This coffee is too roachey

Pax Arcana

There are many reasons to grind your own coffee beans. For one, freshly ground coffee is smoother and less bitter than preground coffee. For another, the sound of a coffee grinder at 7:30 a.m. is the perfect way to say to your 24-year-old neighbors “Good morning, douchebags, and thanks for the three hours of keg stands last night. I hope you’re all pregnant.”

According to Chowhound, there’s at least one more reason to buy whole beans and grind them yourself. It would appear that ground coffee is chock full of insect parts:

It seems Douglas Emlen, a biology professor at the University of Montana, was doing a research trip with an older entomologist who was obsessed with good coffee, and who kept making deviations from the trip route to get it. In the pre-Starbucks ’80s, Emlen says, it was hard to find whole coffee beans, and the entomologist would sometimes go 45 minutes out of his way to find it. Why? As the entomologist finally explained, he had to drink only freshly ground coffee, because he had a serious allergy to cockroach.

“Preground—you know, your big bulk coffee that you buy in a tin—is all processed from these huge stockpiles of coffee … that get infested with cockroaches,” says Emlen. “And there’s really nothing they can do to filter that out. So it all gets ground up in the coffee.”

I’m sure you’re not surprised by this, since we’ve known for a long time that small animals are often caught up in the machinery of modern food processing. And because Juan Valdez died when cockroaches attacked him and his burro. But still, it’s pretty gross.

Fresh, Hot Cup of Cockroaches [Chowhound]

The Great Hipster Civil War Has Begun

Pax Arcana

The skies grow dark over Davis Square this day, as word has come forth from the DC area that the spark has finally been struck. The fuse is ignited. The prophecy is coming to pass.

The great hipster civil war has begun.

What began as a simple drink order in an Arlington, VA coffee house has now catalyzed into a full-on contretemps pitting the two largest hipster factions — coffee snobs and snarky bloggers — against one another in a battle for supreme self-righteousness. Denizens of the gentrified ethnic neighborhoods of New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia are busy preparing for war.

Austin may not survive the night.

The chronicle begins July 13th, when snarky blogger Jeff Simmermon orders his favorite coffee drink — three espresso shots over ice — from a well-respected coffee house called Murky Coffee. He is informed that store policy prevents this abomination, so he orders a triple shot of espresso and a cup of ice. The drink is delivered as ordered, but Simmermon is again told that what he is doing is “really, really Not Okay.”

Simmermon gets peeved. He tells off the barista, writes “FUCK YOU AND YOUR PRECIOUS COFFEE POLICY” on a dollar bill and puts it in the tip jar, then retreats to his snark lair to conjure an appropriate riposte to the injustice that was sort-of done to him.

He writes:

Maybe condescending service from a patronizing millenial at a DC coffee shop isn’t news to anyone else. But the only way I’m ever coming back to Murky Coffee in Arlington is if I’m carrying matches and a can of kerosene.

Snarky blogging is a common strategy employed by snarky bloggers. Usually the snark simply bounces through the series of tubes until it loses speed and dissipates into the ether. But Simmermon’s post gained a new life when it was picked up by Boing Boing — a favorite site of both major hipster factions.

The spark was lit.

Before: Snarky bloggers and coffee shops, an uneasy truce

Simmermon’s post elicited over 200 blog comments, many of which defended the coffee house and condemned his snarky writing. For example:

this isn’t about coffee, this is about the barista doing his job the best he can and you totally disregarding the store policy and then proceeding to be a dick. that photo of the dollar you left speaks a ton about you. you’re an ass and i hope for the sake of the baristas at murky you don’t go back.

and

you need a mobile coffee machine… haven’t the astronauts invented little coffee pills for you yet… just add water… like sea monkeys…

Then the coffee shop itself jumped into the fray, employing its own version of snark directed back at Simmermon. Shop owner Nick threw down the hipster gauntlet (a 3rd place trophy for a 1983 4H Club cattle auction) by threatening violence against Simmermon’s manhood itself:

To Mr. Simmermon, you overplayed your hand with your vulgar tip-schtick. While I certainly won’t bemoan you your right to free-speech, I have to respond to you in your own dialect: F*@k you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you’ll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I’ll punch you in your dick.

