Starbucks Launches Haircolor Apartheid: Brunettes Get the Good Stuff and Blondes Get the Bland

Starbucks Blonde: for Ding-a-lings Who Drink Coffee with Pink Straws

Have you heard about the new Starbucks Blonde Roast?  When I walked into a Starbucks yesterday and saw the big Blonde Roast poster, for a split second I thought Starbucks was instituting some kind of haircolor apartheid.  What a stupid name for coffee!  When I hear "blonde coffee," I picture what comes out of the coffee maker if you forget to put new coffee in the filter basket and just run water through old grounds.  Have you ever heard anyone praise a pale yellow cup of coffee?  I normally try to abstain from blonde-bashing (since the only person in my household whose hair is NOT naturally blonde is me), but in this case I have to wonder whether someone in the marketing department at Starbucks was left in the peroxide too long.

[BTW, I have no idea who that poor girl is with the pink straw.  I found the photo here, on a web site that says she is Norwegian -- but if that's true, then I'm sure she is drinking DARK BROWN coffee through her straw.  All of the Norwegians I know take their coffee seriously!]

The beans themselves look so unappetizing, like Starbucks forgot to roast them.  Are we sure they are even coffee beans?  They look suspiciously like a lab-created sunflower seed/lentil bean hybrid.  Yuck!

Personally, I want nothing to do with the blonde coffee.  I found a couple of reviews online for Starbucks Blonde Roast (here and here) and they were uniformly unfavorable -- apparently it LOOKS like coffee, but lacks flavor and aroma.  The nicest thing anyone had to say about the Blonde Roast is that "it's not meant to appeal to people who like coffee, it's meant for people who like Dunkin' Donuts coffee!"  It seems Starbucks Blonde would be more aptly named Starbucks Bland or Starbucks Blech.  Isn't there a lawyer out there who'd like to launch a class action defamation lawsuit on behalf of the world's coffee-loving blonde people?

Have YOU tried Starbucks Blonde?  What did YOU think?

My Son, the Wolf Man, Rages Against Gmail

I do not draw.  However, I had my light box out the other day for Anders to trace a map of South America for Spanish class, and thought I'd experiment with tracing a photo I'd taken of Lars in my car, sipping his favorite Starbucks beverage.  At first I thought I'd done a pretty good job, except that he looks like he's had his eyebrows waxed.  Lars looked at my tracing and said, "I look like I have a beard, Mom!"  So much for my sad attempt at shadowing.  If I added little points to his ears, he'd look like a wolf man with a Starbucks habit.


Okay, since I'm embarrassing Lars today, he requested a rant about how Google ruined his day today.  I'm going to copycat The Empress, who lets her son dictate blog posts about whatever's on his mind.  Take it away, Lars-of-Ours!

_______________________________________________________

Okay, so at the end of the day at school, I was on my Gmail account when suddenly a little pop-up box appeared in the middle of the screen.  It asked me when I was born, so I told it.  All of a sudden, my Inbox disappeared and in its place was a box saying that because I was not over 13 years old, in 3 days my account will be permanently deleted!  It said that if I wish to keep my Gmail account I would have to tell them my credit card number (I don't even own a credit card!) so they could fine me thirty cents.  [Mom is raising an incredulous eyebrow of suspicion right now.]  I am SO MAD at Gmail that I wanted to hack into their web site, but my friend stopped me just in time.  [Note from Mom: No way can Lars hack into Google's web site, or anyone else's.  Mom is having trouble letting Lars talk without interrupting...] 

Now, I have a Yahoo! account, but when I created it they asked me when I was born.  I was so desperate for an email account that I told it I was born in 1990.  I will never use Google again and I hope you don't either.  From, Lars the Obliterator.  --Wait, no!  Lars the Conqueror!  I'm the conqueror!  Goodbye for now, and DON'T USE GOOGLE!  Ever!

[More notes from Mom: the irony is, of course, that Lars is ranting about Google through Blogger, which is just Evil Google in Disguise].  Lars again, with eyebrows shooting up to the moon: "It IS?!!!"

