Coffee, It's a Helluva Drug

The Matty Macchiato 4th Annual Holiday Gift Guide

This year I’m taking a slightly different approach to my previous gift guides (2018, 2019, and 2020). While some of the models may have been replaced by newer iterations, pretty much all the recommended items in those posts would still make for great gifts. This version, however, is for those of you who just thought, “Oh $#%@!, it’s five days to Christmas and I haven’t ~~written my annual gift guide post~~ finished my shopping yet!”

So if the calendar is not your friend, supply chain worries are making you pull out your hair, and you’ve got a coffee lover in your life, here are a few suggestions.

Salt & Pepper Diner Essential Song of the Day for 12/16

I had been thinking that it was about time to pick a song made in this century, but last weekend I found myself in a bar/video game arcade in Manhattan playing Frogger as this song was blasting at high volume. For a song recorded 54 years ago, it still slaps. Play it 21x in a row – loudly – and you’ll see.

This Isn’t a Box, This Is So Much More Than a Box

I recently made my first order with Fellow Drops, the text-to-order coffee service from the company that makes the most achingly beautiful coffee paraphernalia. It was a sampler set of four coffees from Onyx Coffee Lab, one of my favorite roasters.

Not too much longer, a small box, no more than a 5″ x 5″ x 5″ cube, arrived at my home. My initial reaction was disappointment, because clearly four bags of coffee couldn’t fit inside such a wee little box. My second reaction was befuddlement, as it took a while to figure out how to open the sucker. Once I did, ohhhhhhhhh my, was I in for a delightful surprise.

Mission-critical info from The NY Times

I’m just going to leave this here.

Happy National Espresso Day!

November 23 is national espresso day here in the US. Glad tidings to all who celebrate.

If you’re looking to joyfully slug back some of that dark brown nectar today, here are some cafés I highly recommend (basically, all those places that have received The Coveted Asterisk of Quality from my guide):

Ozo Coffee Company, Boulder, CO
Corvus Coffee Roasters, Denver, CO
Crema Coffee House, Denver, CO (Larimer Street)
Huckleberry Roasters, Denver, CO (Dairy Block)
Pablo’s Coffee, Denver, CO (13th & Pennsylvania)

Arethusa a mano, Bantam, CT
Coffee Pedaler, New Haven, CT
J. Rene Coffee Roasters, West Hartford, CT

Brooklyn’s Yemeni-Americans reclaiming coffee

There’s a great article in today’s New York Times about young Yemeni-Americans in Brooklyn building coffee businesses featuring beans grown in Yemen. It’s an enjoyable read and about a lot more than coffee.

Salt & Pepper Diner song of the day for 11/6

There was a guy in college with me whom I didn’t know, but whose name matched ‘Der Komissar’ in inflection, number of syllables, and it ended in -esar. So from that point to the day I die I only hear his name in this song.

SHA!!!!

trying to catch up

Between being off my feet for a while and having to get my grinder serviced, I hadn’t made espresso at home for about a month and a half. Finally got a chance yesterday, and I was a little surprised that I had to work to remember some of the steps. But my first effort I thought was decent as far as the milk art goes.

It was also my first time making beans from Tim Wendelboe, a Norwegian roaster who supplies a lot of fine coffee shops across Europe. I was very impressed, the flavor was smooth and balanced, without the burnt taste of overroasting or the sourness that can accompany some Third Wave coffees. The beans were a two-bean blend from the Finca Tamana plantation in Colombia, you can read the whole story of Wendelboe’s relationship with the farm here.

The pricing wasn’t terrible for being shipped from Norway, though the bag only contained 250 grams of beans. Still worth it.

feeling the love

Was with a bunch of family this weekend, and at one point I walked into the kitchen to find everyone was wearing one of these. I was really touched, meant a lot.