AboutCoffee(s).com

Whenever you talk about coffee, it’s inevitable that at some point you end up talking about caffeine. The two subjects usually go hand in hand. One thing we are always asked is how much caffeine is in coffee vs tea? Coffee vs soft drinks? Coffee vs chocolate?

We put together this little .pdf file that we hope will help put things into perspective.

Caffeine_Content_In_Popular_Foods.pdf

We all know that blood is thicker than water. Well apparently that holds true for coffee as well.

Loretta and Sabrina Rizzo had been serving coffee at a Tim Hortons location on the Queensway in Toronto for around a year an a half. That is until Sabrina was dismissed for having a bad attitude on Easter Monday. Consequently, Loretta was also fired – cause she was Sabrina’s twin sister.

Loretta admits her sister may have a bad attitude, but she can’t understand why she’s being terminated from the coffee shop for being Sabrina’s sister. Loretta says she kept asking her manager why she was being fired but couldn’t get a straight answer. Finally he replied to her “You’re going to be too bitter.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, There is no reason for me to be fired whatsoever.  I’ve never been fired in my life.” said Loretta: “This is so unacceptable. How can I be fired just because I’m a twin?”

Both sisters were given letters stating their termination, that stated “This memo is your notice that your services are no longer required,” the note reads. “Your last day of employment with our company will be April 17, 2010.” However the memo didn’t give a reason for the firings.

Rizzo tried phoning Tim Hortons’ head office but was told that’s the way the cookie crumbles and they couldn’t do anything for her.

A spokesperson for the coffee giant said follow-up letters explaining the decision for their dismissal were mailed to the sisters Wednesday and they may not have received them yet. Diane Slopek-Weber said she spoke to the store owner but refused to reveal details of the issues surrounding the dismissals.

“I’m not really comfortable” discussing personnel issues publicly, but “they felt it was appropriate to dismiss both of them,” Slopek-Weber said.

Source: The Toronto Sun

Starbucks announced today that it will be introducing 2 new cup sizes in the U.S. and Canada this fall. Called the Plenta and Micra these cup sizes were supposedly a result of some customer requests.

From the Starbucks website:

Derived from Italian word for plentiful or small, the Plenta™ delivers coffee lovers record amounts of the world’s finest coffee beverages while the Micra™ delivers a quick and satisfying morsel of goodness.

The Plenta would be for serious coffee drinkers as it is about the size of a movie theater popcorn bucket. The Micra looks like it’s about the size of one of Starbuck’s sampler cups.

You can see it for yourself at the Starbucks website:

http://www.starbucks.com/blog/10113/starbucks-listens-to-customer-request-for-more-sizes.aspx

At $2.42 for a Venti, if you do the math the Plenta would run you about $15.49.

Not to mention you would probably die from a caffine overdose.

Tim Hortons’ message to anti-drive-thru critics: parked cars cause more pollution.

Every driver knows that drive-thru windows are convenient, but did you know they also are responsible for all kinds of social and civic good? Drive-thrus are valuable to the elderly, the immobile, parents with small children and, believe it or not, are actually better for the environment than cars in parking lots — or so says TDL, the parent company of Tim Hortons.

Facing a tide of municipal anti-drive-thru ordinances, TDL commissioned a study last year from RWDI consultants, based in Guelph, Ont., comparing total emissions given off by customers’ cars that use drive-thrus and those that use parking lots. The controversial result — that cars using drive-thrus produce lower emissions than those using parking lots — is now part of the company’s arsenal when it takes on councils planning drive-thru bans. Such bans are a challenge for every drive-thru-based business, but the stakes are especially high for Tim Hortons — last year, 50% of its $2 billion revenue came in via the drive-thru.

TDL has successfully fought restrictions in several Ontario cities, including London and Ottawa. Its latest struggle has been in the city of Kingston, where it currently has 15 Tim Hortons drive-thrus and wants to add six more. The conflict arose in April, when Kingston’s planning committee drafted a city plan that prohibited building new drive-thrus in the historic downtown area.

