May 12, 2017

Coffee - The hard facts

I mentioned "giving up coffee" in the context of healthy diet to a friend who is an MD, he says:
Nobody who knows the literature will ask you to give up coffee. Cognitive function improves with lifetime coffee consumption and coffee up to 3-4 cups daily decreases your risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death (but intake over 5 cups seems to increase risk).
He goes on to say:
Two cups of coffee daily reduces mortality rate by 50% in chronic liver disease as well. And not just a caffeine effect, though coffee is more beneficial than decaf; antioxidant effects and increased sensitivity to circulating insulin to reduce blood sugar are partially responsible. The poster child for the benefits of coffee consumption was Voltaire, who died in 1778 at age 83 after consuming 50-72 cups of coffee daily!
But I don't drink coffee for health reasons, I drink coffee because I enjoy it.

Coffee basics

Where to get coffee in Tucson

I am not interested in getting the latest froo-froo coffee drink served up by a Barrista. I am looking for a source of well roasted whole beans. You can of course buy these in bags at Starbucks, and that sort of sets the lower threshold for what we are willing to consider, but we can do better.

Raging Sage

On the east side of Campbell, just north of Grant. This is probably the best place in town to buy quality beans. They keep their loot in a nice cooler and date the bags with the roast date. Prices are OK. In March of 2018 I paid $14.25 for a pound of Columbian and $19.75 for a pound of Honduran.

Presta

On the east side of 1st, just north of Grant. They sell the lightest roasted beans I know where to find in this part of the world, and I give them a big plus for that. But they get two big demerits. First they sell in 12 ounce bags, which I despise -- and they are expensive. A 12 ounce bag sells for $20. Not only that, they don't mark or display the price anywhere, for which I always give any business a black mark. So, their price per pound is $26.67 -- pretty darn expensive.

Old Bisbee Coffee Roasters

Just around the corner (in Bisbee, Arizona), a source of very good coffee! I am told he refers to Starbucks as "charbucks". If so, he clearly has pretty much the same view about optimum roasting as I do. However I have noticed him drifting towards darker roasts over the years.

He sells by the pound, and typical prices are $16 or $17. If you join his "club", you get two pounds of coffee each month for $26. This price includes shipping, so you get a pound of coffee for $13. And it just shows up like magic, so it is pretty unbeatable.

I have been buying coffee from Seth for many years now and have always been entirely satisfied. I place an order on the website, and the coffee is in my mailbox the next day (2 pounds in a USPS express mailer). I joined his coffee club, and he sends me 2 pounds every month. One of the best benefits of this is that he picks the coffees and I end up trying all kinds of things that I might not choose myself.

His business has grown since I started doing business with him, and this has not entirely been optimal for the customer. My coffee used to arrive with my name on the bag and the aroma would knock me over when I opened the mailbox. These days there is no name, and the coffee is clearly not as fresh as it used to be. No doubt they are roasting in bigger batches, loading it into bags and it would sit on the shelves and be grabbed to fill orders.

Hawaiian Coffee

Here are some places to order hawaiian coffee (that I have never used). We visited Bay View Farms many years ago while on the Big Island. It was great to see coffee trees happily growing and making coffee cherries!

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's coffee pages / tom@mmto.org