My name is Stuart Sharpe. I am a Coffoholic.
Damn, it feels good to type it out loud.
Just to clarify, that’s coffee I’m addicted to. Not caffeine – I can survive perfectly well on decaffeinated. Just coffee.
In my house I have four distinct methods of making coffee. There’s the instant stuff, with caffiene or without. I drink this quite regularly, but only to satisfy the need when I’m in a hurry. We also have two cafetieres, a drip filter coffee maker (with timer feature) and a stove-top espresso maker. We have got an electric espresso maker too, but the handle has a tendency to fly off in a rather explosive manner whenever pressure is put on it (and high pressure is essential to the creation of a decent esspresso), which in turn throws coffee about the kitchen and knocks out the circuit breaker for the mains. For some reason, the prospect of feeling your way down the basement staircase to push a switch back into place while being shouted at by the wife for causing the computer she was working on to turn off and delete all her unsaved work spoils the flavour of the coffee a little. Not sure why.
So, what coffee do I make by these methods? Well it depends on the day, of course, but I have extensive stock from Boaters as well as some supplementary coffee packets from Jimmy Bean Coffee, who we met at a farmers market and who produce exquisite flavoured coffees. So I’m all stocked up for coffee in flavours as diverse as Vanilla Nut, Hawaiian Delight (Coconut, Hazelnut and Vanilla), Irish Cream Hazelnut, Orange Brandy, English Toffee, Maple & Pecan and Strawberries & Cream. We also have some Starbuck ‘Christmas Coffee’ which I am still in the process of drinking, and some plain old coffee-flavoured coffee from Gloria Jeans Coffee House. We tend to go for the Sumatra dark-roast. A combination of 50% dark roast and 50% flavoured gives a lovely deep, rich coffee with a difference. Naturally, most of this is whole beans, so that we can grind them how we wish, just before making the sweet sweet drink.
The funny thing is, despite all this variety, all these choices, all this great coffee we have at home, my wife and I are both regulars at our local Starbucks, Gloria Jean’s and Costa. Barely a day goes past in which we do not wander into town for a cappuccino.
Where is this post headed? Nowhere. I just thought I’d talk about coffee for a while. Now I’m going to get back to drinking some.
I’m an Alta Rica babe. And now I’m going off topic, sort of. A jar costs £2.88 from my local Sainbury; it cost over £3.50 two years ago.
Because I keep all receipts I’ve had a look back at what products cost today compared with one, two or more years. The majority are cheaper than last year, some substantially as above. The average price for a weekly shop has gone down for me. The main items that have gone up are organic meats.
I was annoyed at a rag that announced that butter had gone up by some outrageous amount, because they were comparing the price of a block of Anchor last year with that of Lurpak today.
A ‘survey’ reported that more than 80% of us were feeling very pessimistic about the financial outlook for the year. Last night, a pundit on the Sky paper review pondered if this figure would be dramatically reduced if people stopped reading newspapers.
A couple of nights ago, a 15 minute Radio 4 prog was also suggesting that we should be given the raw data and actual questions asked, to allow us to come to our own informed opinion rather than the motivated ones spun by the media or politicians.
I don’t feel worse off, I am not pessimistic about our financial future, but I’m totally depressed by this gvt.
Espresso is good, too.
Tizzy
July 22, 2008 at 6:02 pm