"coffee" news and stories

Sustainable-minded eaters already know where to score the best and freshest produce: from a farm's Consumer Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Subscribers receive a weekly or twice-monthly "share" of just-picked greens, squash, berries -- you name it. Recently, similar models have sprung up for seafood, honey, dairy and flowers.

Coffee, however, is the antithesis of this feel-good model. Several middlemen work the long, arduous route between the coffee farm to your personal coffee brewer, which is several thousand miles and usually across continents. Typically, buyers import beans in their non-roasted form from a cooperative of coffee farmers, and then sell them to you -- roasted -- via a cafe or a grocer. By the time those beans are roasted and retailed, a lot of time has passed. And it's rare you know anything about the farm on which they were harvested.

Today, a new coffee CSA (it's actually called Coffee CSA) debuts as a project from Pachamama, a global cooperative of coffee farms. Though there are some small coffee CSAs around the U.S., the scale of this project is much larger. Each month, Coffee CSA subscribers receive a delivery of just-roasted coffee beans sourced from independent family-owned farms around the world. Not only do you know the farm's name, you have access to photos, videos and stories from the farmers, putting serious street cred into your morning cup of joe.

You can also request to receive email updates from the farm family, allowing you to get to know more about their lifestyle and livelihood. About 140,000 small-scale farmers in Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico, Ethiopia and Guatemala are linked with the project, and they work on farms ranging from one to 10 acres. All are certified-organic and Fair Trade certified too.

And since the beans arrive on your doorstep, you'll always have an early morning cup of joe at your fingertips.

Lattes are so last year. As a matter of fact, so are cappuccinos and macchiatos.

At least, that's what the emergence of a new kind of coffee bar suggests. Oh, this new breed has the requisite La Marzocco machines for those who really must have their shot, but the emphasis is on brewed coffee made using a variety of venerable counter-top contraptions, from the simple ceramic cone to the laboratory-like siphon, two glass bulbs perched above a Bunsen-burner. (Sorry, Mr. Coffee: the automatic drip still hasn't made a comeback.)

One of the latest entries into this category is WTF Coffee in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. The bar, which opened late last year, is a sleek little storefront with no seating, only narrow shelf-like bars along the walls. All the action happens at the counter, where customers choose from a long menu of beans and roasts, and half a dozen ways to have that coffee brewed, including the siphon and pour-over cone, as well as the Chemex, a modernist hour-glass, and the more popular French press.

Billing itself as a "coffee lab," WTF invites patrons to watch as their java is made on the other side of a glass sheet. (Behind all of this, one might catch a glimpse of the espresso machine.) Not coincidentally, owner Asio Highsmith, is also behind the nearby Hideout, a modern speakeasy that also draws an audience interested in old-fashioned, fussed-over drinks. A newcomer to coffee, Highsmith cast WTF as kind of café-cum-educational center, noting that all of its coffee-making devices are available online and most cost little more than $20 a piece. In a kind of anti-marketing pitch echoed at other home-style brew bars, he added that anyone could recreate their WTF experience home.

Everyone knows that Target is ground zero for everyday sundries like laundry soap, cat food, and hairspray. But did you know that the mammoth Minneapolis-based retailer stocks some of the best coffee in the world?

In 2006, Target -- which has 1,752 locations in 49 states (Vermont is the only state without a Target store) -- began buying up coffee from micro-batches with Cup of Excellence designation.

What's "Cup of Excellence?" It's the top award given to coffee beans -- the equivalent of a Grammy or an Oscar for the coffee industry. A panel of judges conduct cuppings (coffee-speak for tasting) a total of five times during the competition, which is hosted in the country of origin.

Coffee farms in nine different countries participate: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Rwanda. The winner's coffee is then sold to the highest bidder during an online auction -- and ultimately brought to coffee drinkers in the United States.

Last year Target bought beans from five Cup of Excellence winners, including the winner from Colombia. Currently Target is selling coffee from the Cup of Excellence 2009 winner (Flor de Mayo) in Bolivia, with farmer Pedro Castro Conurana at the helm. But you might never notice, because it's packaged under the store's in-house label, Archer Farms. To find it, search for the 10-ounce bags (or tins) of Archer Farm coffee beans marked "Cup of Excellence." The best part? The price: Only $15 for a 10-ounce tin of whole beans. You'll have to shop in person, though -- the coffee isn't available online.

• Get great coffee recipes from our sister site, Kitchen Daily.

Our new monthly installment features a portion of the popular guide, Eat This, Not That! in hopes that it will help you make better choices at casual and fast-food establishments.

I recently found myself in line at a local coffee shop behind a very nutrition-minded customer. She was asking the barista about the various food choices -- and she knew what she was talking about: Which fats were good or bad, how much sugar is reasonable, etc. That's why I couldn't believe her drink order: some kind of whipped mocha frappe concoction. All her caloric diligence went right out the window. I didn't want to be rude, so I held my tongue. But the woman made a classic mistake: She was watching what she ate, but not what she drank. The damage: more than 400 additional calories, guzzled from a plastic cup.

The fact is, a shocking number of the calories we consume at coffee joints doesn't come from the food. It comes from the coffee, and that's a shame. A cup of coffee in its raw, natural state contains only 5 calories, and coffee consumption has been linked to diminished risk of Alzheimer's [disease], better brain function, and even better memory. Coffee, in its purest, blackest form, is good for you. But too much of our coffee has been razzle-dazzled into sugary, fatty, pastrylike beverages: Instead of seizing the day with caffeinated focus, we're losing our grip on our diets.

That said, you can get your morning java boost without the accompanying belt expansion, if you know what to look for -- and what to avoid.

After the jump, an overview of the best -- and worst -- coffee drinks in America.

Joe the Plumber may not have been able to get John McCain to the White House, but can he sell can he sell a cup of coffee?

Ok, so we're not actually talking about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the real Joe the Plumber made famous by the 2008 presidential election. He doesn't appear in any of the ads that are part of the multimillion-dollar campaign just launched by Dunkin' Donuts. But plenty of his buddies seem to.

The Cola Wars petered out in the 1980s, but it looks like we're destined for a second decade of the Coffee Wars, with Starbucks, McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts all vying to provide bleary-eyed Americans with their morning jolt of caffeine. From what we can read between the lines of Dunkin's press release on their latest ad blitz, the company appears to be sending a blatant message to Starbucks in particular: "You can have your East and West Coast yuppies, with their New York Times tucked under their arm and absently humming along to Kings of Leon while they wait for their chai soy lattes. We'll take the average Joe."

To wit, no fewer than three hardhat-wearing construction workers appear in one of the new commercials, along with a traffic cop. A couple firemen from Georgia, who were two of the 1,000 Dunkin' Donuts fans who showed up for an open casting call in November, appear in another ad.

The good, hardworking, populist ethos is reinforced by the campaign's tagline, which reminds us that Dunkin' Donuts has always been the sort of place to drop your pretentious-sounding elocution: "What're you drinkin'? I'm drinkin' Dunkin'." Who needs "g's" at the ends of words anyways?

No doubt Starbucks elitists have another tagline for this sort of campaign in mind: average joe for average Joes.