Coffee

Baileys Coffee Creamers from HP Hood

Those who enjoy putting a little "Irish" in their coffee have no shortage of liqueurs to choose from: Frengelico, Grand Marnier and Kalhua are long-time favorites, but arguably most popular is Baileys. For those looking, however, for Baileys flavor without the booze, American dairy company HP Hood offers a range of non-alcoholic Baileys Coffee Creamers.

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Tags: baileys, Baileys Coffee Creamers, coffee, cream, creamer, hood, hp hood, milk

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Luxist Giveaway: Superba Coffee Prize Pack (Coffee, French Press, and Mug)

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Sipping a great cup of coffee in the morning is one of life's simplest pleasures, and one that Superba Coffee takes very seriously. Based out of Marina Del Ray in California their mission is perfection in every area, from sourcing to roasting to distributing.

Superba Coffee is roasted in small batches using eco-friendly technology and monitored every step of the way by master roasters, who personally sign and date-stamp every box before it ships out. They offer products for both general consumers and wholesalers in the form of fine restaurants, hotels, and cafes. I haven't had the pleasure personally but their coffee, available in Classic or Decaf, certainly sounds delish and received high marks in this independent review.

Now for the fun part: Superba Coffee is offering one of our readers a prize package that has everything you need for brewing and drinking a perfect cup of morning joe. One random winner will receive the following:

4 Boxes of Superba Classic Blend fresh roasted coffee (approximately a month's supply) roasted to a perfect medium roast profile
An 8-cup Bodum French Press for no-waste brewing of deep, full-flavored coffee
A branded Superba ceramic mug in your choice of either glossy black or white

To enter leave a comment on this post telling us what a great cup of coffee means to you, or what happens when you don't get one in the morning. Good luck!

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO ENTERED!

* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed before March 16, 2011 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing to receive a Superba Coffee prize pack valued at $115.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, who are 18 and older.

See complete giveaway rules here.

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Tags: coffee, giveaway, luxist giveaway, superba

Luxist Giveaway: Breville Milk Cafe Milk Frother

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Gadgets

One of the best things about cold winter weather is the chance to warm up with a hot drink. If one of your New Year's Resolutions was to dial back the runs to the coffee shop you might want to get your hands on The Milk Café from Breville. This handsome gadget creates rich, creamy, perfectly frothed milk for your favorite coffee drinks or truly decadent hot chocolate so you can recreate and even surpass the coffee shop experience. The easy-to-use fully automatic frother has an induction heating system that allows it to reach temperature rapidly, efficiently and consistently creating the small bubbles that result in the creamiest, tastiest foam (check out a video demonstration after the jump).

The machine has a simple dial lets you to set desired temperature and foam quality. It also has a cold stir setting that froths milk without heating and two attachments for latte and cappuccino. The removable lid has an opening for adding mix-ins like shaved chocolate and when you are done you can toss the jug in the dishwasher. The compact machine has a power cord that stores in base and attachments store in side of machine. The stainless steel machine has a suggested retail price of $160 but sells for $129.95 at Williams Sonoma. We are giving away one of Breville Milk Cafe. To enter the giveaway leave a comment about your favorite hot drink.

* To enter, leave a confirmed comment below.
* The comment must be left and confirmed before January 17, 2011 at 5:00PM Eastern Time.
* You may only enter once.
* One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
* One winner will receive the Breville Milk Café Milk Frother with a suggested retail price of $160.
* Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia.

See complete giveaway rules here.

This contest is now closed. Thank you for your participation.

Tags: breville, coffee, luxist giveaway, milk cafe, milk frother

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How to Make Perfect Espresso at Home

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Espresso is so much more than just really strong coffee. It's an elixir, an experience, that takes only a few sips but lingers long after. For true espresso connoisseurs brewing the perfect cup is an art form, and one that takes skill, time, and practice to master.

Start with good coffee and pure, fresh water
As with any recipe the end result will only be as good as the sum of its ingredients. Coffee beans should be as fresh as possible and medium-roasted (not dark) to preserve the delicate flavor nuances. The water should be pure, fresh and odor-free, and neither too hard nor too soft.

