Starbucks Launches “Starbucks Reserve”
Starbucks has announced the introduction of an ultra premium coffee, Starbucks Reserve, to their menu. A 12 oz cup will sell for nearly $3 in Seattle and other select markets. The coffee will be released on August 31st.
Starbucks has chosen to pitch the product in New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Boston, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Miami. Starbucks will preview the coffee in select markets on August 28th.
Coffee Prices Increase in NY
Coffee prices are at a 12 year high in New York due to the weak dollar. The US dollar dropped against the six other major currencies, even after gaining in the last five sessions.
The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials gained as much as 0.5 percent before a plunge in wheat prices dragged the index down. Coffee climbed 6.1 percent last week on speculation that too much rain will hurt crops in Brazil and Colombia, the world’s largest producers of arabica beans. “The lower dollar is giving coffee a little bit of bid,” said Hector Galvan, a senior trading adviser at RJO Futures in Chicago. “There’s also some speculative buying” following last week’s increases, he said.
Bloomberg reported that Coffee has gained 33% this year in te global market.
Coffee May Decrease Risk of Neck and Head Cancers
A new study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention has shown that coffee drinkers have another reason to celebrate! Coffee may decrease the risk of neck and head cancers.
In this study, scientists looked at the results of nine previous cancer/caffeine studies (using coffee and tea) to come up with their findings. Results show that those who drink a lot of joe have a lower rate of head and neck cancer. In each of the pooled studies the participants with cancer were compared to healthy persons in the general populations and hospitalized persons who did not have cancer. Overall the rate of cancer was 12% lower in people who drank coffee as compared to their no-joe counterparts. This number comes after taking into account certain other factors such as cigarette smoking.
The more you drink, the better! The study found that those who consumed more than four cups a day had their risk of cancer reduced by more than a third.
For cancer of the voice box, or larynx, coffee didn’t seem to play a role; nor did tea or decaffeinated coffee for any type of head and neck cancer.
The data does not conclusively prove that coffee itself protects against cancer. There could be other factors associated with coffee drinking that explain the lower cancer risk, or cancer sufferers might have decreased their coffee intake for some reason. “Besides caffeine, coffee contains more than a thousand chemicals,” the researchers reported in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, adding that the compounds cafestol and kahweol may be protective against carcinogens that would normally damage our genes.
The odds of getting this type of cancer are slim. In the U.S., only about 1 in 10,000 develops the disease every year.
SOURCE: http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/ Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, June 22, 2010
Study Finds Frequent Coffee Users My Not Get a Morning Wakeup
We all need our coffee to get going in the morning. We look forward to our little cup of caffeinated heaven and so does everyone else who has to be around us! But a new study suggests that we may not be getting a pick me up from our morning cup of joe, but rather we are feeling better from coming out of caffeine withdrawal.
A study was performed at Bristol University in the UK comparing coffee drinkers to non-coffee drinkers when it comes to alertness. Those of us addicted to caffeine are no more alert than non-coffee drinkers, according to the study.Researchers said that the energy boost that habitual coffee drinkers feel after their morning cup of joe comes from the body’s return to a normal state after a night of caffeine withdrawal. Those who consume very little caffeine or none at all will reach the same level of alertness without any extra help.
One scientist said “Someone who consumes caffeine regularly when they’re at work but not at weekends runs the risk of feeling a bit rubbish by Sunday. It’s better to stick with it or keep off it altogether.” I’m all for that! I shall stick with my morning cup of joe as per the scientist’s suggestion!
In the study, researchers had 379 people restrain from caffeine for 16 hours. Half were classified as moderate to heavy caffeine consumers, and the other half had little or none. Later on, each was given either a dose of caffeine or a placebo and were asked to rate their alertness and whether they had a headache.
Caffeine drinkers who received the placebo reported headaches and sluggishness. Caffeine drinkers given coffee reported levels of alertness equal to non-coffee drinkers given the placebo.
Coffee Increases Productivity and Safety at Work
Workers who are subject to “shift work” suffer from increased tiredness due to the interruption in their biological clock. This disruption can lead to more accidents and less productivity at work.
Researchers looked at workers who drank caffeine, whether in coffee or energy drinks and compared those results to workers who took naps and placebos. The results: work-related tests showed those on the caffeine suffered significantly less mistakes and had better memory, attention, perception and reasoning.
”It seems reasonable to assume that reduced errors are associated with fewer injuries, although we cannot quantify such a reduction.” says lead researcher Katharine Ker of the London School of Tropical Medicine.
Study Says Coffee NOT Linked To Colon Cancer
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the findings of a study on coffee and colon cancer online on May 7, 2010. The result was good news. Coffee is NOT linked to colon cancer so go ahead and drink up.
“Cutting down or removing sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet was viewed as a major target for preventing major cancers,” noted Dr. Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina, who was not involved in the study.
Harvard researchers used data from several previous studies and followed some 700,000 people for up to 20 years after they had reported their dietary habits. Fewer than one in a hundred developed colon cancer, and neither coffee nor soft drinks influenced that rate appreciably.
