"MUG SHOTS"

 There are certain obvious advantages to owning your own coffee
shoppe. First of all, you always have coffee available. Ever run out of
your favorite Tanzanian Peaberry on a Sunday evening just before special
company comes for dinner? No need to wait until the shoppe opens the next
day... Grab your key and go raid the place when it's closed!
 But the gravest disadvantage shows up when you have to determine
what mug to use at any given time. Everyone who is in a state of grace has
a favorite mug. It may be the one Great Aunt Clara gave you from her
momentous trip to Boise; it might be the mug your kid made in art class;
perhaps it first arrived with chocolates in it from your special Valentine.
When you have a coffee shoppe you are likely to wind up with a half dozen
or so 'favorite mugs' and each of them suits your mood or need at any
particular moment. But whether your mug is glass or hand thrown pottery or
carved cedar or ceramic, whether it holds half a pot or half a cup of
coffee, there is one thing your favorite mug cannot be: Styrofoam.
 For the purposes of this discourse we make absolutely no
differentiation between Styrofoam and paper. They are both lousy. Paper
gets too hot so you ask for two or three cups to hold your Java du jour.
Great, kill a few more trees, eh? So instead you inhabit the emporium that
uses those 'foamies' with the cool dome lids and the adorable coffee bean
design (ours, by the way) and what do you get? Degradable plastic to chew
on while enjoying an expensive brew. Yuck! Worse yet, world-wide auto
maufacturers are actually designing cup holders for paper/foam cups in
their $25,000.00 vehicles! Get a life! Get a mug!
 Your humble baristas (us) are just as guilty of using disgusting
and expensive disposable "mugs" as anyone, but we do use our REAL favorite
mugs whenever possible. I have a hand thrown one in my car. It has no lid
and one ding, spills all over the dash and the floor and me (not a problem
since i cannot litigate against myself) and when it is wedged between the
radio speaker and the windshield it invariably slops onto the glass and I
drive longing for the day when they put windshield wipers on the inside of
the car. But the coffee always tastes best from my 'favorite mug.'
 We have been known to refuse to even partake of our first morning
cup of Joe while opening the shoppe UNTIL we can find our 'favorite mug' of
the day. The mug in question could be in any of thousands of places (trust
us), left there sometime yesterday or (god forbid) last week (or worse) and
often emerges with a permanent concentric set of black oily rings
descending the interior like tree rings (denoting the stages of evaporation
of the forgotten cup) and with potentially hazardous plant life growing in
it - but it is still our current favorite and one good run thru the
dishwasher puts all to rights.
 Customers regularly arrive with chipped bits of vaguely mug-shaped
ceramic with half a handle left attached, stains the color of deep space,
and definite liquidy remnants of (at least) yesterday's brew,  and with
great pride they boldly pass it over the counter to us with a jovial "fill
'er up!". The poor mug probably has never seen the inside of a dishwasher
and its owner is relying on the piping hot daily beverage to kill anything
microscopic and terminal. A few ask if we could rinse it out for them (we
can) but more will wince at the thought and just want to add more Java
juice to the collection. (Imagine the possibility that there may yet be
particles of coffee from the Reagan era still in that "favorite mug"!)
 But good baristas that we are (and we are) we feel a pang of
sadness whenever some poor soul walks thru the door and orders a coffee "to
go" but offers you nothing to "go" it in. They want a disposable cup. Never
mind that they are getting 16 oz. of  brewed Royal Kona Gold at about 25
bucks a pound for the beanage. They want you to put the world's second most
valuable commodity into a nasty foam cup or wax impregnated paper. How sad.
Where are the hand thrown sippy tops for mugs? Where are the Caravans and
Luminas with MUG holders for all 19 seats?
 Favorite mugs are crucial to the enjoyment of great coffee. Your
favorite mug doesn't even have to be the same mug all the time. We have
regulars who simply enjoy drinking out of our logo laden glass mugs because
glass lets you watch the added cream swirl around and create intriguing
designs. These folks have dozens and dozens of 'favorite mugs' and they all
look alike and they all belong to our shoppe!
 A final word on favorite mugs: they break. Everything eventually
does, and like a universal constant everything must return to the earth.
But, like your kids, you can't keep them safe forever. If you use something
regularly it is simply going to chip, crack, stain, fade, get dropped, get
left, get lost, get broken. C'est la vie - C'est la mug.
 But the solution to the sad loss is easy enough- search for the
perfect replacement - In the great style of Frank Lloyd Wright's concept of
'form follows function', does it feel right? Does it look good? Can it hold
the right amount? Will it keep the Java hot enough? It is too heavy? Too
light? Will the wierd handle fit my fingers? Will the strange slogan tick
anyone off? Does it have a lid or is it open to the sky? Will it show
lipstick marks if you want them to show? Or hide them if you want them
hidden? Is it made of  the 'right stuff'  for you (apologies to Mr. Glenn)?
Will it resist abuse, neglect and plant growth?
 And when you find the perfect mug, celebrate! Bottoms up!