Michael Polowin, an attorney for TDL, sent the city council letters objecting to the plan. City staff — whose drive-thru concerns include traffic congestion and impact on nearby residents as well as emissions — met with Polowin and changed the wording of the policy. But TDL was still unsatisfied. “It made it exceedingly difficult under that language to potentially locate a drive-thru anywhere in Kingston,” says Polowin.

Early last month, Polowin presented the RWDI report to Kingston council. Its conclusion — that drive-thrus create fewer emissions than parking lots — is based on a finding that when parkers turn off their cars, the catalytic converter cools and is less efficient at reducing emissions. And so, when the customer restarts the car, a larger, initial spurt of emissions is released. There are a lot of variables to consider when comparing the emissions generated by a parking lot and a drive-thru. While drive-thrus are generally thought of as bad for the environment because people tend to idle their cars, Michael Lepage, a principal with RWDI, says, “the one thing people have missed is how much time people spend idling in the parking lot.”

Despite Tim Hortons’ claim to have science on its side, the Kingston committee refused to change its plan. TDL then threatened to appeal the matter to the Ontario Municipal Board, which ruled in TDL’s favour in a similar dispute in Ottawa. Polowin also threatened to take civil action if the two sides could not reach a consensus.

On Nov. 20, 2009 the city planning committee agreed to change the official plan so that additional drive-thrus could not be located in “special policy areas,” like the historic downtown, unless the company submits an urban design study that satisfies the overall plan. That, apparently, is a loophole TDL can live with. Carbon-conscious coffee drinkers, meanwhile, are free to resort to an even greener alternative: walking.

Just as Tim Hortons launches its 24th annual Roll Up The Rim contest, McDonald’s is promoting their coffee a different way. Free coffee for everyone. As  McDonald’s Canada is launches its third, two-week coffee giveaway, The burger giant says the timing has nothing to do with Tim Hortons’ famed contest. They say the timing is to capitalize on the excitement following the Olympics.

McDonald’s first tried this promotion in April 2009, then again in November 2009.

The last two promotions were mornings only.

This time, you can walk into a McDonald’s any time of the day and get a free small coffee, no purchases required.

Meanwhile, Tim Hortons will be doing it’s usual round of Roll Up The Rim.

Prizes include 40 Toyota RAV4s, 100 cash prizes of $100,000, 1,000 Toshiba netbooks, 25,000 gift cards and more than 31 million free products.

Another Canadian coffee chain, Country Style -  is now serving free medium coffees on Wednesday between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m.

According to the Toronto Environmental Alliance,  the environment loses when coffee drinkers are encouraged to Roll Up The Rim, the group charged Monday.

Tim Hortons, which is no stranger to controversy for its disposable cups despite the coffee giant’s effort to promote its commitment to recycling, has begun it’s annual “Roll Up The Rim Contest” where coffee drinkers are encouraged to roll up the rim of their disposable coffee cup to reveal if they have one a prize.

“Torontonians don’t win by rolling up the rim,” Dr. Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, told QMI Agency. “We’d like to see a lot (fewer) coffee cups being used here in Toronto. A lot of resources go into making a coffee cup and too often they end up going into garbage. In fact, they can’t be recycled in the city of Toronto … it’s a pretty significant waste of resources.”

Hartmann said that Tim Horton’s should find a better way to engage people that doesn’t end in a landfill.

“It’s a contest that requires people to consume a product that frankly creates a lot of garbage and uses a lot of precious natural resources,” Hartmann said. “You’ve got to question why they are doing it. If they say on one hand, ‘we care about the environment,’ and on the other hand are promoting this sort of contest, it just doesn’t add up.”

David Morelli, a spokesman for Tim Horton’s, said the chain has tried but hasn’t found a better model for the 24-year-old contest. He went on to state that the company “must consider maintaining the odds of winning overall, preserving the integrity of the program — there is a host of issues involved,” adding that they have even looked at handing out a scratch card with the coffee.