Use the right grind
The beans should be ground to a fine powder in order to expose as much surface area as possible to the water, but not so fine they pack too tight for the water to get through. Depending on your machine, coffee, and preference the grind consistency should be somewhere between small sugar granules smooth baking flour. Many experts recommend having your beans ground by a professional in order to get the best results. For more on grinding read How to Grind Coffee Beans Perfectly.

Tamp evenly
Tamping ensures the water to flows smoothly through all the coffee in the basket and doesn't just gush through one or two areas. To tamp put your coffee grounds into the basket and, on a smooth solid surface, use your tamper to press straight down into the basket with 20 - 30lbs of pressure. Practice by pressing on your bathroom scale to see exactly how much that is. Finish with a single firm twist to secure any loose grains and then lift the tamper straight up. The resulting packed grounds should be level and smooth, with no gaps or dimples. Note: The tamper should fit snugly into the basket -- if it's too small the coffee around the edges won't get compressed and the water will rush down the sides instead of dispersing evenly.

Tags: awards-main, coffee, dining-pedia, entertainment-pedia, espresso, food-pedia, luxist-awards, main-pedia

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Now Announcing the $12 Cup of Coffee

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

New York City's Cafe Grumpy might not take itself all that seriously, but it does take its coffee and its mission – lifting the spirits of undercaffeinated grumps – very seriously. Its home page lists its brews and coffees by name and provenance, and clicking on any of them will provide tasting notes and a more thorough history. You can quickly find out that the Wahana Estate is a Rasuna varietal from Indonesia and the Vintage '97 Immortal Nectar tea is cave-aged with a"sherry fragrance & earthy finish."

If you know your coffee well enough to make sense of all that, then you might want to drop into Cafe Grumpy for its latest serious offering: a $12 cup of java using hand-picked beans from Ethiopia, whose cherries never touch the ground. To answer the question Vincent Vega asked of the $5 shake in Pulp Fiction: no, it doesn't have bourbon in it. The president of the company distributing the beans says it has a "cacophony of nuances," which is apparently code for "apricot, pineapple, bergamot, kiwi and lime," with some chocolate deep down in there and a "super clean" finish.

If the coffee itself doesn't wake you up, then $25 tab for two paper cups of joe should at least raise a morning eyebrow...

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Tags: cafe grumpy, coffee, expensive coffee, new york, new york city

Starbucks Wins Luxist Awards Readers' Choice Award for Best Coffeehouse

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Starbucks wins readers' choice award for best coffee house

Starbucks is the winner of the Luxist Awards Readers' Choice Awards for Best Coffeehouse.

Unless you've been living under a pile of Sumatra beans for the past few decades, you've probably visited one of Starbucks' 16,000-plus locations. If so, you're one of the millions of customers who pass through the company's doors every day.

It's taken Starbucks nearly half a century to achieve its current success. The company's origins date back to 1971, when its first store was established in Seattle's Pike Place Market to sell fresh-roasted whole bean coffees from around the world. Named after Captain Ahab's first mate in Melville's Moby Dick, the Starbucks moniker was dreamed up to conjure images of the first seafaring coffee traders.

In 1981, current chairman Howard Schultz tasted his first cup of Starbucks coffee and was hooked. He joined the company a year later, and soon he was traveling the world researching coffee. He grew so fascinated with Italy's coffee houses that he left Starbucks to start a chain called Il Giornale; in 1987, he returned to purchase Starbucks for $3.8 million. As CEO, Schultz guided the company to its peak before leaving in 2000, only to return to his position in 2008 amid concerns of over expansion.

Starbucks is perhaps best known for steering America's tastes beyond a simple cup of Joe. With offerings including espresso, cappuccino, latte, and a variety of specialty items including the trademarked Frappuccino, the company's lingo has worked its way into the American vernacular. Beverage sizes (tall, vente and grande, instead of small, medium and large) have given Starbucks aficionados a language of their own.

In an effort to broaden its scope, the company now offers a variety of products, including sandwiches, bottled water and even CDs, in addition to coffee and breakfast. As Starbucks enters its fifth decade, the company's growth prospects are cloudy – hundreds of under-performing stores around the world have been shuttered – but there's little doubt millions fans will keep streaming through Starbucks to satisfy their caffeine cravings.