The ultimate in do-it-your-selfing has got to be the new interest
in roasting your own coffee at home. For some people the search for the
freshest cup of 'joe' is more akin to the search for the Holy Grail. But
self-roasting is probably safer and more successful...
 Home brewing for wines and beers has given way to home roasting for
coffee aficionados. The actual process is really fairly easy in the
abstract but oh-so-tricky in reality. But before we even start to talk
about it, allow us a definitive disclaimer:
 We haven't tried it. OK?
 Ok - having said that, we are most assuredly interested in trying
it for ourselves. We know the theory, we just haven't done the practicum!
We are lazy about roasting our own at home because the coffee in our shoppe
is roasted on demand for us and is already about as fresh as you can get.
Fresh coffee is a wondrous thing and home roasting pretty much guarantees
the freshest possible beans. And, unlike home brewing, there is very little
equipment involved, and the only real expense is the green coffee itself.
Home roasting is very simple (so we are told) and very quick.
 One roasting scholar said, "Home roasting takes about as much time
and skill as cooking pasta." The time comparison may be correct, but being
>from Oswego, we know for an absolute fact that cooking pasta is as much of
an art form as sculpting.
 Americans actually did all their own roasting of The Bean until the
late nineteenth century and much of the civilized world still buys The Bean
green and roasts it as needed. Jabez Burns, inventor of the continuous
roaster (the first modern production roaster) insisted that some of the
best coffee he ever tasted was roasted in a popcorn popper! Folks who roast
at home are usually 'kitchen adventurers' - individualists who are
convinced that their way is the best. There are in fact many ways; the
safest and most practical can be divided into three major approaches: A- In
the oven; B- On the stove; C- in a commercially produced home roaster.
Let's look at the oven method.
 Oven roasted beans are probably the best approach because you can
control the temperature easily and the constant, oily roasting smoke that
is produced is contained and vented (sounds yucky, but it really isn't!)
The technique involves spreading a thin layer of green coffee beans over a
perforated surface which allows the convection currents of the oven to flow
through the beans and maintain an even roast. There are actual products on
the market for this but, in fact, the best item for this kind of roasting
is one of those little vegetable steamer rack thingys that unfold like the
petals of a flower. (honest!) These will let you roast about 3 oz. of beans
at a time, which is about what you need for a full pot of coffee.
 Preheat the oven to 450 degrees (NO lower!) and place the green
beans in the steamer, spread evenly along the bottom and up the sides to a
depth of about two beans. Put the steamer of beans into the oven for ten
minutes and set a timer (timing is critical!) - it's a good idea to have
some commercially roasted beanage with you to do a color comparison. If you
already own a convection oven, you are in luck because the results will be
even better, the roasting and color of The Bean more even.
 The beans will start crackling - this is good - and a pungent smell
(roasting smoke) may be noticeable if your oven door seal isn't tight! In
about ten minutes from the start of the roasting or about 2 minutes from
the beginning of the crackling sound, check the color of the beans - and
continue to check about every minute or two until the beans have become a
color slightly LIGHTER than the ones you have for comparison - beans
continue to roast after removal so you need to allow for this.
 Immediately remove the beans from the oven and place them under the
kitchen fan or, better yet, on the back porch (your neighbors will be
envious... the smell will permeate the whole neighborhood). The beans will
continue to roast for a couple of minutes. They should sit for about 24
hrs. before you use them to allow the gasses in the beans to escape. If you
roast like this every day, just think of it as getting tomorrow's beans
ready!
 Don't be alarmed or discouraged if your roast is slightly scorched
or more darkly roasted in some places than in others. Your own private
roast will still taste much better than anything you can find in a grocery
store and your house will smell divine! (and do us a favor? Let us know how
it works!)

JUST YOUR CUP OF TEA!

 Authority. Tough job being an authority. Ask the Thruway or the
Port. Tough job. People actually expect you to know what you are doing and
what you are talking about when you are an authority. Tough job.
 A guy walks into our shoppe the other day and says, "Hey! You are
the Coffee Guys, aren't you! Man, you two know everything there is about
coffee." The last thing we wanted to do was burst his bubble - so of course
we didn't. But we tend to think of The Bean as really a kind of art form
and anyone who deals with art is painfully aware that, invariably, people
who think of themselves as authorities on art aren't.
 We write a column (duh!) and we share what we know and make up what
we don't and if we are good (we are) you will never know the difference -
except for the next few weeks, because we are treading into an area about
which we aren't all that bright, but the questions keep coming at us and we
have to answer them - Tea.
 Tea. Predates and out-dates coffee by a long shot. Tea is to coffee
what the abacus is to the IMac. It's been around a very long time and has a
more convoluted history than the humble Bean. If you think coffee had an
interesting relationship with the Church of Rome (and it did and still
does) wait until you hear the stuff about tea! We are going to spend a bit
of time at the library and in the teapot and try to sound like authorities
on The Leaf for the next few weeks. We aren't, but like we said: tough job.
 This is what we know about tea: you can have black or black
blended, green or green blended, oolong and white, but you can't have
herbal tea. It isn't tea. It's called an infusion! Herbal teas aren't. They
are good (no question!) and they are popular (ask Celestial Seasonings) but
they aren't tea. That is what we know. This is what we've found out:
 There are about 3000 varieties of The Leaf, but they all originate
>from the Camellia sinensis plant, an evergreen bush that grows in the sub
tropics and tropics (like The Bean! Yay!). Left alone it can get to 30 feet
high, but cultivated it's pruned to 4-5 feet so harvesting is easier
because the tip top leaves are the tip top leaves (no, that wasn't meant to
be redundant...) i.e. the best leaves are at the very top of the bush.
 Like great coffee, great teas grow high on the mountains - around
6000-7000 feet. High grown teas mature more slowly but are a much better
flavor and are the real prize for tea drinkers (sound at all familiar? The
same is true for The Bean.)
 Like great coffee, great teas are named for the region in which
they grow and (also like coffee) the teas take on the flavor and
characteristics of their growing soils - but unlike coffee, teas will also
take on distinct flavors from neighboring plants - if your teas are growing
near a peach orchard, they will have a distinct peachy flavor and scent
(isn't that peachy? heh heh!)
 The very finest TEA producing nations include China, India, Sri
Lanka, Indonesia (great coffee here), Kenya (here, too), Malawi (and here),
Tanzania (ditto), Taiwan, Japan, Argentina (another great source of The
Bean), Brazil (and another), Turkey and the former U.S.S.R.
 Hey! This is sounding like we're writing about COFFEE... I guess
there really IS a major connection between the two drinks! Cool...
 In some of these areas, tea bushes flush (not like a commode... it
means they are ready to harvest...) nearly every week or two whereas a
coffee tree is only ready for harvesting once a year. The rather thick
leathery leaves are picked by hand, and almost exclusively by women
(tradition states the handling of new leaves by men somehow diminishes the
quality of the leaves). They pick the two newest leaves as well as one leaf
bud from each shoot. The top first and second leaves are considered fine,
but the lower leaves are considered coarse.
 (and  just wait until we tell you about those coarse, low quality,
unseemly leaves in an upcoming column! You will NOT believe the HOAX that
has been perpetrated on Americans by some tea companies for years in the
name of "marketing"! The Shocking Truth Will Be Revealed... maybe next
week...)
 Meanwhile, do what we're doing over the next few weeks (this is
homework, but its fun homework!) Go try some tea! Never mind the Tetley or
the Salada... Try some REAL teas - try some weird teas with strange exotic
names (exotic is good!) and try 'em uncorrupted (no sugar or cream...) Try
'em loose! And so will we. Cheerio!

