Coffee?

[qiphlow]

any coffee junkies out there? i'm so bad, i roast my own stuff! anyone else?

[ZhuiQuan]

I'm not a "coffee junkie" necessarily, but I do enjoy GOOD coffee. I usually buy my coffee from Trader Joe's because they have a big selection of pretty good stuff. I can't deal with the major brands (Folgers, Maxwell House, Starbucks, etc.)

Where do you get beans that you can roast yourself?

[qiphlow]

www.sweetmarias.com
the site is chock-full of info about coffee, and home roasting and brewing. a pound of beans averages about 5 bucks, with slight discounts if you buy in quantity. they also sell all the roasting equipment you'd ever need. i used to strictly buy from peet's , but once i began roasting my own, peet's tasted old. roasting at home is very easy, too! and the coffee tastes fantastic!

[ZhuiQuan]

That's cool, thanks. I'll check that out

[bodhitree]

I'm a complete coffee junkie, I tried to switch to tea for a little less caffiene, but its too difficult. I have worked in 2 different starbucks (sadly to say, pu ssy as s company). I love the stuff.

[D-FENS]

Doesn't coffee have some medicinal properties if you don't nuke it with sugar and cream?

[kfson]

Is it good or bad for you?

[Lucas]

depends on how much you drink i think. some studies have shown that coffee actually helps fight prostate cancer. i read an article about that a while ago and how this has prompted a trend for a large portion of japanese men to begin drinking decaf coffee.

i personally like coffee but i dont drink a lot.

[kfson]

My doctor of oriental medicine says no, no.

But when the weather becomes cold, I get a craving for the roasted flavor. At least that's what I think I'm craving. Tea just doesn't cut it.

[Lucas]

well it is a diuretic. im sure as with many things we dont need, you would be better off abstaining.

however, and this is my personal take, its not going to kill me. likely even if i drink coffee for the rest of my life, ill live into old age without serious health concerns directly related to coffee. or something else will kill me.

plus coffee helps prevent prostate cancer, thats a plus. someone would have to show me a negative side effect that is worse than giving up an aid against prostate cancer, so far as with anything moderation is the key and I have as yet to notice any negative results from long term coffee intake. I'm a man, so I dont want prostate cancer, anyone with a history of this in their family would probably be happy to take in any all natural aids against developing this.

[GeneChing]

Fremont? WTH? We're in FREMONT!!!

COFFEE 8 hours ago
California coffee shop's bikini-clad baristas will now wear shorts and tank tops following backlash from community
By Michael Bartiromo | Fox News

The owner of Pink Pantherz Espresso announced his newest location will employ baristas in more modest clothing. (Google)

The bikini-clad baristas at the newest Pink Pantherz Espresso shop near Redwood City, Calif., will be ditching their swimsuits when the café opens on Friday afternoon, albeit in favor of more modest attire.

Pink Pantherz, which regularly employs scantily-clad female baristas at its locations in Modesto, Fresno and Fremont, has come to an agreement with San Mateo County after meeting with concerned residents near the Redwood City location — and amid threats of protesters planning to march outside the café.

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pinkpantherzespresso1Good morning! Come see @bridale22 before she’s off at 12pm in Fremont! Grab a wet kiss mocha with white coffee��☕️

As part of the agreement, the owner of the shop has confirmed the female servers in the new location – which actually sits in a unincorporated part of North Fair Oaks – will wear shorts and tank tops instead of lingerie and bikinis.

The coffee stand will also rename some of the edgier items on the menu, including its “Bootycall” and “Pantydropper” drinks.

“[Pink Pantherz is] revisiting drink names and even implementing, for the first time, a more family-friendly dress policy for their baristas,” Pink Pantherz Espresso owner, Jose Carmona, told The Mercury News.

“We’re surprised [by the backlash] obviously, just because it’s not a new concept, but at the end of the day we’re a company and we can change,” Carmona added.

Public outcry over the newest Pink Pantherz Espresso location erupted earlier this summer, after residents became aware of the “bikini shop” planning to open on El Camino Real, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

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pinkpantherzespresso1Good afternoon Modesto!Britany is here till 8 come get a sweet thang before she’s gone!She will be back Thursday 4-10

In the time since, the San Mateo County received a petition signed by 2,000 people opposed to the shop’s opening, while another Change.org petition gathered 1,500.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors also met with residents to discuss their issues with the baristas’ dress code, which some feared would send the wrong message to schoolchildren passing by.