“We haven’t found a solution that’s different from the cups just yet but it is something we’re looking at.”

The company does offer an online game but the prizes are different for the paperless version.

The company spokesman said the popular contest is not about encouraging waste but about “saying thanks to the customers for their business,” by giving people a one-in-nine chance to win a prize.

Most of the prizes are free Tim Hortons products, but this year the chain is also giving away 40 Toyota 2010 RAV4s and 100 cash prizes of $10,000.

Tim Hortons stressed that the cups are recyclable — if you can find a place that recycles them.

About 130 locations in Toronto and 400 locations across Canada collect the cups for recycling.

Tim Hortons paper coffee cups are recyclable in other municipalities, as are the plastic lids, but the two items together can’t be sorted by Toronto’s current recycling programs.

Tim Hortons is no stranger to controversy over its cups, especially in Hogtown.

In 2008, the city of  Toronto eventually spared the Tim Horton’s coffee cup and lid from a citywide ban. The city also decided not to ban single-use coffee cups, instead referring the ban back to staff to consult further with the coffee companies, including Starbucks and Tim Hortons.

Did you know that for less than $500.00 you can start a coffee service company that generates you over a $1,000.00 a month by only working a few hours a week,  supplying local businesses and offices with their coffee, and coffee supplies?Many already within the industry have not been so open about how much it actually cost to open a coffee shop or open a coffee service business.

There are two reasons for this.

1. They are trying to sell something. This may be in the form of expensive equipment, or consulting.
2. They don’t want to create more competition for themselves.

There are many things to consider about starting a coffee shop or coffee business and many bases to cover to ensure your venture in the coffee industry is successful. Financing, market statistics,  the best location for your coffee shop, important things to know when purchasing espresso machines, where to purchase the best coffee beans, equipment you must have,  and how to keep up with the coffee industry, among other things.

Coffee Shop Secrets is an ebook written by an industry insider, and provides a wealth of valuable information for any prospective coffee shop owner. This amazing ebook will provide you with experience, contacts, and know-how to successfully run your own coffee business!

Find out how Wayne Mullins opened a coffee shop for less than the price of a new car, in under 6 months and didn’t use a single penny of his own money!

Learn the strategies and tactics it takes to make it in the coffee industry! Coffee Shop Secrets is not for people who think they can sit on their couch and have a coffee shop magically open for you. Opening a coffee shop is work! But Coffee Shop Secrets will guide you straight through the process with the fewest possible mistakes (saving you money and your valuable time).

Go ahead and take the first step.  Get some help from someone who has been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt!

Click here to order Coffee Shop Secrets today! Satisfaction is guaranteed!

We all love that steaming hot cup of coffee every now and then. Well, just in case we can’t find a coffee shop around, the Kickstand crew have come up with a novel way of serving that hot cuppa, anywhere they please. The shop these guys have set up is powered by bicycles, and also transported by them. A mobile coffee shop, the Kickstand Coffee first set shop at McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The entire shop can be hauled around with just two cycles, with each cart weighing around 160 pounds. The bike-carts are also slim enough to negotiate terrible city traffic with easy, to make sure your coffee shop is set up nearby.

The shop has beans ground by hand. We sure would love to see more shops like these, perhaps a pizza shop with ovens powered by the sun!

As part of a national campaign promoting McDonald’s restaurants, a downtown Vancouver lamppost [6th Avenue at Cambie Street] became part of an optical illusion, appearing to pour coffee into a giant cup on the sidewalk.

The post was wrapped in brown vinyl to resemble poured coffee, while an oversized carafe was attached to the end.

Kopi Luwak or civet coffee is made by brewing the undigested coffee beans in the crap of the Asian Palm Civet, a weasel-like mammal. The civet’s stomach enzymes break down proteins in the beans giving the coffee a less bitter taste.

And even though the coffee is made from feces-beans,is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States.