grant from the federal government to purchase and maintain the unmanned solar-powered aircraft. A NASA statement says the project will let Kauai Coffee “know, down to the day, the best time for harvesting the beans, bringing the best flavor to consumers.”

“This is a very futuristic approach to precision agriculture,” says Stan Herwitz, a professor of earth science at Clark University who’s heading the project.

Herwitz said the tax-funded monitoring “may also aid the state’s economy. The Hawaiian economic development office helped us get the grant…. We felt (Kauai Coffee) could improve their profit margins.”

The Kauai Coffee Company project is an example of a recent trend: Corporations increasingly are guiding the direction of NASA’s $1.5 billion Earth monitoring program. Instead of private firms paying to launch their own satellites to monitor crops and vehicles, companies have found it cheaper to send taxpayers the bill.

NASA, Hawaiian politicians, Clark University and Kauai Coffee laud the effort as a noteworthy example of a public-private partnership. But critics charge that it’s corporate welfare — and say that America’s space agency should wake up and smell the coffee.

“It is corporate welfare and something the private sector should be doing,” says David Williams, vice president of policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog organization.

“Assume, for a second, that NASA was private,” Williams says. “Do you think they would make this kind of expenditure? We’re not saying NASA should be private, but they should look at the way things are done.”

Kauai Coffee declined to make a company official available for comment.

Smaller Hawaiian coffee companies that aren’t as politically connected as Kauai Coffee missed out on the multimillion-dollar largesse.

“If we were a little bigger maybe we could have gotten that imaging program,” says Ruby Kawai, a spokeswoman for rival grower Coffees of Hawaii. “That’s good technology and maybe, if it works out good, maybe they can expand it so that our smaller company can benefit.”

Sourcd:

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/11/48643

For those who love the full flavor of real coffee but can’t handle the kick, the genetics revolution may have a solution.

Researchers say they have genetically engineered coffee plants that have 70 percent less caffeine than usual in their leaves. The crucial question for brewing coffee — whether beans from those plants will have less caffeine — won’t be known for three to four years when the plants mature, said study author Shinjiro Ogita.

However, the results indicate it should be possible, according to the researcher’s report in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

The researchers at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan used RNA interference — an increasingly popular genetic tool — to manipulate the plant, interfering with the gene responsible for an enzyme used to make caffeine.

Experts contend a caffeine-free bean would be an improvement over current decaffeination processes, which use water or organic solvents to remove the stimulant from the beans before they are roasted, taking out some flavor and aroma as well.

Alan Crozier, a University of Glasgow researcher who has worked on genetically modifying coffee, said the Japanese group is the first to engineer the plants to produce less caffeine.

However, concerns about genetically modified foods and a lack of interest by the coffee industry could slow development, Crozier said.

“I suspect it will come in first at the boutique end of the market and grow from there,” Crozier said. “If it were to take over, clearly it’s a much cheaper way to produce decaffeinated coffee.”

Pablo Dubois of the London-based International Coffee Organization, which includes coffee-producing and consuming nations, said genetically modified foods “are regarded with wide suspicion in Europe” and current decaffeination processes are well established.

John Stiles, a scientist working to develop a caffeine-free coffee plant for Waialua, Hawaii-based Integrated Coffee Technologies, said the Japanese researchers have not yet reached the commercial decaffeination level of 97 percent.

Stiles said the Hawaiian company hopes to have plants ready for field use in a year. While the Japanese researchers used the robusta variety of coffee plant, Stiles said the Hawaiian work uses the more commercial arabica variety.

Ogita said the Japanese researchers are also working on arabica plants and should be able to eventually remove all caffeine.

Coffee plants make caffeine in a three-step process. The targeted gene in the modified plant normally prompts the plant to produce an enzyme that carries out the second step, said Hiroshi Sano, one of the paper’s authors.

RNA interference eliminates the chemical messenger the targeted gene sends to the cell’s protein-making machinery.

The researchers are also working to induce plants other than coffee to produce caffeine, which would act as a pest repellant, Sano said.

At the Daily Grind in Baltimore, some welcomed the news of the genetically modified coffee plant and others were as lukewarm as a half-finished cappuccino.

Marcia Sternbergh, 52, of Baltimore said she prefers regular coffee for the taste, “and the jolt.”

At night, though, she would drink the non-caffeine kind.

Harold Cones, 60, of Newport News, Virginia, who has to drink decaf because of an irregular heartbeat, said he would welcome the new coffee because he could avoid caffeine and get the flavor.

“Oh, that would be good. There’s a difference,” Cones said, sipping a decaf. “Every now and then I have a cup of real coffee and it’s really nice.”

While some decaf is good, Cones said it tends to get stale because it’s not ordered as much. The real thing is still the best, however.

“Sometimes, you get that cup of coffee,” Cones said, “and you think you’re high in the mountains, in an old hotel, and the aroma goes up into your sinuses and you say, ‘That’s a good cup of coffee.’”

Source:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/06/59302

It’s a “beverage occasion,” said executives who waxed poetic about the dark-bottled, gold-capped drink yesterday.

“It is a blend of unique Coke refreshment with the true essence of coffee and has a rich smooth texture and has a coffee-like froth when poured,” said company Vice President Marc Mathieu, who added that the beverage would provide “a whole new drinking experience.”

Pepsi once tested “Kona,” a coffee-based soft drink, but withdrew the brand in 1996. However, the world of caffeinated “energy” drinks is a whole new universe today. Caffeinated drinks are all the buzz with teens, now.

This was the year of energy drinks riding the wind beneath the wings of Red Bull.

Red Bull is an energy drink that’s suddenly everywhere. Last year, people in 120 countries guzzled close to two billion cans of the trendy brew. It costs about $3 a shot in Canada.

Developed in Austria, Red Bull’s marketing campaign promises the beverage “gives you wings.”

A drink that gives you wings? That sounds pretty powerful. So what exactly is Red Bull? The makers call it an “energy drink.” People we’ve talked to describe it as “stimulating,” “addictive,” even “crack in a can.”

Some of the new names, like Dark Dog and Flying Horse, are obviously looking for the next Red Bull.

Enter the energy wars… In early 2005, the Coca-Cola company plans to launch a new energy drink of its own, Full Throttle. It aims to challenge energy leader, Red Bull.

A popular myth claims that one of Red Bull’s ingredients, taurine, is an extract from a bull’s testicles. While taurine is an amino acid naturally found throughout the body, the taurine found in Red Bull is entirely synthetic.

As well, a number of functional beverages are branded especially for girls, with names like Pink, Piranha, Liquid Ice, No Fear, and Her.

Kabbalah is the new energy drink of stars like Madonna, Ashton and Demi, with a cult-like following.

And energy drinks with edgy names and attitude, like 69 and BooKoo, are brands aimed at specific market demographics.

Source:

http://www.wordlab.com/2005/12/blak-is-new-coke.cfm