And so it was that great hipster civil war began — with a mean dollar, a handful of Web sites, and talk of dick-punching. We now stand on the precipice of our own demise and wonder: what hath hipster man wrought?

As for our position in the coming war — while we are often accused of both epicurean snobbery and snarky blogging, Pax Arcana prefers to remain neutral in this war as long as possible. Just in case, we’ve already ordered kevlar Chuck Taylors and bullet-proof ironic T-shirts. A word of warning to those who would tempt fate by drawing us into this fracas — do not make me slice your ass with my iPhonesaber.

Murky Coffee, Arlington: Hold That Espresso Between Your Knees [And I Am Not Lying]
Open Letter to Jeff Simmermon [Murky Coffee]

Your coffee is wearing a throwback uniform

Pax Arcana

If you’ve ordered a coffee from Starbucks in the past few days, you may have noticed that the chain is now using the more old-fashioned brown logo with a twin-tailed mermaid on its cups rather than the more familiar modernized green mermaid. The older logo is similar to the one first used by the coffee retailer in 1971.

On the left, the new old logo. On the right, the new new logo.

Business Week says the company is dressing its overpriced products in the throwback uniform to harken back to simpler times — when people weren’t vandalizing the shit out of the company’s stores and complaining about its unfair buying practices:

This is the second time in three years Starbucks has trotted out the brown mermaid, inspired by a Norse woodcut. Back in 2006, she was resurrected to mark the chain’s 35th anniversary. This time, she is a messenger for Chairman Howard Schultz, who is trying to restore some of the goodwill and warm feelings for the brand that have gone by the wayside because of increasing coffee prices, machine-made lattes, and bad press.

But enough about that. Let’s talk about boobies.

Specifically, let’s talk about how the last time Starbucks trotted out the old logo, the American Civil Defense League for Refraining from Acknowledging the Existence of Mammaries (ACDLRAEM) came out against the bare-breasted siren:

In 2006, when the logo was originally revived, the chain received complaints about the “decency” of the logo and, despite the chairman’s well-known liberal politics, the lady grew long hair to cover her indecency. That’s the version we have today.

And we’re better off for it. Nothing gets Pax Arcana hotter than a cardboard print of a woodcut of a chubby half-fish woman with two scaly appendages for legs. Every time I see her, it’s like I’ve drowned and gone to sex coffee heaven.

Starbucks’ Retro Logo [Business Week]

Old Ad Wednesday: Coffee Jerk

Pax Arcana

Via Boing Boing, this TV spot makes us yearn for a different time…

…a time when you knock out douchebags like this guy and not worry about a lawsuit.

The baristas need to get learnt

Pax Arcana

Don’t bother hitting your local Starbucks next Tuesday evening. Chances are pretty good they’ll be closed down so senior management can swoop in and remind the baristas how to make coffee. Because they forgot or something. Via WSJ:

The company plans to retrain more than 135,000 employees in an effort to create “a renewed focus on espresso standards,” it said.

The nation’s 7,100 company-operated stores across the U.S. will close at 5:30 p.m. local time and reopen at 8:30 p.m., Starbucks said. Locations in places such as airports and supermarkets will retrain workers, but not necessarily at the same time.

Consumerist takes a deep whiff, blinks a few times, and points out the obvious:

The training session is another move by re-instated CEO Howard Schultz to demonstrate a renewed focus on product quality, although it also sounds a little bit like a PR stunt.

Look, I’m all for continuing education for people who run hot water through burnt beans all day, but I’m a bit terrified of what’s going to happen if the Marbury v. Madison Ave lady can’t get her fix. We’re talking real weeping and gnashing of teeth, here, and quite possibly lawsuits.

Starbucks stores to close for espresso training [WSJ]
Starbucks Retraining Employees At 7,100 Stores Next Week [Consumerist]