Teacher Workday, Here We Come

Today is a teacher workday.  Two little rascals, home from school all day!  You'd think I could sleep late this morning, but you'd be wrong.  I set my alarm for 6 AM, thinking I could walk the dogs before the boys got out of bed, but when my alarm went off the boys were already awake, plotting against me in Anders' room.  I heard them as I staggered down the hall: "Track 11!  Play track 11!  That one will really wake her up!"  Then, a blast of Led Zeppelin at an ungodly volume nearly knocked me off my feet.  Led Zeppelin?  Really?!  They are 8 and 10 years old!  So much for a leisurely morning.

So here it is, ten before seven, the evil music player has been confiscated, puppy dogs have been fed their breakfast and are out in the back yard, and little boys have been slightly calmed by a brief separation in Time Out while I made my latte.  It's still pitch black outside, but the blessing of caffeine is beginning to bring me to full consciousness so I can plan my day. 

I'm going to need to walk my dogs, and I will need to bring Lars with me to prevent mischief and certain doom while I'm out of the house.  This means I will need a bribe -- Ribbon candy?  A chance for computer or video game time?  Or maybe a trip to Starbucks later?  Anders I would trust with my banking password and the car keys, but Lars?  Not so much.

I have some pillows for a client that I need to pick up from my drapery workroom later today, so my little "assistants" will be coming along for the ride.  We can go to Starbucks afterward, if they cooperate and behave well in the car. 

Lars with his Vanilla Steamer, Anders with his Kid's Hot Chocolate

They really dig the cake pops at Starbucks, along with their beverages of choice: a Kid's Hot Chocolate for Anders and a Vanilla Steamer for Lars, who mysteriously has no enthusiasm for chocolate whatsoever.  Obviously, little boys who wake up and terrorize me with classic rock before the sun comes up don't get anything with so much as a drop of caffeine. 

What else is in store for us this day?  Lars is going to his first sleepover birthday party tonight, which means that I need to take two little boys to Target to select a gift today.  I think I'll delay Target as long as possible, because my Bernina dealer is in that shopping center and there's a good chance my sewing machine might be serviced and ready to pick up by late afternoon -- cross your fingers!  I'll also need to get Lars's overnight things packed up.  My decorative painter will be coming by to work on my dining room ceiling at around noon, so we will need to stick around the house for most of the afternoon (I'll try to post some pictures of that later).  I have some business calls and paperwork to attend to at some point.  Oh, and I need to get the Halloween costumes down and figure out what each trick-or-treater is going to wear (and referee any ensuing fights), because immediately after we pick Lars up from the party tomorrow morning we're taking our boys to the Phantom of the Lollipop concert at the symphony.  Bernie should be back from his business trip by late this afternoon, thank the Lord.

Man, just thinking about this day is making me exhausted.  Do I hear the water running upstairs?!  I need to go...  Happy Friday, everyone!

Sliding Down the Slippery Slope: The Espresso Obsession Continues!

I ordered a new espresso machine.  Yes, I ordered a new one AGAIN, even though I just got a new one a couple of weeks ago...  In case you missed my earlier posts on the exciting topic of Latte Love, click here and here and then come on back to this post for my latest adventures in coffee obsession. 

So for the first week or so with my Expobar Office Pulser espresso machine, I was pulling consistently good espresso shots with a layer of crema on top.  The shots were running a little fast (ideally, it should take 20-25 seconds from the time I press the "go" button until the espresso is up to the little lines on the shot glasses.  If it takes longer for the shot glasses to fill, the shots taste bitter.  If they fill up faster, the espresso tastes weak and you don't get that caramelly crema on top).  The way you correct this problem is to adjust how finely the coffee is ground and/or how much pressure you're using to tamp (pack it down into the portofilter thing).  Not owning a coffee grinder, I always bought Starbucks' Espresso Roast a pound at a time and asked the store to grind it on #3 for my espresso machines.  But lately they keep screwing it up.  I wish I took pictures for you of what the espresso shots look like when you use coffee that is ground on #6 (particles the size of Folgers in a supermarket can for an automatic drip machine), but I was way too upset to think about getting the camera.  Anyway, after two separate Starbucks stores managed to screw up grinding my coffee beans three times in a row, I decided I'd had it with Starbucks and I needed to take the grind into my own hands! 

