"java" news and stories

Starbucks has been pretty successful in selling Japan on java. The coffee colussus opened its first Japanese shop 10 years ago and now has some 700 units. Now another American behemoth is giving the Seattle-based company a run for its money. McDonald's, which already has a substantial presence in the land of the rising sun, now plans to help the Japanese rise and shine with a new coffee shop concept it's launching at the end of next month.

The McCafe is the burger behemoth's first entry into buzzing world of coffee shops. Yesterday Mickey D's Japanese arm announced plans to open 15 McCafes in the Tokyo area on August 29. The hook behind the concept lies in offering lower priced beverages in an effort to draw customers, particularly families. If any bigwigs from McDonald's Japan are reading this allow me to suggest offering a drink called the McMatchaccino at Tokyo's McCafes.

Source

I'm not a big coffee fan. Love the flavor, but it upsets my stomach. But I do have some iced coffee drinks during the summer, as long as there is some chocolate or mocha element in it. I like the Starbucks Frappuccino in the glass bottles (Mocha flavor), and I'm a fan of Nestle's Iced Java syrup.

This recipe has me a bit confused, though maybe it's just because I'm not a coffee guy. It's from allrecipes.com and it's a recipe for iced coffee. Do you really need a blender to make iced coffee? Or is this literally for iced coffee, a thicker drink, and not the cold coffee drink we're used to?

I am by by no means a "morning person." Like many a sleepyhead, I often require a steaming cup of coffee to get my engine firing on all cylinders. Sometimes I overdo it, either due to quantity or strength. On those occasions, I wind up with a case of the java jitters by late morning. Which brings me to the subject of this post: Panama's leading coffee producer just brewed up what it hopes is the world's biggest cup of coffee. I assume the guys standing around the rim of the massive mug are wearing masks so that they don't die of overexposure to caffeine.

Source

So I was drinking a nice hot cup of Dunkin' Donuts hot chocolate the other day (probably one of the last of the season as the damn temps keep going up and up), and I noticed their newish logo (on the right). It needs work.

I mean, I love the slogan, "America Runs On Dunkin'." It's not only catchy, but it firmly establishes DD's national presence very quickly. And the logo is a clever idea. But let's take a look at the four panels one by one and see if we can make the logo even better.

Over at Engadget, there was a post on how to convert your air popcorn popper into a coffee roaster. An interesting bit of tech work, but they definitely made it more sound more difficult than it really is. And the commenters seemed certain that trying to use an air popper to roast coffee beans was a move likely to burn down the house. Clearly, they haven't roasted coffee before. I have used an air popper to roast beans successfully, without any serious modifications to the machinery - and without burning my house down, as I cleverly thought to do my roasting outside. In retrospect, this was an excellent move, as the process produces a fair amount of smoke.

Here are some tips and instructions for roasting your own coffee.