Eight O'Clock Central Highlands

 I deride Eight O'Clock coffees a lot. For a while, it was shorthand for the pseudo-good stuff, only suitable for people who want to look like they know what they're doing with coffee.

Its not a coffee hipster brand, kind of like the Strokes or Imagine Dragons of coffee. Its cheap, but it comes in whole bean! It also has a market share and saturation that probably keeps its price down.

When I first got my press, I started buying some of its simpler blends because it was what I could afford at the time. Still, its affordability is a big part of its appeal.

Back during the coffee spree, I started to second guess myself for the Turkish coffee, and grabbed this.

Its a Rain Forest Alliance, ecologically sustainable, blah, blah blah, (keep reading the corporate assurances...) coffee from Central America.

http://www.eightoclock.com/central-highlands-rainforest-alliance-coffee

I was more interested in the flavor profile, and I had recently had a coffee representative from the one of major coffee maker companies talk about how surprised she was by their coffees. I also have another friend that is often impressed by Eight O'Clock.

I thought I would give it another shot. I've used it for espresso, and I just don't like it there. Somehow, it makes a weird, acidic shot that makes my mouth hurt.

For discussion purposes, I took it back to my beginnings with this coffee and put it in the French Press.

This is a dark roast with spikes of flavor through a predominately mellow flavor on the tongue. It is spicy but not in an overwhelmingly peppery or cinnamon kind of way. Black pepper comes to mind in the way it activates the tongue. I don't get the cocoa described by the company, but it does remind me of the softness I find in coffees that are heavily cocoa. Again, it goes to that mellowness.

I did use this coffee to make Turkish and Vietnamese coffees, but I buried the coffee under so much sugar, sweetened condensed milk or other stuff that I cannot adequately describe coffee because of it. The French Press is simply the best way to get to the coffee. There's very little filtering, no removal of essential oils, no trickery because of pressure or crema.

Eight O'Clock seems to be re-branding, and they are trying some new things for their company to meet a certain market share.

Would I get Central Highlands again, sure. Am I enjoying it now? Yes. This is a good coffee if you want to surprise your coworkers who aren't big, serious coffee drinkers, or a good one for your group of friends who just don't know better. Sometimes, its just not worth wasting the good, good stuff. Its a bit like the Magnum coffees that are made more for the commercial market rather than specific palates. However, I might snag the African Plains coffee if it is ever released in whole bean.

This is a coffee that will most certainly do.

She Drives Me Crazy

Tricky put this up on his Facebook feed today. I don't know why, but it put me in an unbelievably good mood.

Video from Save the Children UK

Here's a somewhat frighteningly good and poignant short film from Save the Children UK. They are using this to draw awareness to the plight of kids in war torn regions, especially the ones caught up in the Syrian Civil War.

I am not really sure what they would like us to do, because no matter what, the best and most effective way to save these children is the end the conflict without more bloodshed. Frankly, that is a lot easier said than done.

However, this piece also works as an effective bit of near future science fiction as well. It does what science fiction can do very well: based off an extrapolation of our world, illustrate a certain path. In many cases, the hope is that we can turn back from that path.

The effectiveness of this piece brings to mind a lot of great science fiction, such as 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and Black Mirror.

Of course, the most effective way to save the kids in any strife-ridden region is to come back down from the histrionics, and think about how it looks to your kids.

Is your cause important enough to sacrifice your children? Even in America, where acceptance of violence in our culture is part of our lives, it would serve us all well to think about it, at both a macro and micro level.

We say "Will someone please think of the children" as both a platitude and a joke. But does anyone really think of the children, and our future as a society?

(Sorry, no much coffee stuff today, my blood stream needs a break.)

Scott Listfield on The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/7/5481240/scott-listfield-astronaut-painting-series

I cannot describe just how much this painting speaks to that inner 6 year old hunkered down with his toys. That was where the real fanfiction crossovers happened.

We're just missing some Legos.

In any case, check out the whole series and the scattered pop culture ephemera. This guy's work somehow frames a Geek's world very well.

A Tamping How To

I was checking out the Instructables email and I came across this primer for espresso shot tamping by Paige Russell. If you have questions, or what to do it right, I recommend this one. I have read a lot of how-to's across a lot of websites, and this is more or less the same information. However, this one seems to bring all of that together, and skips some of the more esoteric coffee discussions.

Also, it has pictures of someone actually doing as its being described.

Check it out.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Pack-an-Espresso-Shot/

The Coffee Industry in South Florida

Here's a great, long story about the coffee industry in South Florida with a lot good, general information on coffee, and the international business as well.

I highly recommend it.

Even though I'm no longer there, its still hard to do without WLRN.

Radioactive Toy

Here's one of my all time favorites. I'm putting this live version up, just so I remember to come back to it.

I'll have more coffee related stuff soon!