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Stop with the salt: adding a dash of water to coffee beans before grinding them could be the secret to a better-tasting cup of caffeinated goodness, new research suggests. The trick boils down to reducing the amount of static electricity generated by grinding whole coffee beans, which otherwise causes them to clump together and clog up the grinder, creating a whole lot of mess and waste. Coffee buffs have long been spritzing their beans to moisten them before grinding. Now scientists have confirmed what makes sparks fly in ground coffee beans – and shown how budding baristas can reduce that...

Whether enjoyed on its own or mixed into a latte, Americano or even a martini, espresso provides an ultra-concentrated jolt of caffeine to coffee lovers. But it might do more than just wake you up. Research shows that, in preliminary in vitro laboratory tests, espresso compounds can inhibit tau protein aggregation—a process that is believed to be involved in the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Recent research has suggested that coffee could also have beneficial effects against certain neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. Although the exact mechanisms that cause these conditions are still unclear, it's thought that a protein called tau...

It's actually a classic combination, if you think about it.Learning how to balance the five elements of flavor — umami/salt, bitter, sweet, sour and spice — is one of the fundamental tenets of both cooking and mixology. For many cocktail lovers on Instagram, seeing a reel of a drinks influencer cheekily sprinkling microplaned parmesan cheese atop an Espresso Martini may seem like pure chaos, but it is, in fact, the opposite: It’s a quintessential example of umami from the cheese balancing the bitterness of coffee. Despite the sticker shock one might feel about this combination, coffee and cheese historically do...

But you have to drink it like you really mean it. For years doctors have looked askance at us coffee drinkers, warning us about the dangers caffeine poses to our hearts, brains, and bowels. They implored us to quit coffee entirely or at least keep it to one cup a day. But did we listen? No. And what do we have to show for it?Really, really good health.Listen up, coffee drinkers. This is the day of our vindication. It turns out we were right all along — we actually would die without our coffee. Read more: Natural skincare: 5...

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti fired up the first espresso machine in space over the weekend. She posted a selfie on Twitter from the International Space Station on Sunday, sipping from a cup designed for use in zero-gravity. ... Cristoforetti, who returns to Earth next week after a six-month mission, almost did not get any space coffee. The experimental espresso maker, nicknamed ISSpresso after the space station’s initials, was scheduled to arrive in January but did not get to orbit until April because of a shipment backlog. Lavazza, the Italian coffee manufacturer, and the engineering firm Argotec, which teamed up on the...

Coffee has long been a friend of students working through the night, but it does more than just keep us awake. A study provides the first convincing evidence that caffeine enhances long-term memory in people – provided the dose is right. The effects mirror similar results seen in honeybees, where a boost to memory from caffeine-laden nectar may help bees return to certain plants. Researchers strongly suspected that caffeine enhances memory, but studies that tried to show this in people weren't conclusive, as any apparent benefits in memory could have been due to increased attention, a known benefit of caffeine....

A Brooklyn coffee shop is offering customers a real jolt: 10 shots of espresso in a single serving with the nickname "porn in a cup." The Pulp & The Bean in the Crown Heights neighbourhood put the item on the menu Tuesday with the official name of Dieci, Italian for 10. The nickname comes from a sign advertising the drink outside the store, whose specialty item was first reported by the New York Daily News. Shop owner Tony Fisher, 37, said sales were brisk in part because "nobody's ever had the chutzpah (audacity) to do anything like this before." "This...

NEW YORK - A New York coffee shop is offering a 20-ounce beverage with 10 shots of espresso billed as "coffee porn in a cup." Tony Fisher, owner of The Pulp & The Bean, said the Dieci, named after the Italian word for 10, went on sale Tuesday after he realized the all-espresso drink had "never been done before," the New York Daily News reported Wednesday. "It just dawned on me that people really love espresso, so why not just give them a cup full of espresso?" Fisher said. "It's 20 ounces of just thunder," he said. "One giant cup...

Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted public competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General. That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general's 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted. In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators...

EVERETT -- It's a fad that's picking up steam in Snoho­mish County's hyper-competitive coffee market. Espresso drive-through stands with bikini- and lingerie-sporting baristas are popping up from Monroe to Edmonds. In the past year, at least six of these java joints employing provocatively dressed young women have opened in the county. A few owners of these roadside stands say business is so brisk, they're hiring more employees and have plans to open new locations. "I brought a touch of Vegas back to Washington," said Bill Wheeler, who opened Grab 'N' Go Espresso on Highway 99 just south of Everett last...