While Friday afternoon's protest was canceled after the announcement, some still plan on marching as “a celebration of the power of community,” Sister Christina Heltsley told the Mercury News.

“The young women that are [employed by Pink Pantherz] have their reasons [but] it feels like we’ve made so many steps forward and this is going backward.”

County officials are also pleased with Carmona’s decision, but admitted the “distasteful” attire of the baristas was not technically violating any rules.

Bottoms Up Espresso is planning to open up a new location in Chico, Calif., but the idea appears to have residents hot and bothered - and not in the way the owners likely intended.
Pink Pantherz Espresso's opening in the summer came weeks after a similar California chain, Bottoms Up Espresso, began getting backlash over its new location in Chico.

THREADS
Breastaurants
Coffee?

Shoot, those pix aren't copying...

[GeneChing]

Ethiopian coffee chain plans for 100 cafes in China
Garden of Coffee eyes the mainland market with their artisanal Ethiopian coffee beans
by Jethro Kang October 30, 2018 in Food



China’s coffee scene continues brewing with the entrance of Ethiopian cafe chain Garden of Coffee, who plans to establish over 100 outlets on the mainland.

The African cafe and roastery will open their first branch in Shanghai soon, joining other local and foreign chains battling for a slice of China’s growing thirst for coffee.

Founded by Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu in 2016, Garden of Coffee is known for their hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee beans. The country is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of coffee and is one of the world’s largest coffee producer and the top grower of the beans.

Besides a physical location, Garden of Coffee is selling their range of five coffee beans on WeChat together with accessories. A Taobao store is also in the works.

Their bigger plan, however, is to have over 100 stores in China by 2022. Garden of Coffee is also launching a subscription service for customers to receive coffee beans in one-, two-, or four-week intervals.

Garden of Coffee isn’t the only cafe chain eyeing a slice of the mainland. Kenyan-based chain Java House signed an agreement in August with a Shanghai logistics firm to export their beans to China, while Seattle coffee behemoth Starbucks wants to double their 3,400 over stores by 2022. Most ambitious is homegrown brand Luckin Coffee, who plans to have more outlets in China than Starbucks.

I love Ethiopian coffee. Why don't we have this chain here in the U.S.?

[GeneChing]

this sux

Why Your Morning Coffee Might Cost More in 2019
By BLOOMBERG December 29, 2018

It’s been a big year for the companies that sell coffee, but not so much for the growers that supply them. That could start to change in 2019.

Historically low prices for coffee beans in 2018 will likely reduce the incentive for farmers to expand supplies, said Rodrigo Costa, the U.S.-based coffee director for Brazilian trading company Comexim. That could mean a price spurt ahead, analysts say, as major moves within the industry promise to boost consumption worldwide.

Coca-Cola Co., for instance, spent $5 billion in 2018 to get into the java space. Meanwhile, Nestle SA made its third-largest deal in 152 years when agreeing to pay $7.15 billion for the right to market products from Starbucks Corp., which is now expanding in China at a rate of a new store every 15 hours as demand in the world’s second largest economy booms.

“You can’t have everybody in the chain winning at the same time,” said Lucio Dias, commercial director at Cooxupe, the world’s largest coffee-growers cooperative, in an telephone interview from Guaxupe, Brazil. “Now, it’s been the time of the industry.”

Next year, he and others say, the growers may get a bigger piece of the action. Coffee futures are forecast to average $1.24 a pound in 2019, according to the mean estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That’s up from $1.15 a pound this year, which is below the past five-decade average price.

That will come as consumption has increased by an average 3.6 million bags a year since 2014-15 season, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It’s been a tough 2018 for farmers. Prices for arabica-coffee beans, the type favored by Starbucks, fell about 20 percent this year in New York, touching the lowest level since 2006.

The annual average price paid to farmers in Brazil was the lowest in four years in local currency terms. That’s because demand growth has been more than offset by a jump in coffee supplies led by the south American country after a wave of investments in trees, fertilizers and improved growing techniques in the past few years was met with near-perfect weather conditions in 2018.

Global coffee output in the current season is estimated at a record 174.5 million bags, up 15.6 million from the previous year, also reflecting output increases in Colombia and Vietnam, the USDA said on Dec. 14. Ending stocks are seen rising by a quarter to a four-year high.

