Moscow Cafe Crawl

An Impromptu Poem:

Another day another dollar
Another dollar another coffee
Another coffee and
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Another day.

Filed under: Uncategorized on June 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

The Safeway over in Eastside Marketplace is feverishly remodeling. There was even a crew of workers on scissor lifts at 10:30 PM when I was there last Sunday evening. I overheard that a new in-store Starbucks is going in where the deli is now. Now at least there will be a source of coffee within walking distance when I take my kids to the indoor “tree slide” playground. The mall there has been without coffee for several years, ever since “The Daily Cup” moved to 3rd and Main and then proceeded to go belly-up.

Safeway has been doing this with a lot of their stores. It was so successful a few years ago with their Pullman location that it practically put the regular Starbucks retail shop down the street out of business! Also, I’ve heard that corporate Starbucks has a mixed relationship with these satellite stores. They aren’t able to exert near as much branding and management control over them. One thing that drew people to the Pullman Safeway Starbucks was their promotions. They had a buy-seven-get-one-free drink special (tied to your Safeway card) going for several years. They also printed up in-house coupons for free drinks and would sometimes put them in the local paper or send them to certain email lists. The retail store down the street was prohibited from doing any of these things. At the in-store Starbucks, you could also buy a 50 cent bagel at the bakery a few feet away instead of shelling out $1.50 for the (usually stale) Starbucks bagel behind the coffee counter. In the end though, I think the retail location’s tiny parking lot on Stadium Way was their #1 problem.

I believe the new Eastside Marketplace Safeway Starbucks is set to open in late August, just in time for the fall semester.

In other news, New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room of Existing Starbucks.

Filed under: Business, Starbucks on June 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »

Tonight, my wife and I tried roasting coffee at home for the first time. We had a blast! She documented the excursion on her blog. Here it is in full.

For years now, Hubby and I have wanted to try roasting our own coffee from raw beans. The flavor from fresh-roasted coffee is always quite a bit better, not to mention it would be a fun, unique experience. Today Hubby picked up some green coffee beans from Bucer’s Coffee Pub where his friend is the manager and does the roasting. These beans, from Ethiopia, are said to have quite a bright flavor and the beans are on the small side.

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Filed under: Home Brew on June 11th, 2008 | No Comments »

This is the third and final part of my interview with Brendan from Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub. It’s mostly a topic grab-bag. Read on.

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Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, Business, Interviews on May 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

My wife, recounting an outing from a few days ago…

On the north side of Moscow sits a store we have been visiting a LOT lately: Moscow Building Supply. You see, we’re moving and remodeling at the same time. We have purchased a new-old house next to East City park, a quaint, perfect little cottage where we will be quite happy after one thing happens. We need to move the washer and dryer up out of the basement. To do this we have needed to tear out a Very Solid Wall, paint, putty, run plumbing, hook up electrical… all of the typical DIY stuff and my dad, bless his heart has been doing most of it. What does this have to do with coffee, you ask? Relax, I’m getting there. Dad has sent us to MBS repeatedly to pick up supplies for his endeavors, plus we have been getting garden supplies, shelving and all sorts of goodies to set up our new place. Yes, I do have a coffee-related point. Don’t quit reading yet.

Across the street from MBS on the road out of town towards Coeur d’Alene sits a Java shack. It goes by the wittily clever (read with extensive sarcasm) name of Double Shot Espresso, only when we asked the Barista, it turns out only 16 or 20 ounce drinks actually come with a double shot.

Of course one one of our many trips to MBS we had to try it out, just because we had never been there before. My review written here is based on the exhaustive research, quantitative study and scientifically tallied results of that one trip. The first plus was that there was no line. Well, there is never a line at 4:00 PM in any coffee place. The lines happen at 7:30 AM. So we were able to drive up and place our order right away. Second positive: they have a trivia question. I LOVE Java shacks with trivia questions because if I answer it and get it right (usually by sheer dumb luck) then not only do I feel smart but I save myself enough cash to buy a whole gum ball when I next go to the mall. All Java shacks and coffee shops ought to have a trivia question. I think only Botticelli’s does.