Tags: awards-main, best coffee, coffee, luxist-awards, Starbucks, winners-entertainment

Ritual Roasters: California Coffee at its Finest

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Ritual Roasters is nominated for a Luxist Award for Best Coffeehouse

Ritual Coffee Roasters is a California coffee company nominated for a Readers' Choice Award for Best Coffee Houses.

Like Californians, coffees come from all over the world. Ritual Coffee Roasters' coffees come mostly from small, eco-minded farms in Africa and South America. Thirty steps go into every shot of espresso made by Ritual Coffee Roasters, who claims that their customers frequently say "I don't know why, but this just tastes better."

Beyond the delicious coffees, which are served seasonally to ensure that you are getting the very freshest brew, their single origin Sweet Tooth espressos are especially acclaimed.

Gallery: Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco

Tags: awards-main, california, coffee, coffee house, coffee shop, luxist-awards, ritual roasters

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Peet's Coffee: Focused on Making the Best Coffee

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Peet's Coffee is nominated for a Luxist Award for Best Coffee House

Starbucks may be America's best-known purveyor of coffee, but Peet's Coffee & Tea has been around even longer. Though it has grown considerably in its day, Peet's remains focused on its craft through 188 retail outlets in six states and distribution to grocery stores, restaurants, homes and offices around the country. No surprise, then, that Peet's is a nominee for a Luxist award in the best coffee house category.

Peet's was founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet, a Dutch immigrant outraged by America's coffee-drinking habits upon arriving in San Francisco. He opened his first shop in Berkeley, focusing on making smaller batches, using better beans, and roasting darker coffee than those to which his Californian compatriots were accustomed. Peet's gained a loyal following of "Peetniks," including the founders of Starbucks, who turned to Peet's as a supplier in their early years.

As the millennium turned and Peet's continued to grow, the company went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in order to help finance further expansion. Wall Street drank it up – shares of Peet's have risen nearly 200% since the initial public offering nearly ten years ago, bolstered by the company's expanded retail locations and robust online presence.

Meanwhile, Peet's continues to follow a philosophy aimed at ensuring it will never lose its old world charm: all beans are never more than a few days old; coffee is brewed fresh every 30 minutes; milk is never re-steamed. Some things do stick around – the original Peet's location still sits on Vine Street in Berkeley.

Vote for the coffee house that you believe is the best of breed. The voting period runs through April 30 and winners will be announced on May 1.

Tags: awards-main, best coffee, best coffee house, coffee, luxist-awards, peets, peets coffee

Victrola Coffee: Cup with the Connoisseurs

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Victrola Coffee is a small Seattle chain of cafes with enormous heart, and a nominee for a Readers' Choice Award for Best Coffee House.

If you've ever wanted to know coffee the way oenologists know wine, Victrola Coffee's weekly Wednesday "public cuppings" should be your first destination. There, you'll get to "cup" (fancy coffee terminology for "taste") a number of different roasts and beans to orient your tastebuds -- they're confident that once you're an expert, you'll choose Victrola.

The Victrola Coffee cafes are comfortable and cultural, just as coffee houses should be. You can pop in to read the newspaper or a book, or to check out the local art on the walls, which changes regularly, or even see a favorite band perform (upcoming events are listed here).

Gallery: Victrola Coffee Roasters in Seattle

One thing Victrola provides is truly knowledgeable coffee connoisseurs behind the counter. The have a morningly staff cupping before opening to get their buzz going and, most importantly, to taste the previous day's roast. Varietals like the widely-loved Streamline Espresso, Fair Trade Deco Decaf, Guatemala Santa Rosa and El Salvador Finca Alaska are roasted in-house, ensuring that everything is prepared with the utmost care.