I headed back to my favorite online coffee store, Whole Latte Love, and read through numerous tutorials and reviews before selecting my grinder, the Mazzer Mini.  When I get my grinder, I will be able to grind just enough beans at a time to make one latte.  This means much better freshness, and it also means that I can make small adjustments to fine-tune the grind from one latte to the next until I get it exactly the way I want it.  I'm also not going to be limited to only Starbucks coffees anymore.  There are so many other beans out there, waiting to be discovered!  One key feature of this machine that appealed to me is that it's so quiet -- supposedly, when it's grinding beans, it's no louder than the interior sound level of a running BMW.  Since I have cathedral ceilings in my kitchen, sound ricochets off the walls and ceilings and amplifies considerably, so the last thing I wanted was a grinder that sounded like a jet plane taking off in my kitchen at 6 AM.

But wait, that's a grinder -- didn't I say I bought another espresso machine? 

Okay, so it turns out that when I was reading the manual for the Expobar Office Pulser machine and read the part about how the machine could be plumbed for a continuous water supply, I was reading about a different model, the Expobar Office Lever Plus.  It only costs $200 more than the machine I purchased, and when I made this discovery I was still within the return/exchange period.  Although I really enjoy the Office Pulser, the things I dislike about it are having to fill that water tank every day (which I can only manage with a funnel or else water splashes all over the place) and the fact that there's no way to tell how much water is left in the tank without removing the top of the machine.  There's a fabulous instant hot water dispenser on the machine that would be great for making hot tea or hot chocolate, except that it drains too much water out of the tank.  Plus, there's a little water softening filter thingy attached to the hose inside the water tank that I'm supposed to change every 300 lattes or so.  Who wants to remember to do that?  We're planning to change out the kitchen backsplash one of these days anyway, and Bernie wants to add a pot filler behind the stove, so adding a plumbing line for the espresso machine at the same time should not be a big huge deal.

This is the new EspressoBaby that's on its way, on some UPS truck somewhere between New York and North Carolina, carefully packaged and nestled in foam.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love how it's open at the top of the machine, too, for better visibility as well as aesthetics.  Plumbing the machine is optional, not required, so I can continue to fill the water tank with my funnel until we get around to replacing the backsplash tile.  I want to find some distressed terra cotta subway tiles, I think...  That will be another quest for another day.

From Zero to Latte in Five Minutes Flat!

In case you missed my earlier post about my new Expobar Office Pulser espresso machine, you can read that here.  I've had the machine up and running for about three weeks now, and wanted to report back about how much I love it!

I must admit; I was a little intimidated when I first unpacked this beast.  It's MUCH bigger than the old machine, and the instructions weren't much help.  Thank goodness for the supplemental instruction sheet that the distributor, Whole Latte Love, packed with the machine or I would have been completely lost.  That's me, up on the counter, peering down into the innards of the espresso machine to try to figure out what's up with the filter thingy and the little hoses.

But really, all I had to do before I made my first latte was plug the machine in and fill the tank up with water.  After that, the machine works exactly like my old Barista machine from Starbucks.  Except that it does its magic in a third of the time the old machine took, with no down time, and the coffee tastes SO much better!  I'm in Espresso Nirvana!!

Do you see that beautiful foam on my steamed milk?  The old Barista machine took at least 5-6 minutes to steam milk, and it was very finicky about which milk it would steam.  It had to be the Harris Teeter skim milk, pulled from the very back of the store's refrigerator, and it had to be ice-cold.  I tried the organic milk, 1% milk, or skim milk from other grocery stores, and the foam would go flat and disappear within 30 seconds of making it.  The new machine will foam every milk I've tried to frothy, fabulous perfection in under two minutes every time.

