Recently it has really been a mess weather-wise here in LA. The storm that has come through here has flooded a lot of places (including my street) and created a lot of traffic accidents. I don’t think there was a single day this week where I didn’t walk around for the entire day with wet pant legs. Interstate 5 has been shut down due to snow, there have been tornado warnings, and many streets are out of commission due to their transformation into rivers. In the midst of all of this, there has been one refuge: my warm cup of coffee every morning before I leave the house, and every afternoon when I come back. Sitting and watching the rain fall outside while sipping a warm cup of perfectly made coffee makes everything else disappear. There’s something about it that just takes you away into another world - almost zen-like. Perhaps some would prefer hot cocoa, but to those people I have one thing to say: mocha.

Tags: Rainy coffee

1. It keeps me awake - yes admit it, you like this too.
2. It sometimes tastes like chocolate when you brew it right.
3. It’s a great social activity - who doesn’t love to get coffee with their friends?
4. Enjoying coffee can be as simple, or as complicated as you want it to be.
5. That first smell of it in the morning.
6. You can get it almost anywhere (not usually good though).
7. It never gets old.
8. It’s great after a nice meal.
9. Iced coffee is amazing on a hot summer day.
10. It gives me soemthing to obsess about. Haha.

I was around UCLA this weekend and desperately needed coffee. I almost went to Starbuck’s when, like an oasis in the middle of a desert, I found my Peet’s in Westwood Village. In fact it was rigth across the street from a Starbuck’s…Well I went right in and ordered my ususal espresso. Great thing is they offered me either real cups or the paper ones, which makes me very happy since I hate drinking espresso out of paper cups. They use a big La Marzocco espresso machine, and a couple of nice grinders ( I didn’t catch what they were but maybe La Cimbali.)

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Tags: coffee, espresso, Peet's

Coffee Ramblings was my way of exposing some of the world to what a great cup of coffee is. What I lose sight of though is that most people are happy drinking awful tasting stuff. You know, I almost wonder if it’s a good idea to introduce people to good coffee. There was a time when I could drink gas station coffee and be satisfied. Now I cringe when I even think about it.

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Tags: coffee, coffee ramblings, ramblings

I normally always brew my green tea from loose leaf tea. Most of my experience with green tea from tea bags has been disappointing. There is usually a lack of flavor and color with a hint of bitterness. The Kirkland green tea seems to be a good substitute to brewing your own when you don’t have any time or patience. The color and flavor, when brewed right, are pretty good. The tea is in nylon bags, not paper, and it is supposedly made with sencha and matcha. They probably put very little matcha into it, since it is pretty expensive, but I think there is at least some because when you pour water over the bag the tea does froth a bit.

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Tags: costco, green tea, kirkland, matcha, sencha, tea bag

My girlfriend and I visited Intelligentsia Coffee in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles . We’d been wanting to go here for quite some time. I had heard many good things about Intelligentsia, even before it opened in L.A., due to its reputation from Chicago. The cafe, even at first glance, looks different than other cafes. Forget Starbucks or Coffee Bean, Intelligentsia is minimalistic and all about coffee.

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Tags: beans, cafe, cappuccino, coffee, espresso, intelligentsia

I had the pleasure of buying some whole leaf sencha from Shizuoka Japan. This was the kind they sold at Intelligentsia. It is a bit pricey, but good sencha normally tends to be. I got 2oz of loose leaf green tea for roughly $11. It is a very high quality tea, it has just the right amount of grassy flavor, great color, and a smooth warming finish - but only if brewed right. I made a horrible mistake the first time I tried it, instead of using 1.5 TEAspoons per 8oz of water, I used 1.5 TABLEspoons (stupid me). I was so used to this other, really cheap, green tea I used to have and that used 2 tablespoons per 8oz cup.

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Tags: green tea, intelligentsia, sencha, tea

It’s funny when I hear about things like Java Juice being developed in the US, and comparing this to how countries like Italy are developing new espresso machines, new methods of brewing, etc. For some reason, we are less concerned with the quality of what we consume, and more interested in how fast we can consume it. Java Juice, for those who don’t know, is a coffee “extract” that is meant to be added to water to get instant coffee.

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Tags: Bad Coffee, coffee, Java Juice

So in one of my previous posts I talked about how a particular roast that I had bought from Whole Foods had a very odd characteristic. I mentioned how it would taste awful at first but then it would somehow begin to taste better. Well as I finished the half pound of coffee beans that I had bought, I started to notice something. The beans would taste better as they aged. Now, I’m not talking about aging a wine here, but only a few days worth of “resting” if you will. I had heard about this before, that certain beans tasted better when allowed to rest for a day or two after roasting, It appears that these beans adhered to this unofficial rule.

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Tags: beans, coffee, coffee beans, whole foods

New year’s celebrations have taken over my life for the past few days and I haven’t been able to fill everyone in about the wonderful world of coffee. I have gone on a few coffee adventures in the past few days that I’ll talk about in more detail soon. Just to give a little taste, my girlfriend and I visited Intelligentsia Coffee in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. I took some pictures while there and I’ll be sure to post those and my review of the place very soon. In the meantime, I hope you have all had a wonderful new year celebration and may 2008 bring you all happiness and prosperity.