If you'd like to know how far coffee geekery can go, visit their website for descriptive gems like: "Its pillowy viscosity clings to the sides of the warm demitasse. In a swirl around the cup, it offers fleeting notes of fresh pine that plump into a full, soft caramel aroma. Streamline's fruit---juicy blueberry and blackberry--carries it accross the palate in no rush: toasted hazelnuts, bittersweet chocolate, and brown sugar each take their time on the tongue before melting into a butter frosting mouthfeel. The four coffees working together here are a linear, tight knit bunch. They have dinner together and laugh until their bellies hurt, kind of like us."

Obsessive? Maybe. But that's just the kind of people we want making our coffee. (And maybe they just wrote it really caffeinated.)

Vote for the coffee house that you believe is the best of breed. The voting period runs through April 30 and winners will be announced on May 1.

Tags: awards-main, best coffee house, coffee, coffee house, Luxist-Awards, seattle, victrola coffee

Starbucks: A Coffeehouse Community Around the World

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Starbucks is nominated for a Luxist Award for being one of the best coffee houses in the U.S.

Unless you've been living under a pile of Sumatra beans for the past few decades, you've probably visited one of Starbucks' 16,000-plus locations. If so, you're one of the millions of customers who pass through the company's doors every day. Those impressive sheer numbers have earned Starbucks a Luxist nomination in the best coffee house category.

It's taken Starbucks nearly half a century to achieve its current success. The company's origins date back to 1971, when its first store was established in Seattle's Pike Place Market to sell fresh-roasted whole bean coffees from around the world. Named after Captain Ahab's first mate in Melville's Moby Dick, the Starbucks moniker was dreamed up to conjure images of the first seafaring coffee traders.

In 1981, current chairman Howard Schultz tasted his first cup of Starbucks coffee and was hooked. He joined the company a year later, and soon he was traveling the world researching coffee. He grew so fascinated with Italy's coffee houses that he left Starbucks to start a chain called Il Giornale; in 1987, he returned to purchase Starbucks for $3.8 million. As CEO, Schultz guided the company to its peak before leaving in 2000, only to return to his position in 2008 amid concerns of over expansion.

Starbucks is perhaps best known for steering America's tastes beyond a simple cup of Joe. With offerings including espresso, cappuccino, latte, and a variety of specialty items including the trademarked Frappuccino, the company's lingo has worked its way into the American vernacular. Beverage sizes (tall, vente and grande, instead of small, medium and large) have given Starbucks aficionados a language of their own.

In an effort to broaden its scope, the company now offers a variety of products, including sandwiches, bottled water and even CDs, in addition to coffee and breakfast. As Starbucks enters its fifth decade, the company's growth prospects are cloudy – hundreds of under-performing stores around the world have been shuttered – but there's little doubt millions fans will keep streaming through Starbucks to satisfy their caffeine cravings.

Vote for the coffee house that you believe is the best of breed. The voting period runs through April 30 and winners will be announced on May 1.

Tags: awards-main, best coffee house, coffee, luxist-awards, starbucks, starbucks coffee

Zoka: Drink Your 'Cup of Excellence' All Afternoon

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Zoka is nominated for a Luxist Award for Best Coffee House

Zoka is a Seattle-based coffee company with cafes in Washington and Japan, and is a nominee for a Readers' Choice Award for Best Coffee House.

At Zoka, you'll find coffees and teas from Africa, Central and South America, Asia and the Pacific Islands, as well as tasty homemade baked goods, some vegan, for soaking up all that caffeine (the chocolate truffle cookies are especially recommended). They pride themselves on their Cup of Excellence winning coffees, artisan-roasted beans and many single-origin coffees which they roast in small batches to preserve the uniqueness and pungence of the flavors.

Gallery: More from ZOKA

For coffee house frequenters, Zoka provides a comfortable home. Rather than rushing you out the door, they lure you in with complimentary wifi and hope you'll stay all afternoon. And for the busier coffee geeks out there, you can join one of their three Coffee Clubs to have fresh, artisan-roasted coffee delivered to you monthly. Many of their coffees and teas are also available for purchase online.
Do yourself a favor and visit their website in advance of visiting a shop -- there are so many options and you don't want to miss your ideal cup of coffee or tea. You can browse by region or varietal for coffee, and by usual leaf category (green, black, oolong) for tea. We think the Organic Sumatra Permata Gayo Coffee sounds especially enticing: "Floral notes of orange peel up front, mellowing into blackberry jam and finishes with sassafras and sweet malt."