After steaming milk on my old machine, I had to switch the machine from steaming to brewing mode and wait for the machine to cool off before I could pull any shots.  It is such a delight (and an enormous time-saver) to flip the brew switch and pull espresso shots immediately after steaming milk on this machine.

Trickle trickle trickle...

 ...And there you have it: beautiful, flavorful espresso shots with gorgeous, caramelly crema, ready to combine with the steamed milk into a vastly superior latte, in less than 5 minutes from start to finish.  You can't even brew coffee in an automatic drip machine that fast!

Isn't that beautiful?  I don't get foam like that on my lattes at Starbucks; they have been doing a weird steamed slushy milk thing lately.  They got new machines at my local Starbucks and the refrain I keep hearing when customers complain about lack of foam or burning their taste buds off with the first sip is "but it's all automatic."  If Starbucks can't make a decent latte anymore, they are in serious trouble.

So, you'd think that my espresso dreams would have all come true now that the snazzy new espresso machine is up and running and cranking out amazing lattes to satisfy my every whim, but you'd be wrong.  This Latte Lust has not yet run its course, I'm afraid.  I've been using Starbucks Espresso Roast beans at home for years, and I always had Starbucks grind the beans on #3 for my Barista machine.  I wanted to try a slightly finer grind with the new machine because the shots were pouring a bit fast (ideally, it should take 20-25 seconds from the time you push the brew button until the espresso reaches the white lines on the shot glasses.  If the shots pour much faster, your beans are probably ground too coarsely and/or you aren't tamping firmly enough, and you won't get much flavor from the shots.  If the shots pour more slowly, then you're grinding too fine or tamping too hard, and the shots will be bitter).  The inexpensive blade coffee grinders that you find at stores like Target and Bed Bath & Beyond grind too unevenly, and expose the beans to too much heat during the grinding process, to be suitable for those seeking espresso bliss.  Fresh ground coffee is of course preferred, but we go through coffee so fast in my house anyway that having Starbucks grind the beans for me a pound at a time seemed to be a good compromise solution.

Except that they keep screwing up the grind, and I don't realize it until the next morning, at about 7 AM, bleary-eyed, stumbling blindly around the kitchen, knowing I can handle any hitch the boys might throw my way as long as I have that nice, warm latte in my hand...  You can't make even a halfway decent latte with just any old grind.  Last week I went to Starbucks, actually went INSIDE Starbucks so I wouldn't hold up the drive-through line, and talked with a Barista about how I wanted my coffee ground.  I told her that I had always asked for #3 in the past, but that I wanted to try a slightly finer grind with my new commercial style espresso machine.  I asked her specifically to grind my beans on the same setting that they used for THEIR espresso machines.  And then, to my horror, when I opened the bag the next morning, I saw coffee particles the size of sand instead of powder.  It looked like Folgers from the grocery store; it was definitely an automatic drip machine grind setting.  I was desperate, so I tamped it into the little portofilter as best as I could and tried to get some shots out of it.  The resulting latte tasted like a cup of steamed milk, like I'd forgotten to put the shots in at all.  So, mystery solved -- all those times when I've ordered a latte and it tastes like there isn't any espresso in it, now I know that the shots were pouring way too fast and the grind was too coarse.  I tried adding two additional shots of this sad excuse for espresso, and now my latte tasted kind of like that instant cappuccino stuff from Taster's Choice, but with real foam.  Blech!  Now Starbucks cannot even be counted on to grind beans properly!

The other thing to consider is that there are so many other espresso beans out there, waiting to be experienced, but I've been restricted to Starbucks beans since I have no way of grinding my own beans at home.  Whole Latte Love sent me a pound of interesting-looking espresso beans as a gift-with-purchase, and my father-in-law sent me a whole box full of different coffee beans from his recent trip to Costa Rica -- none of which I have been able to sample, since I have no way to grind the beans.  It seems obvious to me that the Universe wants me to take the next step towards Espresso Independence with the purchase of a commercial-style burr grinder to take its rightful place on the counter beside my espresso machine.  Even my husband, who is enjoying his homemade lattes now that I share, thinks I should buy a grinder.  So now the question is, which one?  I did lots of research and read through hundreds of reviews before selecting my espresso machine, and I know even less about the ins and outs of coffee grinders than I knew about espresso machines.  I'm going to head back over to Whole Latte Love and start my research.  I'll let you know what I come up with!