Anyway, we ordered our drinks, a white mocha for me, a plain latte for Hubby, the Coffee Snob and a steamed milk for our three-year-old daughter, the Coffee Snob In Training. The Barista took the usual amount of time making our drinks. Hubby probably timed her shots but he didn’t say anything so I guess they fell within acceptable parameters. She steamed the milk to the temperature of volcanic lava, which would have been okay except that when she handed the mocha to Hubby she popped the lid off and spilled it all over the side of our car. Luckily she had some more lava-milk, so she just added it to the remainder in the cup stuck on a new lid and out it came. Whew! Wouldn’t want to waste that milk.

I have to say, I realize some people like their coffee to scald their tastebuds off their tongues, but I am not one of those people. I let my cup of coffee sit in the cupholder of my car through an entire trip to the grocery store before it was cool enough to drink. The first time I picked it up, the lid popped off again, spilling slightly-less-scalding-hot milk on my lap and the gearshift of the car. Oops.

Finally I got that doomed coffee to my lips. I’d give the quality a 5 out of 10. Typical Java shack fare. Definitely nothing to write home about. So if you’re headed to Coeur d’Alene, stop for a cuppa joe and bring plenty of paper towels along. You never know, you might need them!

Photo credit

Filed under: Drivethroughs, Guest Posts on May 14th, 2008 | No Comments »

I have piles of coffee-related posts to write, but I’ve been engulfed in the chaos of moving my family to a new (and old) house. I’m now only an 8-minute walk from downtown Moscow and it’s wealth of espresso! It has been sustaining my frequent box-bearing trips across town. I’ll get back to writing sometime next week.

Photo credit 

Filed under: Announcements on May 13th, 2008 | No Comments »

Every shop in town has it’s typical customers. There are more exceptions to the rule than there are people who follow the rule, but there are some patterns that are pretty easy to observe. I find the diversity to be fascinating. It’s hard not to eavesdrop.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to spend the evening reading at the big table in Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub. Many of the student’s at New Saint Andrews classical college study here in the evenings. This night was pretty typical I believe. To my left were two young men who spoke at length about how this Easter came very early this year because of the complicated formula used to determine what Sunday it should fall on. It was noted that the Orthodox church (and the Jews) still have Easter (or Passover) coming later this year due to the fact that their calendar isn’t accurate. It doesn’t have leap-years frequent enough to keep the equinox lined up correctly. I didn’t know that before…

Across the table from me was a young man working on translating a cryptic Hebrew text for one of his classes. He occasionally joined in to the discussion about the church calendar with comments about how he had recently visited an Orthodox church on his trip to the Balkans where the daily scripture reading was recited in 10 different languages to cover all the people that might be attending.

To my right was a guy reading Peter Leithart’s new book Solomon Among the Postmoderns. Well, at least he started on it. He ended up spending most of the hour surfing Facebook.

Exactly 5 years ago, it was me sitting in the same chair with my sheet music spread all over the table. I was analyzing a Miles Davis solo transcription as the final project for Theoretical Basis of Jazz at the university. Wow, what a wonderful time. I miss school. Part of me envied all the guys around the table that evening.

The weekend before, I chose to stake out at One World Cafe instead. The singer/songwriter in the corner was covering Dylan and Led Zeppelin. The guy at the table next to me was studying not ancient Hebrew, but books on water resources and environmental engineering. There were also lots of people playing board games, oddly enough! The table on my right contained two young Asian men playing chess. Behind me were a couple of ladies dealing cribbage. On the floor below were four players gathered around a heated game of The Settlers of Catan. I think everyone was glad to be there.

This weekend, I took my wife to the airport in Spokane. I don’t make it up there very often, so I always try to hit Lindaman’s, where you can get a designer espresso made with a fine liqueur. I had a wonderful tiny drink they call “The European”, which is about 1.5 oz of espresso, 1 oz of Sambuca and 1.5 oz of steamed half-and-half. Sambuca happens to be made from Anise extract and tastes like black licorice.