FORGET Y2K - PREPARE FOR T42

 Wow! This tea thing is very cool! We're sitting here sipping on
steaming mugs of Matte Latte and going over the notes for this week's
column and really just wishing we could share a cup of this great Leaf with
you!
 The Matte Latte currently being enjoyed by your humble baristas
(us) is not (like we have previously mentioned) strictly a 'tea' - It's an
infusion of herbal goodies; and they are very good goodies! (Maté is the
prime flavor in this one - roasted maté has some caffeine and tastes a
little like a chocolate and toffee combination - great stuff). But tea is
usually thought of in this country in its Black Tea form.
 Black Tea is the "English Style" tea and involves four stages of
manufacturing (none of which are 'bagging'... you really need to try this
stuff  loose!) First is 'Withering' where the freshly harvested teas are
spread out on trays to remove any water content by allowing it to
evaporate. The process takes about 12 hours and then the leaves are
'Rolled' by twisting, spindling, and breaking them up (the ubiquitous IBM
old-style computer phrase of 'Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate' obviously
doesn't apply here at all...) This causes the plant cells to seep enzymes
onto the surface of The Leaf.
 The folded, spindled and mutilated leaves are then spread out on a
tray again to interact with the air in the 'Fermentation/Oxidation' phase
of the preparation. This is where the enzymes interact with oxygen and turn
the tea a coppery color. Finally, during the 'Drying/Firing' final stage
the tea leaves are placed on a tray (again!) and subjected to warm dry air
currents which stops the fermentation and turns the finished leaves black.
Black teas have absolutely no bitter quality to the taste.
 Green tea takes The Leaf through just three stages: steaming,
rolling, and drying/firing. These leaves stay green and the resulting tea
has a more raw taste. Greens are known for their anti-oxident properties.
 Oolong tea also involves only three stages: fermenting, rolling,
and drying/firing. Oolongs are a more brownish green color and have a
slightly bitter taste.
 White tea only takes two steps: steaming and drying/firing. White
tea is very rare and has an extremely delicate taste.
 The Leaf contains no fat, sodium, sugar, additives, preservatives,
artificial colors, artificial flavors, or calories! It is an all-natural
process and the actual brewing of herbs and teas is global and predates
written records on all continents (with the obvious exception of Antarctica
- their formal attire notwithstanding, do penguins drink tea?). Throughout
all our history somebody was always drying and brewing something to drink!
 Teas and infusions can be made from just about anything edible!
Steeping leaves or berries or spices or herbs or veggies in boiling water
will give you "tea" - sort of. These kinds of infusions (actually the word
is "tisanes" but that really sounds kind of stuffy to us...) were the
central element of medicine thousands of years ago. Some of those early
brews actually have been found to be medically effective - digitalis comes
>from brewing foxglove and you get aspirin from brewing willow bark! Cool,
wot?
 Some of the herbal brews have a wonderful sedating effect. Remember
when Celestial Seasonings came out with the herbal tea "Sleepytime"? Well,
it actually had skullcap in it and was a very effective sedative - so
effective they had to take the skullcap OUT of it after a few years. Which
was really too bad -
 Through the years teas and tisanes (giggle) were used to clear
sinuses, reduce foot odor, relieve hives and gout, and a whole host of
other classic distresses. Today, in our shoppe, we brew more
Ginsing-Peppermint tea during cold and flu season than all other teas
combined! Something right must be happening!
 Sipping an herbal brew after a meal or while relaxing provides a
general feeling of well-being (similar to petting your puppy or kitten, we
think...) and because they contain little or no caffeine, are warm and
aromatic, they offer you at least the hope that you are doing something
nice for yourself - maybe even healthy!
 But whether you enjoy sipping a flavorful black tea, a
healthy-for-you green tea, an elegant oolong, a rare white or any of the
hundreds of herbal tisanes (giggle) you have an amazing panoply of tastes
to sample. And tea, like coffee, is best served and enjoyed with a friend.
The combination of good conversation and good aromas and good tastes is a
true measure of good taste! T42 anyone?
 
 

WHEN AUTUMN LEAVES BEGIN TO FALL

 We dug into the email bag again this week to see how our recent
stuff on The Leaf was going over with our great readers and something
unique struck us - in every email sent to us, folks referred to tea BAGS in
one form or another. One of our readers upbraided us for our comment that
everyone should try loose tea instead of bags.
 Well, we won't take it back! Trying your tea loose and not in those
handy, if sterile looking, bags really isn't at all difficult and we have
some of our own thoughts on how to brew loose leaf even easier without
being wedded to the tea ball and chain.
 Let's be honest - the problem with bags is the problem of mugs!
Steav's favorite mug is 12 oz.  but Bill's mug-of-choice is a whopping 20
oz. And we're supposed to brew tea from the same sized bag in both of
those? I don't think so! Tea bags are uniquely suited to tea cups - 6-8 oz.
Stretching them to 10 oz. is probably OK but getting them to 12 oz. (the
size of most home and office mugs) usually means settling for a weak cup of
tea and if you know that you have an oversized mug ( and you know who you
are!) then you need to use a couple tea bags for the same standard strength.
 So why bother with the bags at all! We have a secret to share with
you (don't tell or everyone will know...) Remember our comments that the
"best and easiest way in the universe to brew coffee is a French Press"
some weeks ago? With a French Press you just put fresh ground coffee in the
bottom, pour boiling water over, stir lightly and wait a couple minutes.
Then push the plunger and enjoy THE best coffee ever. It is about as
difficult as making "instant coffee" (a phrase you shall never ever read in
this column again - as one of the baristas in our employ states: there is
no instant coffee, only lazy coffee drinkers)
 It just so happens that that cool little French Press also brews
loose tea with style and class! Same process: tea, hot water, light stir,
steep, plunge and serve. So simple... This way you can dole out the right
amount of tea for your taste buds and still have a few tea leaves to read!
 Another easy method is with the teapots that have a ceramic,
wicker-like or glass infuser already built in - this little basket just
sets in the top of the teapot, you measure out the right amount of loose
tea and pour the hot water over The Leaf as you fill The Pot! Then cap and
steep and pour. Nothing to it.
 The folks at one tea company, Republic of Tea, took the built-in
infuser idea one step further and created a little mesh plastic infuser
that just sits in your favorite MUG! How cool is that? Now your fave mug
can double as a teapot.
 In each of these cases, the cleanup is a piece of cake. Where
teaballs have the little clasp to mess with and the tea is jammed in and
poking thru the little holes and the chain gets away from you and falls
into the pot, the French Press, the built-in infuser in a teapot, and the
mug infuser are all wide mouth, easily rinsed and made ready for your next
pot of  The Leaf. Tea leaves can safely go right down the sink drain -
better than some of the things added to the city waste system...
 Remember that when you brew tea, one of the very first things the
leaves will do is lend their color to the pot immediately after the hot
water is added. The flavor and aroma of the teas take a few minutes (3 - 5)
to develop so don't be tempted to rush the process or you will loose the
flavor - Also, avoid using aluminum pots or utensils for making tea. The
tannins in the tea react very unfavorably with aluminum and turn the tea
black (well, blacker than it's supposed to be...) and the flavor of the
aluminum can overpower the tea itself.
 We have referred to the use of "hot water" several times already,
but the hot water you use depends on the tea you are brewing.(honest! We
don't make this stuff up, you know - well, not much of it, anyway...) If
you are brewing a black tea or an oolong tea, water at a rolling boil can
be used successfully. Green teas and white teas should be done "off the
boil" which simply means holding the tea kettle away from the stove until
the "boiling activity" of the water stops (just set it on another burner
for about 15-20 seconds). herbal infusions are usually most successful
with, literally, hot water. Herbal tisanes (giggle) tend to break down at
the temperature of boiling water so we brew 'em with water at about 180
degrees at our shoppe. This way the leaves and fruits and goodies in the
herbal melange don't stew together and the flavors and aromas remain
distinct.
 Which reminds us: in last week's column we mourned the fact that
Celestial Seasonings removed the wonderfully effective but mild herbal
sedative Skullcap from its "Sleepytime Tea" a while ago. To our delight, we
discovered this week that Republic of Tea still includes Skullcap in their
herbal infusion called "Chamomille Lemon". We would be happy to tell you
exactly where you can purchase Republic of Tea, but modesty prevents us.
(giggle!)