Hooray -- My Espresso Machine Died! Meet the Expobar Office Pulser I Just Ordered from Whole Latte Love

I firmly believe that God invented espresso just to give tired working mothers a fighting chance.  Everyone else in the family gets breakfast in the morning before they head out the door, but I'd rather drive the kids to school in my pajamas than skip my morning latte -- so why am I doing the happy dance about my broken espresso machine?  It's because I have had its replacement picked out for a year, but couldn't justify the cost as long as my old machine "still worked just fine."

My newly deceased machine was the second of two Starbucks Barista machines, made by Saeco.  The first one cost $300 and lasted three years after paying for itself about twenty times over ("That's $3.46.  I'll see you at the window...").  The machine that just died was a newer model of the same machine that lasted about three and a half years and cost about 20% more than the first one, if memory serves me well.  Yesterday morning the steam function just petered out in the midst of steaming my milk, kind of like the air being let out of a balloon, or a car running out of gas.  Briefly, I toyed with the idea of going to the drive-through Starbucks (in my pajamas) and trying to purchase another espresso machine through the window, because then I would get a new machine instantly.  Now is nicer than Later.

But awhile ago, I did some research at http://coffeegeek.com/ and decided that, next time I was in the market for a new machine, I would upgrade to a model with a heat exchanger that can steam milk and shoot espresso at the same time.  The new machine will be a manual, like my old one -- no fancy electronic controls, this is a hands-on machine but easy to use once you get the hang of it.  My Starbucks machines, like others in their price point, need time to cool off in between steaming the milk (which needs to be done first so the espresso shots don't get cold by the time the milk is ready) and pulling the espresso shots.  That means that it can take 15-20 minutes to make a single latte, and 30-40 minutes to make two lattes.  I would have to heat the machine to steam milk, steam a pitcher of milk for one latte, then wait for the machine to cool down, then pull the shots for the first drink, then heat it up to steam milk for the second drink, cool it down again for shots...  The steam wand on the Barista machine also wasn't long enough to work with a larger milk pitcher to steam milk for more than one drink at a time, unless you're drinking cute little baby lattes and restaurant-sized cappuccinos.  We supersize our coffee at my house -- I'm told it's a Lutheran Thing.  All of this adds up to a selfish Rebecca drinking lattes in front of other people and not offering to share (see photo above of me not sharing my latte in 2008 -- and no, that's not my natural haircolor, either), so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make multiple drinks at once and rejoin the ranks of polite society.  My mother and husband should both appreciate that!

If you're in the market for your first espresso machine, check out this guide from Coffee Geek that covers all bases, How to Buy an Espresso Machine. The machine I selected is the Expobar Office Pulser, a Spanish machine that gets great reviews from every site I visited and seems to be the best balance between price tag and performance. It is annoying, however, to see that the price on this model has gone up several hundred dollars over the last couple of years. This is probably the inevitable result of so many elated coffee lovers blabbing all over the internet that the machine is worth twice what they paid -- of course the manufacturer is going to raise the price!  Where are Bill and Ted with their excellent phonebooth when I want to go back to 2003 to buy an espresso machine?

Overnight shipping would have been insanely expensive, and the machine cost enough on its own so I went with ground shipping.  I ordered my machine from Whole Latte Love, exlusive U.S. distributors for Expobar.  Their site contains a wealth of useful information on all things related to coffee, and they have a 30-day return period in case I turn out to be the first coffee lover who doesn't love this machine.  I'll let you know when it shows up, and if all goes well, maybe next time you come to my house I'll make you a latte!