Posted on 01/06/2006 5:46:44 AM PST by Honcho Bongs
Coffee shortage brews trouble in Venezuela
National Guard seizes 330 tons of beans
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Posted: 11:18 a.m. EST (16:18 GMT) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Coffee is vanishing from Venezuelan stores as producers protest price controls they say are strangling profits -- no laughing matter in a country where drinking the bitter brew is not simply a habit but a culture.
Troops and inspectors have begun raiding inventories held by private companies in an effort to ease the scarcity, authorities said on Wednesday. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Price controls don't work? I thought they were what saved the Nixon presidency.
The day we run out of coffee or restrict caffeine intake is the day that I join the NRA and make ammo in the cellar.
Message: "Coffee producers MUST produce or the government will steal from you and destroy you."
"...Coffee is vanishing from Venezuelan stores..."
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! NNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LORD, SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!!!!!!
OOOHHHH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!
(sorry folks, just finished my 4th cup...)
Shades of Stalin and the Kulaks.
So will this undermine Chavez?
Yes it will :-)
You know, it is AMAZING how predictable the results of socialism are...yet they keep trying at it!
Oh, well,now, that'll do it, won't it? Nothing like government search-and-siezure to guarantee a plentiful supply of something in a free market. Or any other kind of market, for that matter.
I hope they don't come for my stash...
"We must invade the U.S. We hear that they are hoarding our coffee"
All we have to do is hose them down with caffe coolattas. They will calm down right away.
its the bottom half of the bell curve- who think they commmunism will let them 'share the wealth' and actually believe there WILL be any wealthto share - when the incentives are taken away from you for being successful
Those are the peoplle who get socialists elected.
Which means they're not intrested in results, more like the...opportunities, shall we say?
Oh yes, especially that brand named for them, "Chock Full of Nuts"....
This is DUmmie nirvana. Price controls, troops raiding warehouses to seize coffee and sell it below cost! Woohoo!
Starbucks takes cheap beans and roasts them longer to give the impression that they are better quality than they are. Exceptions include their Sumatra. But other blends aren't as good.
We tried the inexpensive "Marques de Paiva" Stossel recommends and we are hooked.
THE SCOOP ON PRICEY COFFEE
By John Stossel
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Do you pay big bucks for "better quality" coffee? Maybe you spring for Dean & DeLuca's beans, which cost $12 per pound. Well, wake up — have someone give you a blind taste test — because you're probably wasting your money.
Fancy coffee companies do take great pains to make sure their coffee beans are "better." "Specialty beans are roasted and ground for this important test, the cupping," intones a video the Specialty Coffee Association of America sent me. In the cupping, "experts" "sip small portions of the brewed coffee and judge its taste, body and aroma."
What they approve is later sold by companies like Dean & DeLuca, Starbucks and Oren's Daily Roast, which cost plenty. Compare their prices: $12 and $10 a pound to the $5 a pound for Folgers, America's best seller, or $4 for Marques de Paiva, sold by Sam's Club at Wal-Mart, and even less for instant coffees like Nescafe.
Now, if coffee is available for less than $4 a pound, why spend three times that? Does expensive really taste better?
We ran a taste test. We invited people to sample the six brands of coffee I mentioned but didn't tell them which was which. We asked them to grade each coffee "bad," "average" or "great." Then I sat down with some of the tasters, most of whom had clear preferences. "Coffee's the most passionate and romantic beverage," said one; another compared coffee to "fine wine."
Some testers, like Mister "Fine Wine," could indeed identify their favorite. His was Starbucks, which did well on our test. In fact, even a woman who told us she hated Starbucks liked it when it wasn't labeled Starbucks. "I don't know, maybe I'm pickin' the wrong coffee," she said.
Remarkable things happen when you take off the label. Taryn Cooper discovered that her preference was instant coffee. "That's interesting, because like I feel like instant coffee is kind of sacrilegious," she said.
We invited the six coffee companies to send representatives to watch and/or take our test. Only Folgers and Oren's said yes, and only the Oren's rep, Genevieve Kappler, actually had the guts to go in front of a network television camera and announce to the world which coffee she preferred — when that coffee was identified only by number. Would it be the brand she's paid to hawk or a competitor's? She waited nervously as I told her the result:
"You only picked one as the best. You think it was yours? . . . The one you liked best was — Oren's. You picked yours."
"Yes!"
"The best coffee will . . . certainly not be the cheapest," Kappler said. "We don't look at the price."
That statement would have been more convincing were it not for the fact that overall, her coffee didn't do very well. Half the testers listed it as "bad."
"None of these coffees were brewed the way we do," she said. "So the result is not going to be . . . as good as it could be."
Really? Our brewing was supervised by Kevin Sinnott, author of "Great Coffee: The Coffee Lover's Guide." If he isn't brewing it correctly, who is?
Still, kudos to Kappler for taking the test. Rich Bertagna, the Folgers representative, backed out. He said he couldn't because other testers smelled of perfume. (This must explain why there is never any odor in coffee shops.)
On our unscientific test, Starbucks came in first. A close second went to, surprise, the Sam's Club brand, Marques de Paiva. Oren's came in a distant third, closely followed by Nescafe, the instant coffee. The most expensive brand, the $12 a pound Dean & DeLuca's, ranked second to last, and dead last was Folgers, America's best seller.
When I confronted Bertagna about that, he said, "Well, every morning millions of Americans enjoy waking up with Folgers for the great taste and value." At least Folgers is relatively cheap. Our test confirmed what coffee specialists told us: Coffee is a matter of individual taste. Expensive doesn't necessarily mean better
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Juan Valdez Shrugged.
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