where in the world is my coffee break???

our newest bean

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all whizz off to Africa for a coffee break? in your head everything is possible. We have now managed to source a fine Zambian bean, single origin and stunning, from a farm called Tera Nova Estate. Our advice? Try it in a coffee machine near you. We love it and we love suggesting it to you even more. We like to treat our coffee machines with kit gloves and have no problem admitting our dependency upon them…:) That’s why we know the importance of using premium beans. Just like a low-grade fuel would stuff up your car engine eventually, so too a low-grade bean would end up messing up the internals of your beloved coffee machine.  Next time you are on a coffee break, go out and find a worthy coffee bean to go with it. Happy drinking x

 

 

…really?

Melbourne coffee is world renowned (or at least we think so). For the keen eye interested in the whereabouts of coffee beans around Melbourne, one thing has become apparent. You no longer have to be a café or business to buy your beans direct from the roaster. In fact it may be fair to say that if you’re a café in Melbourne and you haven’t considered roasting your own…well, you’re missing the boat. The roast your own trend has become so prolific that the everyday person can buy fresh roasted coffee beans in almost every corner of metropolitan Melbourne and surrounds, from Gardenvale to Brunswick.

 

 

Some cool new coffee spots that roast their own which we’ve stumbled upon lately…

 

Omar

Gardenvale

 

Di Bella

North Melbourne

 

The Bean Barn

Ballarat

 

Brother Baba Budan

CBD

 

 

Monk Bodhi Dharma

Balaclava

 

 

 

Feeling sluggish? Coffee machines, the caffeine bean and your outlook

 

Research has shown…that research contradicts itself time and time again. Why should we believe it anymore? When it comes to coffee and your everyday slog, we advise you to start listening to yourselves.

 

A friend of mine recently told me she’d given up coffee. Put the cup down and didn’t (want to) look back. Why, I asked, would she decide to do such a thing? Doctor’s advice, she replied. Her doctor told her to. Her doctor, who had run numerous blood tests, ordered a list of invasive procedures and examinations had come to the conclusion that other than the fact he had no idea what was wrong with my friend, she needed to give up coffee. Sigh.

 

Two weeks later I met my friend for ‘coffee’. So, how is it going being caffeine free? I asked. Umm…she replied, not so good. I’m back.

 

Is it any wonder that my friend couldn’t last two weeks without coffee? Is it really that surprising that with all the junk and additives that we all deal with on a day-to-day basis, that ruling out coffee is not the answer to the world’s problems?

 

Coffee keeps the world going. Coffee keeps bored staff in stuffy offices awake. Coffee brings people together. Coffee lifts people up. Coffee encourages people to be social. Coffee gives people something to wake up for…the list goes on.

 

After hearing my friend’s news a few of us decided to buy her a domestic fully automatic coffee machine for her birthday. It was the best thing we could have done for her, she admitted later. At first she was a little disappointed that she loved her automatic coffee machine so much, as opposed to the more authentic manual coffee machine that she’d always dreamed of owning. Her guilt has quickly dispersed, her energy levels are back and she’s found the cause of her problems – her doctor.

 

fair fair trade coffee

It has taken us a while to jump on to the fair trade bandwagon at 7grams Coffee. We have never been sheep. And while the idea of it appeals to most people’s moral consciousness, we know that the world is a foul and not often fair place, so we tread with caution. We have finally found and are pleased to almost be ready to launch a fair trade coffee bean that feels right. Mostly, it feels right because the people behind the scenes have their heads screwed on and are on the same page as us where coffee ad caffeine is concerned. Along the lines of this excellent article which appeared in The Age last year
, our new fair trade coffee suppliers understand that drinking coffee as with much else in the world today can be a burden on one’s social shoulders. Yet they also understand that this doesn’t have to be the case. They have found a way to supply a coffee bean that has been ethically harvested without charging ridiculous amounts for you to have the privilege of using it in your coffee machines. When we have our web page up I will link it here, but for now please ask us about it and keep your eyes peeled; not all is fair and square in the world….

 

ground to gr0und – a very clever idea

I recently stumbled upon an interesting, original post on another blog, mostly by mistake. It was late at night so my eyes were foggy and it was too late to drink another coffee; my coffee machine well and truly put to bed for the day. Anyway, here it is. Read it for yourself and be inspired about how we can all make a difference a little bit at a time, coffee cake by coffee cake. Next time you peer down at your office coffee machine, you may see it in a completely new light…

http://shanegenziuk.wordpress.com/category/ground-to-ground/

 

death by chocolate or drowned by coffee…what would you prefer?

Who knows of an amazing, irresistible and easy affogato recipe?

I feel like using my coffee machine for purposes other than making straight coffee beverages today…my coffee machine needs spicing up. So if anyone has something to say about being drowned in coffee, post it here…please. <3



 

http://www.markstivers.com/wordpress?p=161

 

coffee cups and broken cups

I woke up this morning with a headache. A headache for and from the world. I woke up and a coffee cup was sitting next to my bed, getting cold. Half an hour prior it had just been brewed by my lovely partner, using our whiz bang coffee machine. why was I feeling so disgruntled then; what more could I ask for if not an extra half hour sleep in and a cup of coffee upon awaking, even if it had grown cold.  How spoilt I felt…how spoilt I felt was what was causing my non-caffeine related head ache. What about all those millions of people in Haiti, for whom morning cups of fresh, hot coffee couldn’t be a further reality; for whom coffee machines and espresso mornings are now frivolously ridiculous.

This morning, and this whole next week of mornings, I am donating my coffee morning rituals to Haiti…and even that would be so ridiculously minuscule. Some wise man once said ‘we are a fucked up generation’, and I am adding, ‘fatigued by the horrors of the world’…let’s hope and pray for Haiti.

 

woke up this morning

and the milk was off…Me being a latte drinker found this discovery to be an extremely rude awakening. This meant no coffee for me, or did it? Would I have to succumb to the espresso? Would I have to simply take the plunge and dive in first thing in the morning…I was left with little choice as I needed to be wide-eyed and awake by 8am. So I did it. I made an espresso and drank it like a shot first thing this morning. Now, I wouldn’t say I’ve been converted. Not quite. I have still left my coffee machine pre-set on ‘latte’ for when the milkman comes around again (does that still happen). However,  the experience was far better than I’d imagined it to be. Drinking coffee without sugar did ease the sudden caffeine explosion that occurred in my mouth.

The moral of the story… I’m not sure, I was just thankful my coffee machine was working.

 

coffee and the weather

Well this blog comes to you from Melbourne, Australia, where temperatures of late have been far less than pleasant. Activities such as soup-making and bed-laying suddenly seem to be the only things people do. And what of coffee-drinking? Is coffee something you feel like drinking, when you’re freezing cold and can’t feel your feet? Do you prefer tea, or even soup? When is coffee time – and why? Is coffee comfort food? Should it be? What about coffee cake?

These are all questions I’ve been considering lately, suffering it out in the freezing cold temperatures, as I wait for my office coffee machine to heat up and my brain to thaw out.