Yum.

Vote for the coffee house that you believe is the best of breed. The voting period runs through April 30 and winners will be announced on May 1.

Tags: awards-main, coffee, coffee house, Japan, luxist-awards, Washington, Zoka

Why You Should Never Freeze Coffee (and Other Freshness Tips)

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Coffee is something most of us enjoy making and drinking on a regular basis, daily even, but do you know how to keep it at optimal freshness between buying and brewing? One of the most common habits, sticking beans in the freezer, is actually among the worst things you can do. When optimal flavor is the aim it must be realized that coffee and coffee beans are really very fragile -- the delicate oils and flavors begin to break down almost immediately after roasting and are sensitive to light, oxygen, moisture, and temperature extremes.

Why keeping coffee beans in the freezer is bad
Although freezing whole beans can be okay in some cases (like if you have more beans than you can use up in a week or two) it only works if you seal them up and freeze them once -- not to be opened or removed from the freezer until you're ready to thaw the whole batch.

Tags: coffee, coffee beans, CoffeeBeans, dining-pedia, fine-dining-pedia, food-pedia, how to store coffee, HowToStoreCoffee, luxist-awards, main-pedia

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How to Grind Coffee Beans Perfectly

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

If you brew your own coffee every morning then you know how important the details can be when taking steps to create the perfect cup, but one step that many people don't give enough attention to is how they grind their coffee beans. Of course many people do their own grinding, but how many pay attention to exactly how? It can be an art in and of itself.

Timing
Coffee beans should be freshly ground immediately before brewing, so you should grind just one pot at a time. Oxidation begins immediately and flavors will degrade noticeably in just a few hours -- if you're looking for perfect coffee, no grinding should be done the night before.

Method
There are two main types of coffee grinders: blade grinders and burr grinders. Blade grinders are the most common and the least expensive, and although they can grind coarse and medium sizes nicely, they can also have inconsistent results and are noisy (especially first thing in the morning). Also, when using a blade grinder it's important to grind in small bursts of a few seconds at a time to prevent heat from building up and burning the grounds.

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Tags: beans, coffee, coffee beans, CoffeeBeans, fine-dining-pedia, food-pedia, how to, HowTo, luxist-awards

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Jewel-Studded Coffee Mugs, Tea Cups, Drinking Glass

by Lisa Palladino (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Jewel-Studded Coffee Mugs, Tea Cups, Drinking Glass

A leading diamond manufacturer in India is offering a range of extravagant crockery that lets you sip hot coffee from a bejeweled mug for about $11,000. The melamine glass mug is studded with 8 carats of diamonds and 3 carats of colored stones set in 25 to 50 grams of gold. For tea lovers, there is a set of six tea cups for $9,600. Each cup is adorned with a replaceable glass design of 1.2 carat of diamonds set on 25 grams of gold. For platinum kids, there is a $1,500 milk glass festooned with 2 carats of rubies and 3 carats of diamonds studded on 20 grams of gold. Exhibited at Sparkle-09, a gem and jewelry exhibition, these products are all the rage among well-heeled inhabitants of India.

[Via LuxuryLaunches.com]

Tags: coffee, coffee cup, coffee mug, CoffeeCup, CoffeeMug, diamond, diamonds, glass, gold, India, mug, rubies, ruby, tea, tea cup, TeaCup

Explore Coffee With Le Nez Du Cafe

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Decor

Coffee's complexities are teased out in the Revelation kit by Le Nez Du Cafe (the nose of coffee). The kit, created by the same people who made a similar kit for wine, includes 36 of the most typical aromas found in coffee. The kit provides a 'scent alphabet' that will enable you to fully appreciate coffee. To begin you sniff aromas in the collection, one by one, gradually accustoming yourself to the various subtleties. The training kit comes with an explanatory booklet which describes the main features of each aroma and explains to which aromatic family they belong. There are 36 aromas in a wooden case that sells for $525.

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Tags: coffee, coffee tasting, CoffeeTasting, le nez du cafe, LeNezDuCafe

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