Since the dawn of coffee, humanity has taken few breaks in its quest for a better cup. Our inaugural coffee buzz, according to legend, came after a shepherd in Africa noticed his goats grew frisky after eating the fruit of a certain bush. Early fanatics took theirs straight, chewing whole, raw beans. Then came roasting, grinding, steeping in water, and the skinny white-chocolate half-caf Venti.

A teenager was rushed to hospital after overdosing on espresso coffee. The 17-year-old downed seven double espresso coffees while working in the family's sandwich shop and was left "burning up and hyperventilating". Student Jasmine Willis, who thought the coffees were single measures, said the effects of the espresso were so severe her actions left customers bewildered. She said she started laughing and crying for no reason while serving them, but after being sent home by her father Gary the medical symptoms started. She developed a fever at home and was unable to breathe properly. Jasmine, of Stanley, County Durham, was...

In a short, sheer, baby-doll negligee and coordinated pink panties, Candice Law is dressed to work at a drive-through espresso stand in Tukwila, and she is working it. Customers pull their trucks up to the window, where Law greets each with an affectionate nickname, blows kisses, and vamps about as she steams milk for a mocha. "You want whipped cream?" she asks, a sly smile playing on her pierced lip... "Do you like my leg warmers?" she asks. "Aren't they hot?" Hot is not the half of it. To stand apart from the hordes of drive-through espresso stands that clutter...

Warren Buffett once called the cigarette the perfect product: "It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive." Much the same could be said about coffee today. Even a costly coffee drink -- Starbucks sells its lattes for about $3.50, depending on the location -- consists of little more than a cup of water, a splash of milk, a spoonful of coffee grinds and 30 seconds of labor. Starbucks has managed to turn its customers' craving for caffeine into a $6.4 billion a year business. It already has about 6,000 company-owned coffeehouses and claims to open...

... a growing number of roasters say the Fair Trade movement has lost its way. The movement has always aroused suspicion on the right, where free traders object to its price floors and anti-globalization rhetoric. Yet critics from the left are more vocal and more angry by half; they point to unhappy farmers, duped consumers, an entrenched Fair Trade bureaucracy, and a grassroots campaign gone corporate. Stream of Conscience ... TransFair’s stated goal is simple: to ensure that farmers get a decent price for their beans, and to let consumers know it. By cutting out predatory middlemen and selling a...

Health news March 10, 2004 Cups of coffee can ward off diabetes . . .By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent DRINKING coffee can substantially reduce the risk of developing diabetes, scientists have discovered. A major study involving more than 14,000 people in Finland, which has the highest rate of coffee consumption in the world, has revealed that those who drink most have the lowest incidence of adult-onset or type 2 diabetes. When people drank three to four cups of coffee a day, their risk of developing diabetes fell by 29 per cent for women and 27 per cent for men....

City Of Seattle Initiative No. 77 Espresso Tax Yes 13147 31.71% No 28307 68.29%

Seattle Voters Says "HELL NO!" To Expresso Tax By Tim Eyman, WA State Anti-Tax Guru I'm shocked but pleased to announce that Seattle voters finally found a tax they not only disliked, but viscerally hated:  the latte tax.  It went down in flames tonight with 68% of Seattle voters, that's right SEATTLE VOTERS, not saying "no" but "HELL NO!" This is clearly a turning point on taxes in Washington state.  We've always had non-Seattle voters on board our efforts toward more tax sanity.  But now it looks as if voters in Seattle have seen the light. Better late than never....

Associated Press (Sep 17, 05:59 AM) After voters in this caffeine capital rejected a proposed 10-cent tax on espresso drinks, cafe owners celebrated with beer, wine and - what else? - lattes. With 97 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, 69 percent of voters opposed the tax. The initiative served a jolt of controversy to an otherwise sleepy off-year primary election. "You can't tax coffee. It just doesn't work," said coffee shop owner Jeff Babcock, celebrating the victory at a downtown espresso store. The measure would have taxed espresso drinks a dime per cup, with the revenue going to fund...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134642379_playboy27.html Playboy in search of willing bare-istas at Starbucks storesJust because its corporate logo is a topless mermaid, that doesn't mean Starbucks is thrilled about a Playboy callout for "Women of Starbucks." The Seattle-based coffee company was anything but abuzz following the venerable men's mag's announcement this week: "Calling all coffee-making cuties!" ... to pose nude in an upcoming issue. No one at Starbucks would comment on the matter apart from this rather terse written statement: "Starbucks Coffee Company is aware that Playboy Enterprises has issued a call for entries for a 'Women of Starbucks' section in a future...