A New Kind of Coffee Art

"The piece took about 12 hours to complete, and besides being difficult for the simple fact that she was painting with a porcelain cup instead of a brush, apparently the coffee mixture and placement had to be perfect every time since the rings were instantly permanent."
-[Source]

What's the best Cup Shape?

The cup that holds your coffee contributes a great deal to how much you are going to enjoy your coffee. Even the best coffees in a bad cup can lose their appeal, and even diner coffee can be a guilty pleasure because it is often served in a very comforting mug.

A couple weeks ago we looked at figuring out what the best material for your coffee cup is. Although there are some exceptions (double walled glass cups, insulated metal cups, etc.) I generally prefer drinking out of ceramic cups.

This week we are going to explore some common shapes that coffee cups are formed into and evaluate the relative merits of each.

Round Cup
The round cup is the most common cup shape you will find. When you think of a cappuccino cup this will often be the first thing that comes to mind. If you go to a major espresso chain this will almost always be the cup shape they offer, and there is a good reason for it. This shape allows the espresso to mix well, and if you are adding milk you have more control. This cup also has a wider mouth which gives you more room to play around with latte art if you like to do that sort of thing. I love to drink coffee of all kinds out of this cup. A cup of drip is very good in it as well. There are, however, a few potential downsides to a round cup.

1. Round cups generally allow more heat out. There is a big wide open mouth at the top which means heat will escape more easily. This might be a good thing if you like to taste how the coffee flavours change as the coffee cools, but if you are simply hoping to sip on coffee as you work or read the loss of heat might  be annoying. To counter this it's best to get round mugs with THICK walls. This will help keep the heat in. Another thing you can do is preheat the cup before you add coffee to it. This will help the coffee maintain it's temperature rather then having it leached into the ceramic.
2. A round cup makes it more difficult to get a good smell of the coffee. The wide mouth means that the aroma is less concentrated and getting a god smell requires you getting your nose right in the cup.

Tulip Cup
The tulip shaped cup should not be confused with the "tulip" shape that you see in brandy glasses. The brandy cup has lips that curve over the liquid in order to trap the maximum amount of aroma in the glass.  Coffee cups in the tulip shape don't employ this strategy, although they do contain aromas better then round cups. The tulip cup is a great cup of you want your coffee to retain heat, but still have room to be creative with latte art near the top. It is tapered in a special way so the top of the cup maintains a reasonably large canvas for latte art, but is not so wide open that heat escapes. Tulips also are less common so they can give your customers a more unique experience and set your cafe apart. There are some disadvantages to a cup like this though.

1. There is a tendency for espresso and milk to form into layers more easily with the tulip.
2. Pouring into a tulip is less smooth. There are hard edges or more extreme angles that you have to deal with. This can make it difficult to get the milk to behave when you are pouring it.

The Traditional Mug
Most people are used to drinking coffee out of a mug. Offering a high quality mug, thick walled, dinner style mug, can be a great way to give your coffee a comforting feel to the consumer. These are generally great options for seving drip coffee, but less great for serving espresso.

1. Things don't mix well in them
2. They are awkward to pour into
3. They don't often come with saucers
4. Expanded milk gets trapped at the edge and people aren't able to enjoy the foamy part of a drink as easily
5. They make people feel comfortable when they are drinking coffee, but when people are drinking espresso based beverages they often feel like it's "cheap."

Remember
You don't need to choose just one. You can choose to buy a set of tulip demitasses for espresso, round cups for lattes and mugs for coffee. These cups come in most sizes so have fun.

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Coffee Cups 101: Cup Materials

There are a lot of things to consider when you choose how you will drink or serve your coffee. One of the BIGGEST things to think about is what you will actually be putting the coffee in!

The answer, of course, is CUPS!

One of the things that I love the most about drinking a cup of coffee is feeling the warm mug in my hand. A good mug is almost a nice as a good cup of coffee. This is especially true on cold winter days, which we are having plenty of here in Chicago.

 In the next few weeks I would like to explore the various kinds of cups and mugs you might see at a coffee shop, and explain why you might want to use them.

Today we will be looking at the materials your cup is made out of!
Coffee cups can be made out of many things.

They can be:
Plastic,
paper,
metal,
glass,
ceramic,
or even a combination of things.

What follows is a look at these common materials and why you may (or may not) want to serve coffee in them.


PLASTIC:
Plastic cups, although not common in cafes, are the bread and butter of the travel mug industry. Almost every cup you are given as a cheap attempt at a brad recognition campaign will be plastic. Many of the cups you can buy at your local target will also be plastic. It's easy to find yourself using a plastic to go cup without even thinking about it. Unfortunately, this may not be a good thing. Plastic has not had a very good track record as a beverage container. There is a lot of cheap plastic out there that you will need to avoid. Make sure your cup does not contain Bisphenol A (BPA). This is a substance found in a lot of plastics that is now widely believed to be a toxic substance. You will also want to look out for cheaper plastics that will melt at higher heats. If your cup is not dishwasher safe there is a good change it will make your coffee taste a little funny. Plastics also don't retain heat well so your coffee will often cool quickly. On top of all of that, you have to admit that drinking out of plastic just doesn't feel very nice.
NLDR: Avoid plastics if possible, they're kind of gross


PAPER:

Paper cups are involved in a love/hate relationship with all cafe owners. Without them it would be difficult to make a profit, but they are just TERRIBLE. Paper cups are available at almost all cafes, but that doesn't mean you should use them. Not only do they add a nasty paper taste to your coffee, they are also simply just filling up landfills. They don't keep heat in efficiently. They cost the cafe extra money for something you are just going to throw away.I DON'T LIKE PAPER CUPS!