“Drinking coffee, even more than six cups a day, was not associated with risk of colon cancer,” said Dr. Xuehong Zhang of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the study. The findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, square with earlier research for coffee.
For the heaviest tea drinkers, who drank at least four cups a day, the risk of developing colon cancer rose by 28 percent, on average. However, that link could be due to chance, or factors that the researchers didn’t measure –whether or not people put sugar and milk in their tea, or had pastries with it, for example.
“The relationship between tea and colon cancer is unclear for the time being,” said Zhang.
Coffee Shops in Distress: Recent Flooding and Water Main Breaks
Unfortunately the Eastern part of the United States is undergoing some major water issues. Flooding is causing a lot of problems, not just with the roads, but with the coffee shop industry due to boil water advisories.
Many people showed up at Dunkin Donuts this morning in the Boston, Massachusetts area only to be met with a smile and an apology. Their coffee orders—-DENIED! The area has experienced a major water main break and are under a boil water advisory until further notice. Coffee is not flowing.
The flooding, home damage and lack of caffeine will surely put a major damper on this week.
Beans Prepared By Animals
In the Philippines coffee is becoming a big business. Coffee trees grow abundantly on these islands. But the Philippines have a little more help in making coffee “extra special” than other counties do. How is that?
Some Philippine beans get a little extra processing which makes them the most expensive coffee beans in the world. This processing is handled by an unlikely employee who gets paid in coffee cherries. His taxes, if you will, are then pooped out in the form of processed coffee beans which are quickly collected and packaged for your enjoyment. So just who is this little worker?
The civet is a catlike creature, although not actually a cat. He is nocturnal and furry. He loves coffee cherries and in return for his delicious feast the enzymes and acids in his stomach ferment the beans and when they are excreted from the animal’s intestinal track they produce a lovely chocolaty and smooth brew with no bitter aftertaste. These lovely beans sell for hundreds of dollars a pound. As you can imagine, civet farms are popping up all along this impoverished region. Indonesia also has this coffee, better known to the world a copi luwak.
The fact that these coffee farms are on the rise may help; the consumer by bringing down cost. However, with such high margins one as to wonder if they are getting the genuine deal or a knock off of the origional.
“Because of its increasing popularity, there is more civet coffee than ever, but I don’t trust the quality,” said Rudy Widjaja, 68, whose 131-year-old family-owned coffee store in Jakarta, Warung Tinggi, is considered Indonesia’s oldest.
Goad Sibayan, a purchaser of these coffee beans, has found some issues with the much sought after coffee. He went to Cordillera to a arm known as Pat-ogs and inspected their beans. Upon inspection he said he would pay just under top-grade price. He had found some impurities — inferior beans that the civet had spat out; beans chewed on, not by civets, but bats — that were indiscernible to all but Mr. Sibayan’s expert eye or, rather, tongue.
To read more about Mr. Sibayan’s trip to the Philippines, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/world/asia/18civetcoffee.html?pagewanted=2
Coffee Inhaler Hits the Market!
Coffee Inhaler
Le Whif has introduced a new product on the market, a Coffee Inaler. The device was developed by Harvard Professor of Biomedical Engineering, David Edwards and Thierry Max, a Persian Chef. They have also developed a “breathable chocolate” as well.
The inhaler looks a lot like a lipstick container and it contains a powder inside that you breath in from the tube. It will sell on the maret for three dollars each or eight dollars for a box of 3 inhalers. Each inhaler delivers the equivalent of one shot of espresso in caffeine, 100 milligrams.
Each inhaler can administer up to 9 hits of caffine, depending upon how ard they are inhaled.
Folgers Closing Kansas City Plant
J.M. Smucker Co, who owns Folgers, as announced that it will close its plant in Kansas City as of mid-2012. The phase out of the plant will begin early next year, when Folgers will begin laying off approximately 50 of the plant’s 180 workers.
Dave Grohl Hospitalized Due to Coffee
David Grohl, frontman for Foo Fighters, has confirmed that he has, in fact, been hospitalized over coffee. His confession comes after a spoof video making fun of his coffee addiction was aired. He admitted that it was based on his own actual coffee emergency.
Grohl was hospitalized after an intense work schedule took a toll on his health and he began experiencing chest pains.
The film showed the rocker in a studio with Them Crooked Vultures bandmates and depicted Grohl’s love of coffee. It ended with the tag line “rushed to doctor due to the onset of unwanted physical effects caused by too much caffeine. For reals. He was kind of a mess.”
Grohl told Britain’s Absolute Radio “That was a year ago, the ‘Fresh Pots” video. We were in the studio making a record and I was drinking a lot of coffee. At one point I was doing Vultures stuff at night, Foo Fighters stuff during the day and I had a newborn at home and I was sleeping maybe two or three hours a night on an air mattress in a guess bedroom. And yea, I had too much coffee and I started having chest pains, so I went to the hospital and they told me to stop drinking so much coffee.”
Ads