GEOMANCY: THE FORTUNE IN MEN'S EYES

 The world is a greedy place, historically speaking. When almost
anything of value is discovered, someone tries to control the supply while
simultaneously trying to increase the demand. When tea made its inevitable
way out of China and the Pacific Basin, it (like coffee) became a means of
barter. The Leaf was currency for hundreds of years; the struggle for
control of tea created monstrous fortunes and caused a lot of bloodshed.
 And, as with anything powerful, a mystique grew up around tea that
far surpassed the reality - perhaps. Drinking tea was thought to endow the
drinker with both physical and mental skills. But more than that, it was
believed that tea enhanced the connection of people with their higher
mental capacities and powers. Mystics sipped The Leaf - Hungarian fortune
tellers used both the tea's steam and its residue leaves to divine the
future - Egyptian high priests poured teas over the bodies of the
terminally ill to prepare them for the after life - Before the advent of
coffee, tea was the preferred gift to be brought to the Pope when
requesting an audience (now, naturally, the Holy Father likes his coffee...
and likes it strong with just a hint of sugar, by the way!)
 Geomancy grew up around The Leaf like a garden. Reading tea leaves
became an art form and the mystical union between teas and tea drinkers
became one of the most venerated aspects of political and financial life
for those with certain fortunes. But the commoners also read tea leaves and
took comfort in understanding their potential fortunes. Reading tea leaves
isn't a trick of foretelling the future but a way of understanding and
remembering your present and meditating on what might come as a result of
what has gone before.
 Geomancy assumes a physical and mental connection between the
natural world and human beings. It involves the examination of the dirt and
the earth, looking at and an understanding of the stars and heavens,
contemplation of one's palm and the physical clues that your body imparts
to you. Geomancy is inherent in the tea leaves which reveal observable
patterns to study and search for hidden meanings that reveal the potentials
in a person's life.
 The first thing you need for reading tea leaves is a cup and saucer
of tea made with loose tea. Bag the bags anyway because, while the tea is
probably just fine in them, they disconnect you from the real relationship
you can have with your drink! After drinking your tea, swirl the cup with
the leavings of the leaves in the bottom, invert the cup over the saucer
and turn 3 or 4 times, then tap gently several times on the bottom to
release some of the leaves.
 Pick up the cup to see what the distribution of the leaves looks
like to you. Each part of the cup is important: the rim, the handle, the
base, the saucer. The pattern in the distribution of the leaves is the
critical aspect: a circular pattern may indicate marriage or friendships, a
chain-like formation may refer to a trip to be taken or the means of
achieving a goal. Leaves clinging near your cup's handle relate to things
close at home but the clusters of leaves in the bottom are for looking into
the distant future.
 For millennia, teas have been the basis for mystery, superstition
and folk remedies. Witch doctors and shamans and herbalists have collected
plants and dispensed the great brews of healing. Even now we take teas and
infusions of herbs for colds and sinus problems, digestive distress,
sleeplessness, sore throats and coughs.
 It is hard to know where the lore leaves off and the reality
begins. There is real logic in much of the mystique of tea. Bad breath in
the pre-Listerine days was conquered with peppermint teas. The tannin in
black tea is an astringent which shrinks tissues, so when your dentist
tells you to apply a wet tea bag over the area of an extracted tooth, or
your friendly barista suggests tea with honey or lemon for soothing a
scratchy throat, there is a reality that your condition can improve.
 Abyssinian tea seems to have been used as a narcotic stimulant, but
skullcap in the brew was (and still is) prized for its sedative effect. One
of the most popular remedies of the American frontier was "breast tea" or
"chest tea" which was a household cure for respiratory problems, prepared
>from cut and bruised althea, coltsfoot, licorice root, anise, mullein
flowers and orrisroot.
 Some recent medical studies have indicated that tea may be
effective in inhibiting the growth of certain tumors as well as aiding in
the prevention of heart disease and lowering cholesterol! So, quick! For
your own good! Take a break! It's Tea Time!

