The Coffee Trail with Simon Reeve

The Coffee Trail

I happened on this documentary by doing some general reading on coffee lately. Its a BBC thing, and not readily available in the US, but with a VPN routed through the UK, you can watch iPlayer content.

Its not exactly legal, but its what we have for the United States for this kind of thing. For some reason, American documentaries tend to be lacking.

Here we have an exploration into coffee growing and production in Vietnam, a country that is bound and determined to grow mostly Robusta for instant coffees. Apparently, it mostly goes into NesCafe. (I'll get into NesCafe one day when I'm bored.)

It is a pretty evenhanded documentary exploring both sides of the issue around the cultivation, the crushing poverty growers have endured before growing coffee, the ecological damage wrought, and the political repression the country is facing as a consequence of this economic policy.

From a connoisseur perspective, it would make more sense to grow Arabica, but from a business perspective, growing Robusta works. This is, until climate change and massive deforestation finally take over.

Still, Vietnamese coffee is grown mostly by small farmers. As part of their communist ethos, they tried mass farms, but it did not work. Therefore, they went to a more competitive based market, small farms owned by farmers struggling to get by. Its making some very poor people better off than they were before. Unfortunately, because of the mass farm scheme, and because of favoring the ethnic majority over the minority groups, it caused a hell of a lot of repression.

I almost wish this series was able to go more in depth into these issues and the history. Fortunately, they were very honest that there were certain questions they couldn't ask with government minders around. They also touched on Vietnamese coffee culture and cafe culture, briefly profiling one of the big exporters and shop owners, Dang Le Nguyen Vu. (He's looking to become as big as Starbucks worldwide.)

Alas, I recommend watching the program if you've got a chance. It is always good to know where things come from. I find I appreciate it a bit more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03sr67n

As a bonus, here's a look at Vietnamese style coffee over on CoffeeGeek. I haven't read it yet, but I will.

http://coffeegeek.com/guides/vietnameseiced

Coffee and Cigarettes in War-Torn Damascus.

Here's something I found flipping through the BBC's site. There is a reason why Damascus is one of the most enduring cities in human history, despite a history of invasions, fighting, and bloodshed.

Its people like this...

From the article:

There is a table at the cafe which has the same customers every single day. They start with coffee and end up in the evening drinking locally-made arak and smoking the affordable Al Hamra cigarettes made in the coastal city of Latakia.

As much as I wanted to know about the coffee, the article really does not get into it, despite a description of how the cafe has declined over the years. I did, however, came across this gem:

Khaled is defiant and still tries to enjoy life when possible, drinking, eating, smoking and making love: "I live every day as the last day and I try to enjoy it with whoever is left in the city and with whatever means of pleasure are left," he says.

As a quote, it might pertain to anyone facing any kind of strife.

We can find the bright even in our darkest days.

Go over and read up on the article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25878902

QupZilla

I don't write about software and operating systems a lot. However, all of the computers we use at home run some form of Linux, even our Android phones. I even keep my own server just for media and rss feeds I follow. After the Google Reader fiasco of last year, I learned a lesson and decided to keep as much of my Internet enjoyment in my own hands, on my own computers as possible.

Being a Linux user, it means that I am pretty accepting of trying out new things and new software. Recently, I have been increasingly annoyed with the bloat in both Chrome and Firefox, and I have never been particularly enamored with the Chromium experience. (There is just something about the color scheme that does not seem right.)

Last night, I came across a review on some tech blog, I really forget which, and came across QupZilla.

After a few hours of use, this may become by default browser. It is based on Web-Kit and QT, cross platform compatible, and so far it opens most websites without any trouble. It even opens up my TT-Rss instance which would occasionally give Chrome some fits.

For the version in the Ubuntu Software Center, it does not include native spell checking, and it seems to not like pop up forms in websites. I will be trying to update to the latest version soon just to be sure.

By default, it uses Adblocker and it blocks flash. You can chose what loads, which is always nice when you are wanting things to load quickly.

You can find it at the link below.

http://www.qupzilla.com/

(It crashed as I tried to add the screenshot from the post, of course.)

Home Roasting Tutorial - I Need Coffee

As I begin to get back into home roasting, I have been going back through coffee blogs to see what others are doing. Based off this one, I have been doing a few things wrong.

I am missing some things that will help with consistency.

This is great to revisit and look over. It is probably the most spelled out, well documented tutorials I've seen. Also, they use a West Bend like I do.

http://www.ineedcoffee.com/99/homeroast/

80th Post!

Steve Burns - Troposphere.

I will get some coffee stuff up soon. I am just letting some thoughts come together about tamping practice.

It really is the difference between a good shot and a iffy one.

In the meantime, here's a song I dug out of my music collection tonight and remembered just how much I love.

Copy of A

Here's a killer cover by Diane Birch of "Copy of A, " by NIN, one of my favorite songs from 2013.

Found courtesy of http://www.antiquiet.com/music/2014/01/watch-diane-birch-cover-nine-inch-nails-copy-of-a-on-the-piano/

Freedom

We can leave our little ice hut finally! After several snow days, frigid temperatures, and a dead car battery, I can go back into the world again.

Of course, back to work. 

In the meantime, I Am Robot and Proud "Winter at Night"