The Reading Room

Weird coffee news Wednesday..... Tuesday police were called to a Grand Rapids office building after lunch because a caller reported a man with a gun had entered the building. They searched all floors of the building and failed to find...

It’s not really a secret. It has to be listed on the label, and the President just announced that Cuba will be supplementing the domestic coffee with this ingredient because of a dwindling coffee crop. AP reporter Andrea Rodriguez writes...

The most popular coffee news story of the season seems to be the one about how your DNA, your genes, cause you to crave coffee/caffeine or not to. It has been reported that a study of 47,000 Americans over 17...

If you were assigned to make a piece of clothing out of Starbucks coffee sleeves, what is your reaction? Do you immediately get a vision and start creating, or do you just go pour yourself another cup of brew? For...

Writers everywhere are popping up with their great coffee tip lists, and most of them are somewhat similar with overlapping hints. Occasionally one grabs the attention with a unique secret for great coffee. Katharine Shilcutt is an example of this...

It’s been demonized, outlawed, died for, warred against, prohibited by religious leaders, banned, globally traded, taxed, survived for centuries and brewed by all cultures, both blamed for disease and lauded as disease fighter. Coffee has had quite a history and...

The University of Guelph in Canada announced the completion of a study showing the relationship of a fatty fast food meal on blood-sugar levels when eaten both with and without coffee. It was shown that the blood sugar spike doubled...

By the number of media outlets carrying a certain piece of information this week, it seems a substantial number of Americans are curious about how desperate housewife Eva Longoria achieves such a gorgeous complexion. Whether or not you're one of...

We all share the frustration or disappointment of schlepping our laptops to our favorite coffee shop/rent-free office to multi-task while eating breakfast or other meal and all the outlets and/or chairs are already taken by other laptop users. Or maybe...

The USA is the leading consumer of coffee in the world, but watch out. Brazil is fast becoming a heavier consumer and if a Reuters article is correct, may overtake the US in consumption of the brew by 2012. Brazil...

This week Marie King wrote of her displeasure concerning last month’s contest promoted by a coffee chain popular in Canada and the eastern US. She asks why the 25-year old contest can’t “evolve to meet our ever-increasing environmental concerns?” Writing...

It’s weird coffee news day. No, this is not about a new country western hit. Monday an article by Elizabeth Lopatto reported on a brain study that compared rejection to the pain from spilling hot coffee on your arm. The...

What do banks have in common with bike shops, bookstores and clothing shops? If you said coffee, or café, you’re coffee culture savvy. Then the question becomes: What do banks have to do with coffee? We’ll get to this later....

There seems to be an App for everything these days. Now coffee farmers in remote parts of Mexico, Peru and Tanzania are enjoying a variety of video lessons on their co-op’s iPads that will help them in planting and managing...

So your stovetop espresso maker started to leak. Chances are all it needs is good cleaning and a gasket replacement. Trying to find the right gasket can be a daunting task.  What size is your stovetop? Stovetops come in many...

Writer Emily Orrson is a student who recently wrote about her experience with a Philadelphia upscale - third wave – coffee shop which is based on the real thing in Italy. Carrying such treats as gelato and real coffee without...

If you have trouble sleeping six to eight hours a night, some advice from nutritionist Jane Schwartz might be just what you need. She recently posted an article on how eating a balanced diet can aid good sleep. The main...

Is there no limit to the lengths some coffee companies will go to in order to make sales? Are there no boundaries of good taste? Writer Ian Froeb reveals one odd flavor spotted out on one of America’s highways in...

For many, “White Coffee” means the opposite of black coffee - a coffee drink with lots of milk. For others, it’s coffee made from beans that were barely roasted – roasted only to a tan color. In fact, this is...

There have been more than a few articles on the Costa Rican coffee farms vs the weather. In recent post, Melissa Allison shows that neither the experts nor the farmers seem to be able to agree on the correct causes...

A few days ago, Kathleen O’Brien wrote a very humorous perspective on the current coffee scene. She describes the upgrading of coffee since the diner days to the current age of fancy schmancy brew methods and coffee types. If you’re...