THE RITUAL - THE LEAF - THE BEAN - THE SACRAMENT

 "Sacrament: The outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual
grace." Growing up in a church family (Dad is a preacher - and, come to
think of it, so is Mom... and my brother is ordained and... and...
gosh...this is scary) I heard those words over and over; it's easy to
realize that many things wind up being sacraments in our lives. No
disrespect to the big sacraments, but after the "big two" if you are a
Protestant or the "big seven" if you are a Catholic, people joyously and
intentionally take to the concept of sacrament throughout their daily
routine.
 And it's always been so... Ritual is part of human need. The ritual
of waking in the morning for most people involves a number of actions that
are done in a definite order with a definite goal. The process of bedtime
is ingrained in us as children not as "going to bed" but, rather "getting
ready for bed" - the ritual of washing, brushing, p.j.'s, prepping, making
the rounds of family to say "good night", perhaps a time for reading in bed
(with a munchie, perhaps?) and finally the resulting sleep (and in today's
hectic lifestyle, sleep surely has a sacramental aspect of grace, eh?)
 Rituals are more than mere habit. They are a way of putting order
in a world where entropy rules. (Entropy is one of my personal favorite
concepts. Entropy is the universe relentlessly and unceasingly proceeding
towards chaos. Our kitchen is a perfect example. So is our shoppe... but we
digress) For five centuries, the process of preparing morning coffee at
home has been a well developed ritual and the actual drinking of The Bean
becomes sacramental in nature. Tea, perhaps because of its longer and more
intricate world history, involves greater ritual for many people and
greater depth of sacramental style.
 The Bean ritual: the coffee maker + the water + the filter + the
measuring of  The Bean + getting the mug, the wait (similar to a period of
silent prayer), and then the Preparation: the pour, the additions of cream
and/or sugar, the stir, the smelling.
 All of these are the outward and visible signs. But any honest
coffee drinker will tell you (in great detail if asked) about the inward
and spiritual grace. The warmth, the bitter/spicy/sweet tang of the coffee
and the intrinsic feeling of well-being that ensues from those first sips
each day; coffee in the morning is nature's way of bracing you for any
eventuality the day may bring. My mother drinks decaffeinated coffee every
morning and yet she knows that the coffee will rejuvenate and reinvigorate
her for the upcoming day, caffeine or no. Thus, the inward and spiritual
grace.
 Tea, as the far senior beverage has developed in ritual and
spiritual and sacramental significance far in excess of that which
surrounds coffee. In England, China, Japan, India, and throughout the
Southeast Asian area, tea isn't the quick toss of a bag of quasi-powdered
leaves in a mug of micro-waved water to which we often reduce it.
 In China part of simply saying "hello" requires asking if the other
person has had tea yet! Many Oriental countries have a nearly religious
ritual for sharing tea - special and beautifully crafted tea cups, little
airtight pouches of exceptionally high grade teas, exquisite sugar and
creamer sets, and small hand-crafted portable cases to carry it all in. And
the preparation and presentation of the tea is an art-form beautifully
choreographed and a particular delight for all the senses. And all of this
ritual is intentional; all of it is designed to be part of the pleasure of
sharing a superb drink with friends.
 In England and throughout the British Empire, the sun set neither
on the British flag nor on the ritual tea time. Afternoon tea became famous
for its silver tea service, special baked delicacies, and the entire ritual
surrounding the preparation and serving of tea.
 Coffee shoppes worth their beans try to fulfill this ritual need
for tea in some way. Teapots are still in common use and many of the teas
offered are loose, requiring the obligatory infusers. We brew our teas at
our shoppe in 16 oz. pots but always include small 8 oz. tea cups instead
of the seemingly more logical 16 oz. ones; people enjoy the process of
pouring their tea from the steaming steeping pot and then periodically
refreshing their teacup with a bit more fresh beverage. The actual pouring
and serving is part of both the ritual as well as the sacrament. In this
way, people share something visually pleasing, warm and soothing to the
palate, and aromatically delightful.
 Enjoy the process as well as the beverage, whether coffee or tea.
Enjoy the ritual as well as the sacrament, whether brewing or steeping. Go
in peace to love and serve the tea!

PROFILES IN COURAGE: Personal Blending (Pt I)

    Profiling - According to who you ask (whom you ask?) it can be one of many things: a unique must-see-tv way of catching criminals by extrapolating bizarre hypotheses from minimal information; a way of observing the additional chins you have acquired over the years; a miniature biography of the famous or infamous; or (if talking to your favorite barista) the special signature each and every coffee has and what creates its intricate flavor.  It's called the 'flavor profile'.
    Coffee, as an unflavored bean (we'll get to the flavored coffee next week), has the ability to take on the flavor and aroma characteristics of the soil and climate in which it grows. Like fine wine, specialty coffee has a bouquet as well as a unique flavor profile.
    Coffees can be earthy (Ethiopian Harrar) or particularly fruity (Ethiopian Yrgacheffe), bright and brisk (Guatemala Antigua Urias), rich and syurpy (Sumatra Mandheling Kasho), heavy-bodied and spicy (Java Estate), bold and aromatic (Kenya AA), full-bodied and winey (Costa Rica San Pablo Tarazu) or any combination of the above.
    Beans may be especially hard (Guatemalans) from one region which will give you a limited pre-ground aroma but a sensational brewed carafe. Some (Tanzanian Peaberry or Kilimanjaro) have a light after bight (called the 'finish') and unique flavor profiles all their own.
    Having your own very personal blend can be one of the most pleasant things you can do for yourself or a friend. Unlike wine, you can create your own blend by combining various beanage to suit your special tastes - you may even want a few personal blends to choose from... one for your morning wake-up call, another for your afternoon break, a special treat for company and entertaining, and a decaffeinated secret recipe for your night cap!
    With the holidays rapidly approaching, may we be so bold as to suggest that giving a personal blend to a friend as a gift is a great idea! Knowing a friend or family member's tastes can lead to combining just the right selection of beans to absolutely delight that special person's palate. Any good specialty coffee shoppe barista will be more than happy to help you create a personal flavor profile, and a few French presses of coffee will allow you to combine and design and taste a unique custom coffee for that special someone.
    Real baristas and real coffee shoppes are glad to keep your flavor profile on file. If a shop won't do that, then they aren't actually a coffee shoppe, just a place that sells coffee (a definite difference!). When you are paying from $10 - $450 a pound for fresh roasted specialty coffees, it seems to us you ought to be able to get what you like!
    Here are a few suggestions for where to begin your own profiling:
1998 SPECIALTY COFFEE AWARD WINNER:
1/3 Sumatran (body)
1/3 Kenya AA (flavor)
1/3 Colombian (aroma & brightness)

MORNING BLEND:
1/3 Colombian (aroma & brightness)
1/3 Venezuelan (sweetness)
1/3 French Roast (gusto!)

