Tag Archives: New York City

S3 Episode 1: Cities And Their Coffee Cultures

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Welcome back to The Boise Coffee Podcast! In this first episode of Season 3 I discuss how a city’s culture influences their coffee culture, then I give some tips on how to find great coffee when you’re visiting a new city. Here’s a quick rundown of those tips:

  1. Do your research. Try Googling the name of your city + specialty coffee (for example, “Phoenix specialty coffee”), and then begin narrowing your search terms accordingly. I like to copy the names of coffee shops that look interesting and paste them into the notes app on my phone, that way I have a running list.
  2. Prioritize your list of shops based on how close they are to wherever you’re staying (hotel, AirBnB, etc). You don’t want to get your hopes up about a cool looking cafe, only to realize it takes a 45min drive across town to get to.
  3. Check out online reviews of the shops that look the most promising. I like to use Foursquare, but any similar service like Yelp or Google Reviews will work just as well.  I find that Foursquare has less paid reviews and better reflects local favorites, but your milage may vary.
  4. Be respectful to the staff of the coffee shop you choose to visit. If their coffee doesn’t quite live up to the hype, don’t throw your coffee in their faces – just make a note of it for yourself, and enjoy the caffeine rush.
  5. Leave a review using whatever app/service you looked the shop up on. This will help other coffee junkies, and it will leave you a digital paper trail to follow the next time you’re in town.

This episode of The Boise Coffee Podcast is brought to you by My Espresso Shop. Use offer code BOISECOFFEE to receive 10% off your order of any espresso machine or grinder. You’re not gonna find a better deal than this, so if you’ve been looking at a new piece of equipment now is the perfect opportunity to grab it and save some money! Head over to MyEspressoShop.com now!

I hope you enjoy the first episode of this brand-new season! You can look forward to the second episode in just one week – following that, I’ll be reverting back to the normal bi-weekly schedule. Thanks for listening, and if you like what you hear please leave me a review on iTunes!

Colin

Check out the full episode transcript below.

Continue reading S3 Episode 1: Cities And Their Coffee Cultures →

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S2 Episode 14: We Are Happy To Serve You

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S2 Ep 14 Cover Art

If we’re honest with ourselves, coffee shops provide a very utilitarian function during most of our week. They’re there to provide us with morning-saving caffeine-infused goodness on our way to work. In this episode we dive headlong into the world of to-go coffee by looking at the story of Leslie Buck and his famous Anthora Cup. To get there, though, we’ll first need to talk about water and the Spanish flu.

This week’s episode is brought to you by WMF Coffee Machines. Whether you’re looking to build a new coffee workstation for your business, or you’re looking for a simple drip brewer for your office, WMF has plenty of options to choose from. Find out more at wmf-coffeemachines.uk.com.

Colin

Continue reading S2 Episode 14: We Are Happy To Serve You →

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Dumb Starbucks is Dumb, but Illustrates a Good Point

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Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 6.45.12 PM
An instagram photo @tonx tweeted while in line

Last week the media was abuzz about a new coffee shop in LA. While the coffee itself was nothing too special, the name was provocative to say the least. “Dumb Starbucks” had a near-identical menu to the coffee giant, with one exception: the word dumb preceded every drink. And while I imagine it was silly to order a Dumb Grande Dumb Latte, I couldn’t help but chuckle. How was this legal? According to a well written FAQ available in the Dumb Store, the shop falls under a “parody art” loophole in the law. By their own claim, Dumb Starbucks isn’t a coffee shop; instead, it is a parody art gallery where the art in question is the coffee being sold.

Starbucks eventually responded, saying: “We are evaluating next steps and while we appreciate the humor, they cannot use our name, which is a protected trademark.” And, as expected, Dumb Starbucks got shut down yesterday by the LA County department of health services.

As it turns out, this was all an elaborate prank from Comedy Central’s Nathan Fielder to promote his upcoming new show, Nathan For You. While this initial stage of the joke is complete, he plans to take Dumb Starbucks to Brooklyn next. I’m hoping I can make it down there and get some live coverage of the shenanigans whenever they end up unfolding.

The attraction generated a host of media coverage, everywhere from USA Today to The Verge. A name well known to the specialty coffee community threw in his two cents as well: tonx co-founder Tony Konecny. He actually got eyes-on the store and shot the instagram photo above before tweeting:

 

 

In my view, Dumb Starbucks is pretty dumb. But they illustrate a great point: people enjoy making fun of anything too ubiquitous or too large. Perhaps the tide is turning for Starbucks and other similar coffee giants. And man, what I would give to have tonx beans available at your corner cafe.

Stay tuned for more coverage down the road.

The Coffee Guy

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