Excess supplies favored the consumer end of the sector over producers. In 2018, U.S. retail prices for roasted coffee rose to an average 3.8 times the price for the commodity futures traded in New York, the highest level since 2013.

The weakening of the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso against the dollar also played a role in the drop by encouraging local farmers to sell more of their coffee, which is usually priced in the greenback. So did the worst decline in commodity prices since 2015 amid rising interest rates in the U.S.

Output in Brazil should decline to 55 million bags from a record 63.4 million bags this year as the country enters the lower-yielding half of a biennial cycle, which should help sustain prices and favor farmers over roasters, Dias of Cooxupe said.

[GeneChing]

When you learn a new term like 'anal cleft', it's time to split Bikini Baristas off into its own indie thread from Breastaurants.

A sign of the times.

COFFEEPublished 20 hours agoLast Update 14 hours ago
Bikini baristas appeal city ordinance issuing dress code
By Alexandra Deabler | Fox News

Bikini baristas appeal city ordinance issuing dress code

How much “anal cleft” is one allow to show while at work? That’s the question one Washington court is trying to answer.

A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing an ongoing legal saga between bikini baristas and the city of Everett over the anatomical phrase “anal cleft” and whether dress codes imposed on businesses violate their civil rights.

Both sides appeared in court Monday to further argue the city’s ordinance, which was passed August 2017, that restricts what employees of “quick-service” restaurants wear by requiring that the “bottom one-half of the anal cleft” be covered, Herald Net reported.

According to the ordinance, employees who work at fast food restaurants, food trucks and coffee stands are required to wear at least a tank top and shorts while at work.


Employees are required to wear at least a tank top and shorts. (City of Everett)

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman approved the injunction during litigation, ruling the ordinance likely violates the bikini baristas’ First and 14th Amendment rights.

“The term ‘bottom one-half of the anal cleft’ is not well-defined or reasonably understandable, and the ordinances otherwise fail to provide clear guidance and raise risks of arbitrary enforcement. The court finds that the dress code ordinance likely violates plaintiffs’ right to free expression under the First Amendment,” Pechman wrote in the injunction order, Courthouse News reported.

Jovanna Edge, owner of Hillbilly Hotties, one of several bikini barista coffee shops involved in the suit, and attorney Melinda Ebelhar argued that the order was intentionally vague and would be too difficult to enforce.

Ebelhar claimed it would take “advanced math” to figure out whether the bottom half of the anal cleft was exposed.

U.S. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen seemed to agree, asking, “How can law enforcement determine where the bottom half is and measure it?” Courthouse News reported.

Assistant city attorney Ramsey Ramerman disagreed with the questioning, saying that the legislation was specifically worded and argued that Edge understood what the new dress code law allowed.

Ramerman argued it was the city’s responsibility to combat prostitution or illegal sexual activity – messages he claimed the bikini barista coffee stand was sending.

Judge Sandra Ikuta agreed, stating she was concerned customers would see the women working as saying: “I am sexually available,” the Herald Net reported.

According to the publication, Ebelhar defended the baristas' choice of outfits as personal expression, female empowerment and a form of body positivity.

“The message they are sending is this is not your mother’s coffee stand,” she said.

A final ruling has not yet been reported.

Alexandra Deabler is a Lifestyle writer and editor for Fox News.

Man, whaddya gotta do to get a cup of coffee here?

[GeneChing]

Man, remember when the WC forum was such the rage here? Now it's a struggle for me to find newsworthy articles to post here from my newsfeeds.

Nevertheless, this looks amusing.

SMES
"Business is not a war, so stop treating it like one"
Leon co-founder John Vincent on how an ancient Chinese martial art transformed its corporate culture.
by Stephen Jones
Published: 08 Oct 2019 Last Updated: 09 Oct 2019

Leon’s director of wellbeing has just punched me in the chest. "Did you feel that?," Julian Hitch asks without a hint of remorse. "It’s so much more powerful when the arm is straight."

He’s not wrong, I mutter to myself.

We’re standing in what will be the wellbeing studio of the healthy fast food chain’s brand new Borough office, learning Wing Tsun (pronounced wing chun), a defensive martial art.

Just how a martial arts expert came to be involved with Leon is itself an interesting story. Leon co-founder John Vincent bid for Hitch in a charity fundraising event in 2015, winning the opportunity for him to host a session at the company’s upcoming wellbeing retreat.