BRISK BLEND:
1/2 Tanzanian Peaberry  (rich body)
1/2 Sumatran (high, very pleasant acidity)

FINE DINING:
1/2 Java Estate (body)
1/4 Kona (get the REAL stuff... not a blend!)
1/4 French Roast (flavor & smoky)

BY THE FIREPLACE BREW:
1/4 Ethiopian Yrgacheffe (fruity)
1/4 Italian Roast (smokey & sweet)
1/2 Venezuelan Blue (sweetness)

    Whatever you and your favorite barista cook up, be adventurous and courageous. In the last three consecutive years, personal blends have won the major awards at coffee tastings throughout the world for exquisite flavor, aroma, and appeal. And wouldn't it be fun to serve your own private blend during the holidays? Happy Thanksgiving from your faithful baristas =)
 
 

PROFILES IN COURAGE: Perfect Blend (Pt II)

 The Fine Art of the Dollop: Customer A requests a large mug of the
decaf with just a dollop of the flavored in it...
 The Fine Art of the Bloop: Customer B orders your unflavored
regular but with just a bloop of the decaf added...
 The Fine Art of the Scootch: Customer C needs an extra large to go,
mostly flavored but with just a scootch of both the decaffeinated AND the
regular, if that's OK...
 Dollop...Bloop...Scootch... Just a few beans short of a pound? Nah
- These good folks are custom blending on the fly and enjoying the freedom
of having their coffee just the way they like it. As with all great
scientific experiments, there is always the chance that one will
accidentally stumble across a Perfect Blend.
 Last week we discussed a little bit about the possibilities of the
custom blending of unflavored coffees, but there is also the great and
popular art form of combining flavored coffees into truly 'heavenly
coffees'.
 Something like this: we do a splendid French Vanilla Velvet (if we
do say so...) as well as a highly aromatic Seville Orange. Don't you just
think they are crying out to become "Creamsickle" (remember those
delightful frozen treats on a stick?).
 Or this: that Seville Orange but cut with two parts of a nice rich
German or Bavarian Chocolate coffee. And maybe just a dollop of Cinnamon
French roast? Maybe a scootch? Woo Woo!
 Blending the flavored coffees is probably a little less
intimidating than working with all those exotic unflavored ones. After all,
there isn't much secret what flavor Almond Amaretto is but it's easy to
balk when faced with the flavor profile of a Tanzanian Kilimanjaro.
 We, your humble baristas, are both pretty fair cooks in our own
right, aside from The Bean thing. One of the cooking tips we have learned
over the years is something we refer to as "Cooking by Color" - certain
things will go together just because their colors go together! Whether
combining spices or herbs or veggies or meats or all of the above, cooking
by color just seems to work for us.
 The Beans, on the other hand, are amazingly uniform in color
(brown... dark brown... light brown...) So you will need to translate the
color concept to the flavor/aroma concept. What would go well with a nice
nutty Southern Pecan? Raspberry? Possibly not... How about an English
Toffee? Surely more likely.
 Chocolate (to our way of thinking) goes with everything. Period.
Steav would do a chocolate sauce over broccoli if it were just socially
acceptable. It isn't, and we can both feel the good chefs over at
Madeline's Bistro shivering already, so we'll move on...
 But think of the possibilities of a wonderful warm cup of Java with
Chocolate and: Almond? Pecan? Praline? Cinnamon? Toffee? Hazelnut?
Raspberry? Orange? White Chocolate? 'Scuse me... There is a pot of coffee
calling... be right back.
 OK - here it is, the Perfect Blend for right now (remembering that
'now' changes every moment!): 2 parts of Rainforest Supreme (a gentle
combination of tropical fruit and nut extracts) and one part of Sumatra
Mandheling (an unflavored rich, deep, syrupy coffee that beautifully
balances the Rainforest. Yay!)
 But that's us... what do YOU like? Do you grind your own coffee
beans? Have you ever tossed a cinnamon stick in with the beans when you
grind? Or a few unsalted Pecans? Try a dusting of nutmeg, too. If you add
your own flavorings at home, you can experiment to a degree, but most
flavored coffees at your local coffee emporium are done with extracts which
are more concentrated and give a stronger flavor to The Bean.
 The value of designing your own flavor profile using flavored
coffees is that you can come up with combinations that are sure to please
not only your own palate, but those palates you are entertaining at dinner,
or a business meeting, or a special luncheon. As with custom regular
personal blends, your barista will be happy to keep your personal flavored
blends on file in the coffee shoppe. This way you don't have to remember
the quantities and you can also tinker with amounts. The invention of the
digital scale allows for precise blending and each time you order your
special personal coffee and if it just doesn't seem to have enough hazelnut
in it, well... that's a problem easily handled!
 Now just think of friends or family or colleagues who have special
passions for fascinating flavors and how much fun a specialized holiday
gift of custom blended Java would be for them! Solves a lot of giving
problems, eh? Happy Holydays!

Change is Good ~ Change Is Good ~ Change is Good
 There you are: a lonely goatherd in Ethiopia (or, maybe, Yemen...)
and your goats are freaking out after eating these little cherries from the
shrubs over there. The goats are dancing and laughing (?) and playing and
it makes you wonder what is in those cherries. What do you do? Change is
good.
 There you are: it's early morning and you've just opened up your
coffee shoppe. The coffee is brewed, the baked goods are done and in the
case, the "Open" sign is hung and your first customer walks through the
door. She orders a small decaf (90¢) and hands you a hundred dollar bill.
What do you do? Change is good.
 There you are: captain of the Starship Voyager and find yourself in
the Delta quadrant (it's not like being in Minetto... you're a long way
>from home) and the most recent calculations show it will be 75 years (give
or take...) before you get home. The one thing you miss most (besides your
golden retriever) is real brewed coffee (not the replicated kind.) What do
you do? Change is good.
 There you are: it's late afternoon three years ago and two of your
friends are deciding to sell their little coffee shoppe. They offer it to
you first. You are a classical organist and/or a professional carpenter.
What do you do? Change is good.
 There you are: it's 1513 and you are the Pope, sipping your morning
espresso and enjoying the view from St. Peter's after your first Mass of
the Day. A troupe (herd? gaggle?) of monastics approach you and decry the
evils of a new beverage called kaffe that has been discovered in Arabia and
is sweeping the countryside. It is said to give energy and encourage
thought. What do you do? Change is good.
 There you are: you have two cats and a coffee shoppe, a nice home
by the lake within 100 acres of woods. "Somebody" (ok... it was Bill...)
thinks you should have a dog and goes out "just to look" at a pride (flock?
swarm?) of chocolate Labradors. Two hours later a tiny brown puppyface
peers at you through the truck window and smiles (honest... she smiled.
Labs smile). What do you do? Change is good.
 There you are: it's 16 December, 1773, and the King of England
sends a bevy (troupe? pack?) of tax collectors to get some more moolah for
the tea you enjoy each day at 4:00 pm. Enough is enough and a pushy king
with a yen for taxes isn't your idea of a good time anyway. What do you do?
Change is good.
 There you are: you have only been running your little coffee shoppe
for about a year and a half and are still learning about the barista's art.
The new publisher of the local newspaper (bless him!) stops in for a cup o'
Joe and asks if you think you could do a weekly column about coffee for his
Food Section. Hey, he's the new guy in town... You can't turn him down. But
it's been 20 years (more or less...) since you did any 'creative writing'.
What do you do? Change is good.
 There you are: you are a new student at college standing outside
the local coffee emporium. Everyone keeps talking about how coffee can see
you through your darkest hours of term paper writing; that caffeine is a
gift from the academic gods for cramming. But you have tried your mother's
coffee crystals about once every six months for the last 5 years and it
still tastes like the only thing camels leave in the desert, despite the
particular coffee's claim about being the best part of waking up. What do
you do? Change is good.
 There you are: you stop into Mojo's Bar-B-Que for your daily dose
of ribs and the editor of  WEEKEND waves you down from a booth in the
corner and tells you that BUZZ WORDS, your weekly column about coffee
(well, mostly about coffee...) is being dropped from the food section. You
panic. But in his stylistic glee he informs you that you are being moved to
the WEEKEND section on Thursdays (instead of Wednesdays... but he assures
you that your deadline hasn't changed a whit...) What do you do? Change is
good.
 So, there you are. Now you see us, now you don't! We are moving
after 5 months of being comfortably tucked right below Kathy Schrecengost's
WHAT'S COOKING column. You wonder if your faithful readership (your mother
and a few close friends...) will follow you. You wonder if anyone will even
notice... You wonder if anyone who reads WEEKEND actually drinks coffee.
But then you remember: it's coffee! Whatever other state the world might be
in, coffee is ubiquitous. Coffee is the common thread linking humankind to
the universe. Coffee is the elixir of life (especially at 5 am!) What do
you do? Change is good! See you next week in WEEKEND!