This is a very upscale shop and it shows. There was no missing what kind of cars were in the parking lot. 3 BMWs, a Saab, and a Toyota Prius. I significantly diluted the pool with my old Subaru wagon. Inside there were a group of very well-dressed young women at one table. Another contained a couple sipping red wine and conversing in Spanish. Except it wasn’t the Mexican Spanish I grew up around in the fruit fields of the Columbia Basin. It was slower and smoother. Maybe they were from Spain? Possibly it was Portuguese.

I think I’ll keep life interesting by showing up at all these places from time to time!

Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, One World Cafe, Out of town on April 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

Starbuck’s latest gimmick is their Pike’s Place Roast. It’s a lighter, smoother drip coffee that is guaranteed to be brewed fresh every 30 minutes. They also put up the date and location where the current batch was roasted at. It’s never supposed to be more than a few weeks old. The batch I had a few days ago (April 10), was apparently roasted in Kent, Washington on March 23.

Now, all of this sounds like a great idea. I’ve mentioned before that I am wary of Starbuck’s drip coffee because they rotate the roast and blend on a pretty random basis. Sometimes it’s OK, sometimes it’s vile. This whole idea of having a consistent, fresh, lighter roast drip available came from gathering thousands of comments on their new social networking website. I actually submitted a suggestion along these line myself.

Unfortunately, those who hope for delightful flavored drip coffee will be disappointed. The reason is that in kingdom of Starbucks, coffee is roasted dark. Mild roasts are actually dark. Medium roasts are really dark. French roasts are charred. Take a close look at this photograph. On top is a mild roast from Zoka in Seattle. On the bottom is the new Pike’s Place Roast. Remember that the Pike’s Place Roast is what Starbucks calls a mild to medium roast.

Photo credit

See the shininess on the bottom? Those beans have been in the oven a loooooong time. Not a complete loss, but yet again, most of what constitutes a delicious cup has been traded for a longer shelf-life. Apparently the brewing of mild roast coffee in thousands of stores before it goes bad is still a serious logistical problem. Either that or the roast-master at the very top believe coffee should only be black and never brown! Oh well. Good thing there are lots of other options around this town.

Filed under: Roasting, Starbucks, Uncategorized on April 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

Growing up, I never had coffee. I had tried it and found it to be thoroughly nasty. I only later discovered that it was only the coffee I had tried that was nasty, not coffee in general. Anyway, I didn’t like coffee. But I LOVED cookies. Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with “C”!

In college, I started to enjoy studying in coffee shops. Particularly the Redhawk Crossing, which later moved and became the Nuart. No, I wasn’t interested in the coffee. But I needed a cookie and they had some really wonderful biscotti there. It was baked at home by a friend of the owner. For those of you who have only had the biscotti at Starbucks that comes shrink-wrapped or the Nonni’s biscotti that you find at some supermarkets, you are missing out.

So I had this yummy biscotti, but it was of the hard variety that really needed to be dipped first. Well I needed something to dip it in, didn’t I? Wary of the perceived bitterness of espresso, I began with Chai tea. The Big Train variety made with steamed milk is especially yummy. Going from that to a nice mocha was only an inch away. I was on the slippery slope, and all for a seemingly harmless cookie that was just a little bit too crunchy all by itself.

I need to experiment with some biscotti recipes at home. I haven’t been able to find any around town that measure up to those ones I fell in love with back when I was 17. Here is a recipe from a local that was posted recently. I hope to take a shot at it soon.

Photo credit

Filed under: Food on March 24th, 2008 | No Comments »

Tired of standing in line? If you just want drip, there are some options.

One World Cafe has drip available on your honor, if you have your own cup. Just leave the cash (which is always in 25 cent increments) on the counter.

Bucer’s now has drip refills by honor. Throw money into the cigar box on the counter.

Maybe some other places are doing this too?

Sister’s Brew and Cafe Silos don’t have drip. Starbucks keep theirs protected.

What if you setup your entire shop like this? The upscale Terra Bite Lounge in Seattle is doing just that. The serve espresso and light lunch. No register. No cashier. Order whatever. Put how ever much money you want in the metal box on the counter. Does it work? The owners say that almost everyone pays and they are in the black (after they banned groups of unsupervised kids).

Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, One World Cafe, Out of town on March 18th, 2008 | No Comments »