At the time, Vincent says he was looking for a new approach, and Wing Tsun’s wisdom, focused on winning not fighting, knowing yourself and achieving longevity, opened the door to a new way of doing business. Hitch was invited to come aboard and has been heading up Leon’s wellbeing initiatives for the last four years.

All of the company’s baristas, new starters, leadership team and support staff are now offered the chance to learn Wing Tsun (WT), and Vincent says the martial art’s principles have become central to the company’s internal strategy.

It’s easy to be sceptical about the idea of building a business around principles that date back to the fourteenth century Ming dynasty, but Vincent and Hitch are convinced of its uses as a tool for business and lifestyle success - so convinced in fact that they’ve spent the last four years co-authoring a book about it.

Leon’s growth from under 20 to over 70 stores amid turbulent market conditions, they say, is physical proof of the philosophy’s impact.

WHY WING TSUN? HOW CAN IT BE USED FOR BUSINESS?
Hitch: "The barista example is really interesting. It can be a challenging position, it’s quite full on. If you get someone’s coffee wrong it can literally make or break their morning so there’s a lot of pressure - and when you’re making 200 in a morning, there's a lot of potential for mistakes.

"We started looking at how we could apply the principles of WT practically to the coffee machine - so that’s things like natural ergonomics and the shortest line. We then focused on the concept of mastery, which is how do you make something that’s repetitive something that’s actually enjoyable and becomes a professional development for you.

"The timings for our coffee test - which is make six coffees in five minutes - were on average 90 seconds quicker and heart rate went down from around 100 to 60 BPM."

Vincent: "One of the fundamental parts of transforming the culture has been getting everyone to know themselves - to understand what drives them emotionally and how to work more effectively with each other.

"The fundamental difference between Leon and other restaurants is that the managers are living free from fear. And they’re able to replicate that atmosphere in their restaurants.

"They're not blocking people or policies with their own emotions and therefore the organisation becomes more fluid and change becomes much easier because people are more willing to accept new ways of doing things."

YOU SAY THAT BUSINESS ISN’T ABOUT FIGHTING? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?
Vincent: "Business is often framed as a battle or a war. We talk about targeting the customer, having a war room or annihilating the competition.

"The impact of that is you're always forcing, you're always over-exerting, you're creating aggressive business plans,and you're fundamentally associating success with fighting. That makes you less creative - in combat you go into tunnel vision."

SURELY IT’S NOT ALWAYS THAT LITERAL - ISN’T A FUNDAMENTAL PART OF BUSINESS COMPETITION?
Vincent: "What did World War Two do for Britain? It destroyed the Empire and made us one of the poorest, stupidest countries in the world. War doesn't help, so why would businesses adopt it as a metaphor?

"In WT the first step is to know yourself and become conscious of who you are both as a person and as a business. Many people have never even asked themselves that. The first thing you recognise is that the conflict that you have perceived is created by you and your fears. So in a personal situation, understanding when you have reacted negatively and being able to understand that is really important.

"Before [I met Julian] I probably focused too much on beating the competition, and now I literally don't give a **** about competition. We’re not saying don’t have some sort of peripheral vision for what the competition is doing. We’re saying don’t make destroying them your objective. Make looking after the customer, and most importantly the people in your company, the objective.

"If you’re seeking to destroy something else you’re not doing that."


Vincent (left) bid for Hitch (right) in a charity raffle

IT ALL SOUNDS A BIT ALTRUISTIC. DOES IT REALLY WORK?
Vincent: "It’s based on a thousand years of understanding human nature and it’s completely validated by all the major psychologists of the 20th century. Businesses that adopt it are successful. Leon is the best performing company in the sector, and all the others that are focused on "fighting" are not performing as well. I would ask anyone who is sceptical about it how "fighting" is working for them? Is it helping you sleep, is it helping your people be more fulfilled? No."

SO WHERE SHOULD A BOSS START?
Vincent: "It’s a process where you get to understand ego and what causes conflict in the workplace or in your life in general. So everybody’s first step should be to have a really clear map of your own personality and then to watch out for when a situation, or their reaction to a situation, could be caused by their own ego or insecurities."

Hitch: "Understand that the more you force others, the more it takes of your own energy. So that ability to know yourself and then become more relaxed through that can have a profound change on you and your business."

Vincent and Hitch’s book, Winning Not Fighting: Why you need to rethink success and how you can achieve it with the ancient art of Wing Tsun, published by Penguin Business, is out in November.

THREADS
Wing chun books
Coffee?