If you HAVE to use them be aware of a few things you should know

• Don't use cups that have a wax coating. The wax will melt into your coffee. You don't want to drink wax do you?
• Cups are NOT often recycled. Putting them in the recycling just means there will be one more step until they get to the landfill.
• You can get cups made out of recycled paper
• PLEASE, do not throw away a cup that is STILL FILLED WITH LIQUID. Real people have to clean up your mess, and it's not fun.
• Although there are some cups that are "biodegradable", very few places will actually compost the cups. If you want to be green, you will have to compost the cups yourself.
• One last thing, if you are thinking about using STYROFOAM cups instead. JUST SAY NO! They make you look cheap, they taste awful, and are simply terrible for the enviroment

METAL

A metal coffee cup isn't as common as a plastic or a paper cup, but you still see a lot of them. I see metal cups mostly as travel mugs. Although metal mugs have existed for about 4,000 years they have rarely been used for hot beverages. The heat conductivity makes it difficult to hold if the contents are hot. This is why most metal travel mugs also include more insulated materials. 

There are a few things you should know about metal mugs:

• Metal is light weight and durable which makes it great for camping gear, but just because you have a camping mug doesn't mean your coffee will taste good
• Many metal cups can leave a taste in your coffee. Look for cups made out of stainless steel, aluminum has a flavor that doesn't go well with coffee.
• Metal cups heat up quickly, but also lose heat quickly. Don't use a metal cup if you want your coffee to stay hot

CERAMIC

Ceramic cups have been around longer then anything else. They were invented in East Asia over 12,000 years ago! There is a good reason ceramic has stuck around so long. It's great! I love ceramic cups. They holy heat well, they feel nice when you hold them, they don't add funny flavors to your coffee (as long as they have a glaze applied). I drink out of a ceramic cup 90% of the time. However there are a few thing that you should know about ceramic cups:

• Once a ceramic cup is cracked it will build up bacteria in the cracks. you will have to throw it away (otherwise it's a health code violation)
• If you own a cafe make sure you look into heath code regulations. You may not be allowed to fill cups that customers bring in (since you don't know if they are clean). An alternative to this is to have a "mug club" of some sort where people can keep their mugs at the shop and get them cleaned when they are done.
• Ceramic breaks very easily... providing these kinds of cups will save you money on paper cups, but may wind up costing you more if people drop the ceramic a lot.

GLASS

Glass has many of the advantages, and the disadvantages of ceramic They both don't effect the taste of coffee negatively, they both can feel nice to hold, and they both break very easily. In fact glass is technically a noncrystalline ceramic. Very few people use glass cups for coffee, but it has become an option in many shops in the last ten years. A drink called the "Gibralter" has taken it's place many specialty coffee shops. This is a drink that uses a cup like the one seen in the picture. I personally love drinking out of little glass cups like this.

There are some things you should know about glass:

• It doesn't hold in heat as well as most ceramic cups
• It gives you a nice look into what's going on below the surface of your coffee (which i think it pretty cool)
• It isn't as traditional, or as aesthetically pleasing as ceramic, so make sure you offer ceramic too

Christmas Traditions: Kenya

Pilau

This week we continue our series exploring the Christmas traditions of some of the countries that we have imported coffee from this year.


Today I'd like to focus on Kenya. Christmas celebrations begin early in Kenya. People begin to visit their families a month before Christmas and there is a lot of travel out of the urban centers out in to rural communities. Most people are taking time off work at least once, or sometimes taking more then one vacation this month.

All this travel means that the busses are getting pretty packed since most people travel on busses!

Kenyans love to eat at Christmas. Chickens, sheep, goats and cows are slaughtered by the hundreds to prepare for the celebration. In you live by the coast you will have your fill of Pilau, which is a staple food in that region.

Whatever you're eating make sure you wash your hands! Kenyans eat with their fingers, rather then forks and knives!

As Christmas approaches people will begin to attend prayer services. It is common for people to even attend all night prayer vigils to bring in Christmas.

If you want to celebrate christmas like a Kenyan just remember these three things:

1. FAMILY
2. FOOD
3. FAITH

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Traditions: Guatemala

This year we will be exploring how people celebrate Christmas in a few of the countries where we get our coffee from. Part of getting to know your coffee is getting to know the people that you get it from.  Christmas is a big deal in most of the countries we import coffee from, and so we want to take a moment to honor those traditions.

Today I'd like to focus on Guatemala. Not only does Guatemala produce some of the best and brightest coffee on the planet, it also celebrates christmas a bit different then we do here in the United States.

Nine days before Christmas there is something called a "posada procession" that begins. In this ritual statues of Mary and Joseph are carried around seeking shelter. They are let into a new house every night for nine days. As they are carried drums are played and fireworks are lit as there is a celebration around the statues. When they arrive at the destination there is a carol that is sung and a set of ritual questions are asked. Eventually Mary and Joseph are let into the house. They are placed in the "nacimiento"(a Latin American nativity scene) where they will remain until the next night when the procession will continue to the next house.

The procession is quite the party. There is punch and tamales for everyone. People have a dance party together when Mary and Joseph are finally let in.

On Christmas eve, not only are Mary and Joseph let it, but Jesus is added to the nacimiento. When this happens the biggest part of all happens.

There is a large German population in Guatemalla so Christmas trees have made their was into the nacimiento. At the final house presents are left under the tree on Christmas morning for the children as gifts from the Christ Child. Gifts for adults are not opened until new years day.

On Christmas Eve there is a Midnight Mass that follows the posada and after the mass there is a full supper!