Coffee News 06-26-15

Wear Your Love of Coffee On Your Sleeve Anna Brones of Sprudge reports on Domestic Stencil Works, a San Diego-based printing company founded by John Mohr and Alex White. The company takes their love of coffee to another level, upcycling used grounds from local coffee roasters and cafes like Caffe Calabria, Darkhorse, and Coffee and Tea Collective. The style and design philosophy are just as forward-looking as their environmentally-friendly print process. Even better, they source everything from garments to packaging to the used coffee grounds from California. What's not to love? Sprudge: T-Shirts Printed With Coffee Ink? How One Company Is Grinding Out A Niche Domestic Stencil Works: http://www.domesticstencilworks.com/ Coffee Is Bad Good Meh For You In an article for Slate, Brian Palmer takes Cochrane Reviews -- an aggregator of scientific studies who we've quoted here in the past -- to task for aggregating recent health research around coffee. His primary bone of contention, however, can be summed up as follows: "Drinking coffee is not a health decision. It’s a comforting ritual, a pick-me-up, or an excuse to chat with friends. Why must we turn everything in our lives (daylight saving time, religiousness, bicycle sharing, comedy) into a health decision?" The TL;DR version: according to Palmer, the effects of coffee -- for good or ill -- are negligable at best. He points to numerous studies conducted on rats as evidence that the research is hogwash. If we may be so bold, we wonder why Palmer ignores studies -- some aggregated, some longitudinal -- conducted with human subjects that state otherwise? After all, this isn't homeopathy (or, as the non-hipsters among us call it, "the placebo effect"); these are measurable compounds delivering consistent and measurable results. We don't drink coffee for its medicinal properties, but we'd have to admit that if something we enjoy is going to give our health a boost, it can't be a bad thing. Slate: Shut Up and Sip Third Wave... Tea? After water, more people drink tea than anything else. But the growth of the tea market has been characterized more by steady performance than explosive growth, averaging just 1% per year, reports the Economist's Espresso blog. The industry is looking to the robust growth enjoyed by the coffee industry -- spurred largely by Third Wave roasters -- for inspiration. New roasts, blends and infusions, swanky tea rooms, upscale marketing and branding, and higher pricing are all making their way to the industry. Whether it will work is anyone's guess, but it's a market segment worth watching. The Economist/Espresso: Soggy: can tea emulate coffee? What's Your Coffee "Type"? Finally, just for fun, a few infographics from the folks at the UK-based Coffee Tasting Club. Their What's Your Coffee Personality? and How Do You Brew? are an entertaining breakdown of what your coffee preferences say about your personality.