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF THE JAVA ENHANCED
     Wow! Here we are in WEEKEND... We wonder if there is a whole new audience out there or if our faithful readers are also WEEKEND readers. Should we start at the beginning? Talk about the goats? The Boston Tea Party? The Pope (an avid coffee drinker...)? Some holiday recipes, maybe? Nah...
     We’ll do what we do best: tell stories about coffee. Most of them are true... But one of the best for us (at least...) is a true one that began some three years ago in a little coffee shoppe in the great Port City.
 See, The Bean seems to promote certain special thought processes and among them is poetry. Mysterious bits of poetic verse started to be found in the most unique places in the coffee shoppe... Cookie jars... Tea Pots... Behind pictures... In mugs.
     People would buy a coffee pot and return a day later with a poem they found tucked in the recesses of the filters. We began saving all these works of java’d inspiration and watching our customers carefully to figure out who the masked poet was. At first the handwriting was all the same... but... the plot thickened. Other poets started to get in on the Chaucer saucer game and we started uncovering verse from a multitude of folks!
     By the time we actually bought the shoppe a few months later, we had amassed quite a collection and had dubbed it “Live Poet’s Society”. A tall, shy, lanky young man seemed to be the most promising poet-culprit. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, we waited for him to come in one day and, oh so casually, happened to quote a line of one of his poems during our usual chat. The blush on his face gave him away immediately and the works of “Dimitri Nam Cresten” and “Webster McCalligan” were unmasked as being the talented writings of one Matt Rogers. We hired him on the spot.
     Poetry and coffee houses seem to go hand in hand and our fictitious “Live Poet’s Society” began to have a reality of its own. Readings were held once a month and area poets seemed to come out of the woodwork to join in sharing their special art. During the summer months, sidewalk poetry sprouted on Market and Water Streets in the form of meticulously chalked verse on the sidewalks. The chalk spread out into the street and the verse became adorned by flowers and chalked ivy surrounding manhole covers and cracks in the street pavement!
     We were, frankly, unsure of city ordinances regarding poetry on the streets. Did we need a permit? Was there a Poetic Inspector? Were we violating any anti-poetry zoning laws? Should we have an insurance rider covering us against either bad poetry or, more to the point, a poet winding up with a fanny full of fender from a passing motorist...
     We braced ourselves one day for the worst as several poets and artists chalked their way along Water Street in front of an oncoming police car. The constable on patrol stopped, flipped on his bubble gum lights and stepped out of the car.
     Without a word he examined the scene with all the acumen of one accustomed to dealing with artistic crimes. After due deliberation, and with our resident poets and baristas awaiting the outcome with baited breath (whatever that is...), he solemnly nodded at the verses, looked up at us and said one word, “Nice”. And with that he resumed doing whatever it is he had been about before being accosted by sidewalk poetry.
     With that semi-official sanctioning of our work, LIVE POET’S SOCIETY now lives on twice a month (the 2nd and 4th Friday evenings at 8pm). “The Collected Works of the Java Enhanced” is just finishing up its second voluminous volume and no less than one hundred poets have contributed to its increase!
     Dimitri a.k.a. Webster a.k.a. Matt now lives in the Baltimore area (working for Starbucks, fer cryin’ out loud!) and sees his own poetic coffee shoppe in his future. While poet-in-residence for us, he was not only published but won a national competition. Now his erstwhile followers Jen Caruana and Eriq Cherchio head up the twice monthly poetry forum which is (by the way) open to everyone and free!
     One of the earliest works in the first volume is also one of our favorites.... a wonderful bit of Haiku by an OHS student.
         The snow flies in
         the middle of the day
         yep it’s Oswego
 
 

