Wednesday, March 12, 2003


upswing in coffee

a great piece today on the recent las vegas coffee fest. hot new trends appear to be more coffeehouses serving fresh orange juice and brazilian palmberry smoothies, according to the article.

this stopped me short. what's a palmberry? i've never had a palmberry, but it's said to taste like chocolate with a wine-ish aftertaste. . .altho' others describe the taste as nutty.

must find palmberries a.k.a. acai (and here) as soon as possible. . .but i don't think it's going to be easy to find here in new york!

currently the scaa estimates that are about 1,200 independent local coffeehouse/roasters in the u.s.a. but that figure seems set to grow, if the brisk business at the coffeefest is an accurate harbinger. after a recent lull, "[the opening-your-own-coffeeshop trend] seems to be gaining momentum in the past year-and-a-half," said coffeefest show manager david heilbrunn.

more better coffee could be coming all our ways, if he's correct. there's little doubt, i think, that if current independent coffeehouses keep tightly focused on improving the quality of their java, we could see a steady increase in coffee consumption for years to come.

i also found the screamingmanglobal (flash) "what don't you understand about no decaf?" mugs pretty darn funny. . .read the entire article here.

and, on a holiday note, purim is basically here. we at bccy believe in celebrating everyone's holidays, as long as it's with chocolate. (as a side note, if i skip an interesting holiday that offers an excuse for an outrageous chocolate indulgence, please email me immediately, preferably with a traditional recipe.)

for those deep into a chocolate fix, check out this recipe for a yummy nut pastry with a chocolate-coffee glaze. looks pretty easy to make too.

posted by fortune | 5:03 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments