Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.
But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.
Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.
Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organization reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers.
It looks like a fascinating film, and definitely brings light to an issue that few Americans consider while waiting in line at the local Starbucks.
Stuff White People Like is impressively accurate and incredibly funny.
Half social commentary and half social mocking, it’s a daily dose of the things that make white people white.
From coffee and wine to Barack Obama and anything Apple, the full range of interests is covered. Plus, there are reasons behind each like, and an explanation of the best way to fit in with whitey, so you can easily acclimate to being or interacting with white people.
The Sugar Skull is a common symbol of the Day of the Dead; a Mexican celebration that honors and celebrates the lives of the deceased and the continuation of life.
Made with sugar and decorated with royal icing, foil, beads, feathers and sequins, sugar skulls are gifts that are given to both the living and the dead. Plus, they make great additions to a tea party or your morning coffee.
If you’d like to make your own, then check out the tutorial, as well as MexicanSugarSkull.com, a site that is full of information about the sugar skull.
If you’re looking for a quick pick-me-up, try taking a caffeine nap.
Here’s how:
Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.
Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you’ll get what’s known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.
Limit your nap to 15 minutes. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot.
To get folks to try out the new Starbucks-Apple iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, Apple will be giving away $50 million in “Song of the Day” cards to coffee customers from October 2 to November 7.
The cards will be good for a hand-picked song from the iTunes library, which might sound limiting, but with artists like Bob Dylan, Joss Stone, Dave Matthews, Bebel Gilberto, John Mayer, KT Tunstall, John Legend, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell, Keith Urban, Paul McCartney, Sia, Band of Horses, Hilary McRae, Frederico Aubele and Sara Bareilles, it’ll probably be something worth hearing.
It might not pay for the $5 coffee, but at least you get something with your daily caffeine fix.
P.B.Loco is “The Adult Peanut Buttter”. With flavors like CoCoBanana, Asian Curry Spice, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Sumatra Cinnamon and Raisin, They hope to do for peanut butter what Starbucks did for coffee. PB&J will never be the same.
If you want to be the best, you need to learn from the best, and it’s hard to deny that Howard Schultz is anything but the best. As CEO, Schultz was responsible for Starbucks’s transition from Seattle’s David into the world’s Goliath, and he shares his secrets in a book called, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup At A Time.
If you’ve always wanted to look inside the mind of the man who made coffee a commodity, Pour Your Heart Into It is here to guide the way. Make mine a double.
As you can (hopefully) see, DidntYouHear.com went under the knife recently, and is now sporting a new look. Version 1.1 incorporates a lot of the visual changes that I’ve been wanting to make for some time now, with the biggest being the addition of a second sidebar. Overall, there is now more information available on one screen, and I think it makes everything a little easier to look at.
For today’s TGI Friday, I’m asking for some feedback. Do you like the new look? Hate it? Is anything broken? Since I develop on a Mac, I can’t see the site in Internet Explorer, so I’m especially interested to hear how it looks over in IE land (though you should be using Firefox anyways). As always, both positive and negative comments are appreciated.
In addition to the design changes, DYH is now a little wider as well. Unfortunately, this means that some of you might have the edges of the site cut off by your browser, but according to my Mint stat tracker, 87% of you will still be able to view the new size in its full glory, so I had to make a few sacrifices for the greater good (though I do apologize to anyone who now has to side scroll). Remember though, if you subscribe to the RSS Feed, you can see the content however you like (or however your RSS viewer allows you to like), so there is always an alternative solution.
Lastly, in case you were wondering, this site runs off of WordPress, uses K2 as the theme, and sports a custom K2 style (called DYH) that I developed. And coffee. Lots of coffee.
Cool Hunting put together a great list of gadgets that make your tea time a little easier. Included is the TriniTEA, an electric tea maker from Adagio that works like a coffee maker, and the Filio Teapot, a modern take on the teapot from Mono Tabletop. Each method of brewing has its own pros and cons, so it’s all a matter of choosing what works for you, though I suggest that you get started soon, because tea is the new coffee if you haven’t heard.
…White people like stuff?
Stuff White People Like is impressively accurate and incredibly funny.
Half social commentary and half social mocking, it’s a daily dose of the things that make white people white.
From coffee and wine to Barack Obama and anything Apple, the full range of interests is covered. Plus, there are reasons behind each like, and an explanation of the best way to fit in with whitey, so you can easily acclimate to being or interacting with white people.
Now where’d I put that copy of Juno…?
[Stuff White People Like]