Posts Tagged ‘specialty coffee’
This Week’s Stories: Paris Coffee + Natural Dyeing
Another week, another list of stories, including one I worked on last fall before I moved from Paris, and which finally made it out into the real world. In a print magazine!
Paris Coffee Revolution – My story on the specialty coffee scene in Paris is the feature in this month’s Fresh Cup magazine. But you can read it online too.
Are Self-Cleaning Fabrics in Our Future? New Research Says Yes – Did I say self-cleaning fabrics? Oh yes, I did. You might not have a self-cleaning t-shirt tomorrow, but research is leading us in the right direction.
Planting a Dye Garden to Make Your Own Natural Dyes – Kristine Vejar, author of Modern Natural Dyer and owner of A Verb for Keeping Warm, helped me put together a post on natural dyeing and five great plants to put in your garden that you can dye with.
Rice Pasta, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Hazelnut Parmesan – Another adventure-friendly recipe over on Adventure Journal. Super easy and perfect for warmer weather outdoor cooking.
Images: Kristine Vejar
Paris Coffee Revolution: Buy the Book
What makes an “artisan” an “artisan”? What does it look like when you try to do business not as usual? What happens when you challenge the status quo? What does a “passion job” look like?
These are some of the questions that we tried to answer in the book Paris Coffee Revolution, which was just released in October. It’s a book telling the story of the growth of the Paris specialty coffee scene through profiles of some of the city’s main “coffee revolutionaries” who helped to kickstart that growth.
Preorder a Copy of the Book ‘Paris Coffee Revolution’
For the last two years I have been covering the specialty coffee scene in Paris. For a long time, Paris was a place that was known for bad quality coffee and not much else. But in the last few years, this has changed, and nowadays there are a handful of local specialty roasters and a long list of cafes where you’re sure to get served a good cup.
Last year photographer Jeff Hargrove reached out to me. He had been bitten by the coffee bug and as a portrait photographer, he wanted to self-publish a book with portraits of the “coffee entrepreneurs” in Paris – the people who helped to change the coffee scene. But he wanted more than portraits, he wanted a story. And so I came along to help write that story: Paris Coffee Revolution.
Ever Felt Like This Ordering Your Coffee?
The specialty coffee industry can get a lot of flak for the intensity that it puts into making a good cup. But just like many things that we consume which take time to make – wine, beer, cheese, etc. – there will always be passionate people behind them, and we should have respect for that. You can geek out on anything after all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t poke fun sometimes.
This video that Everything But the News from PBS Digital Studios did is hilarious. I think we can all find some humor in it.
Enjoy!
The Real Impact of Your Cup of Specialty Coffee
Dukunde Kawa or Kilenso?
I was at Coava Coffee Roasters for an afternoon meeting and having to choose what beans I wanted my iced Americano to be made from. Here, roasting is taken seriously, and on any give day you have your pick between the two blends of the day, always sourced from specific cooperatives on the other side of the world. I went with the Rwandan one, liking the taste, but also, for a variety of reasons – including once having a roommate from Rwanda – because the cooperative was on my radar.
Coava is of course different from the majority of coffee shops. Most times we stand in line, decide whether or not we should go for the soy latte today because we’ve been feeling a little dairy intolerant lately, opt for the extra shot and go on our way. But our coffee choices aren’t insignificant. Far from it, in fact.
