Announcing This Week’s Theme: Coffee
5 Comments Published by Joel December 11th, 2006 in Announcements, Coffee. Share This
It’s pretty pathetic that I’m sitting in a hotel room in San Francisco, trying to get cleaned up to go down to the lobby to get some crap drip brew—or at best take a run over to a Peet’s—yet we’re about to be schooled in the ways of the bean by my friend and professional coffee nerd Tonx.
Tonx began his coffee journeys with a barista gig slinging espresso at Victrola on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. What was intended to be just an easy job while he “found himself” turned into a deep obsession when he was handed the keys to their coffee roasting operation. (I’ll never forget the first time I heard Tonx say “coffee beans” and “afterburner” in the same sentence.) Victrola soon got a rep as Seattle’s must-visit coffee shop and through his writing and popular coffee (and mushroom) photos Tonx ascended to coffee nerd micro-stardom. When he walks past a Starbucks, the lights dim.*
Recently Tonx said goodbye to Seattle, signed on with the progressive Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee and moved to Los Angeles where he is working on what he hopes will be the next big thing in coffee, set to unveil in the spring. (Because what LA needs is more drugs.)
This week Tonx will debunk some myths, give some tips for tricking out your home coffee set up, and help us navigate the snark infested waters of the online coffeegeek world. He’s also going to put to shame any other theme week we’ve done before, so you might want to down a cup or two just to be primed and ready.
* Hey, might as well get the Starbucks crack out of the way first thing. Besides, Tonx may be too classy to do it—but I can make up for him.
Mmm. There is an Intelligentsia across the street from my apartment (obviously in Chicago). Very good. Though I like the taste of Lavazza a little better, I often can’t pass up that little swirl Inteligentsia does, and they have an awesome cupcake.
I’ve never been to Intelligentsia before but I’ll check it out the next time I’m in Chicago. Their site does have a very nice selection of whole bean coffees. Perhaps as part of this week’s theme, Tonx could hook us up with some free shipping from their site?
There’s a new place that opened up here in Grand Cayman that’s pushing Intelligentsia coffee & tea. I’ve heard that it’s out of Chicago, but I haven’t got around to looking it up just yet, so I’m glad to see that there’s going to be more coverage of it.
It was actually the little swirly thing in the image on this post in the RSS feed that caught my eye, because the, uhh, cupcakes (and they’re spectacular cupcakes, btw) down here do ‘the swirl’ on the top of the coffee as well.
One thing I’ve noticed with Intelligentsia beans, compared with, say Illy at the other coffee shop down here is that the “buzz” from caffeine is like a 12-hour cold pill… it keeps time-releasing and I’m still going from it around lunchtime, rather than a quick hit and then fade out before 10am.
Should be a good week.
Looking forward to having huge, bloody holes shot into my many long-held biases!
I actually just saw that Crate and Barrel has a Wells Street Bold Blend from Intelligentsia with free shipping. Perhaps I’ll order that (or make a trip out there) to sample some of their wares.
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=837&f=14029