CAPHE CUT CHON ~ Good To the Last Dropping

 "Ah! Fox dung! It makes the most excellent coffee!"
 No, wait, don't leave... it does... and it is the perfect gift for
the coffee drinker who has everything. Your beloved coffee drinker has the
ideal auto drip pot with the little clock that goes off at 5 a.m.,
dispenses a preselected amount of beans into the grinder, grinds away and
then dumps the fresh grounds into a little stainless steel filter,
whereupon the brewing cycle begins and 15 minutes later he can enjoy fresh
ground, fresh brewed drip coffee. That was the present you got him last
year. Sharper Image, $265.00
 Two years ago you bought her a French Press. Correction: three
French Presses (not to be confused with three French hens...) The largest
of the presses brews 12 cups (European cups... which translates into about
5 good sized American mugs!) for when she is entertaining. The next size
Press brews 8 European cups (3 mugs American) for when she is entertaining
You! The smallest of the set you got her makes 3 Euros or 1 American and
she uses it at her office for her own personal blend of Mocha Java City
Roast. Coffee Connection, $67.00 for all three presses.
 What about the fox dung, you ask? Hang in there. We'll get to it.
Honest.
 Three years ago you gave him a year's subscription to a gourmet
coffee club. Each month a new pound of coffee from wondrously exotic places
ranging from New Guinea to Indonesia, from Ethiopia to Jamaica, Hawaii to
Yemen, Kenya to Djimah, arrived on his doorstep, whole beans and fresh
roasted. Never mind that you don't give him the coffee grinder for another
two years... It's the thought that counts. So as not to hurt your feelings,
he puts the beans in a ziplock each morning and crushes them with a rolling
pin (trust us, it works...) Coffee Connection, $150 includes shipping (for
the monthly coffee... the rolling pin is extra)
 So what could possibly be on the coffee menu for this year's
Christmas? Fox dung. More particularly, it is the 'leavings' from a
fox-like creature from Vietnam that is actually more closely related to a
mongoose: the famed Civet Cat!
 Vietnamese coffee growers have long known this most discerning
coffee connoisseur. With a long, sensitive snout, the Civet Cat sniffs out
only the finest, most perfectly ripe coffee beans and feasts on the ones
growing on the lowest branches of the coffee bushes. The hardest and
heartiest of the beans survive the digestive process and, according to
aficionados, improves upon the taste, then eliminating them in the usual
manner to be 'harvested' by the farmers and made available to the
discerning pallets of coffee drinkers throughout the world. A small five
acre farm can yield as much as a thousand grams of  "Caphe Cut Chon" or
fox-dung coffee. Gevalia Coffee, $360.00 per pound. Honest!
 But, and with all stories like this one there is a 'but', there is
a problem. Vietnamese farmers are being told by their government to clear
more land for farming of coffee. The land being cleared just happens to be
the home of our little coffee loving fox and the loss of habitat is pushing
the Civet Cat towards endangerment. Worse yet, Vietnamese farmers are being
hurried to harvest by the government and encouraged to utilize 'modern
farming techniques' which lead them to pick their coffee beans BEFORE they
are fully ripe, thereby depriving our little Muldurian cat of his (or her)
favorite meal.
 The final straw, perhaps, comes from those gourmet chefs who have
decided that, in their wisdom, the foxy cat itself actually tastes better
than the prized dung and the poor little critters are showing up in local
Vietnamese restaurants roasted as the main course instead of merely
providing the coffee served with dessert.
 So this Christmas, if you cannot afford the Caphe Cut Chon at
$360/lb for your favorite coffee drinker, perhaps a small donation to the
SAVE THE CIVET Foundation might be in order. We don't actually know where
they are located, but send it to us anyway. We'll figure out what to do
with it...
 Merry Christmas from all of us at The Coffee Connection!
 
 

APOCALYPSO: RU Y2 OK?
 Alright, already. We are tired of the calendarical puritans who are
forever reminding us that the year 2000 isn't the beginning of the
millennium but, instead, the last year of  the 1900's. If that's so, then
where is the "19" in the so-called last year of the 1900's? Have you ever
owned a car that was about to turn to 100,000 miles? Were you psyched more
to see all the 9's go to 0's or were you palpitating for 100,001? Right. We
know...
 The church in its wisdom has regularly changed the calendar to suit
its needs on numerous occasions and everyone has said, "Fine!" and gone
along with the change without a misstep! The Jewish population isn't even
celebrating any sort of millennium change in its calendar this year.
 Our Islamic and Buddhist friends aren't preparing for a new
millennium, either. The aboriginal people in Australia aren't getting
prepped for a big millennial bash! In fact, one native population in Africa
simply starts counting all over again when they reach 40 years in their
calendar!!! No Y2K bugs there! Ever!
 So, let's face it: the church goofed! If we are basing our calendar
(ever so loosely) on the A.D. or 'Year of our Lord' (Anno Domini) then the
argument that year one was the number of the first year of AD is bogus...
absolutely bogus. You mean to tell us that poor Jesus of Nazareth never had
a first birthday? that on his first birthday he was 2??? Poppycock! If the
poor astronomer/astrologer/wise folks who devised our current calendar
FORGOT to give the current leading light of the Christian religion his
first birthday, then why do WE have to suffer for it! Well, we won't!
 By decree of the assembled baristas of the Coffee Connection, we
declare and affirm that if, indeed, there was no first year labeled "0"
then it was the first millennia that was goofed up and, by definition, only
had 999 years. Thereafter, we declare that millennia shall henceforth be
numbered correctly: 1000-1999, 2000-2999, etc.
 And we obviously have a lot of support in this! Everyone around the
world is planning on celebrating the beginning of the new millennia in 2
days and WE declare that THEY are RIGHT! There. That's settled. Fiat...
Fiat... Fiat! We win!
 Now, comes the more intriguing problem: rumor has it that Starbucks
has, over the past 2 decades, placed a millennial computer chip in each and
every percolator in the world. It is anticipated that all percolators will,
at the stroke of midnight two days hence, stop percolating. Independent
coffee shoppes from Seattle to Oswego have been backing this sinister plot
by pledging a percentage of our incomes to the project. Percolators will no
longer work in 2 days. Yay! Drip or Press are all that will be left (we in
the barista trade don't even consider instant powder to be coffee... that
is the next millennial project...) So you can save yourself frustration and
throw out your percolator now... Or, better yet, plant an asparagus fern in
it! (Imagine! No more percolated church coffee! Proving there IS a god, a
god who prefers drip coffee...)
 We checked our own shoppe carefully: our drip pots are Y2 OK. Our
mugs and tea pots will continue to work on January 1st. Our grinders were
iffy, but we discovered to our delight that if we didn't try to produce a
percolator grind, they work just fine.
 Our cash register is ready, we are positive (ever see it? it's a
manual type cash register with a big pull lever on the side!) and instead
of worrying about NiMo's Y2K preparation (over which we have absolutely no
control, but a lot of faith) our plan is not to stockpile canned goods, dig
shelters, hoard dry milk, or tear out our thinning hair worrying about all
this. (OK... we did buy a complete set of the FOXFIRE books from River's
End Bookstore in case [just in case] we need to know how to make a log
cabin or dress out a hog...)
 We are having an APOCALYPSO PARTY all New Years / New Millennial
Eve at the coffee shoppe. If it's the end of life as we know it, well so
what? Buying the coffee shoppe was the end of life as we previously knew
it, too! Life ends... Life begins... Why not party? Indeed! Why not!
 Where do you want to be when the lights go out? In a dark damp
millennial fallout shelter? Or in a cool coffee shoppe with lots of candles
(Y2 OK) and coffee drinks (ditto...) and lots of live entertainment (the
piano is Y2 compliant, by the way) and cheese cakes that were made in the
current millennium (i.e. a couple days ago!). With mounds of baked goodies
>from Bakers Bob & Laurie at Cakes Galore, or surrounded by canned c-rations
in a Fortress America shed with lots of firepower at your side? C'mon out
and party with the caffeinated crowd!
 APOCALYPSO NOW!