Nespresso: just all George Clooney and queues in BT?
05.02.10
It’s a joy to handle but can the Nespresso survive a debunking in favour of the messy old coffee machine? writes ORNA MULCAHY
I’M IN a recession-free zone, standing in a queue watching George Clooney walk up the wide white steps to heaven. Earlier, a piano had fallen on his head but, at the top of the steps, he strikes a deal with St Peter – handing over his Nespresso coffee in return for another go at life. Next thing he’s back where he started, flirting with a woman over an espresso with a head on it like a pint of Guinness. It’s cute. Very watchable and it helps to pass the time in the queue at the Nespresso boutique in Brown Thomas, past pots and pans on the third floor. It’s the only queue going, one person ahead and three behind, the rest of the sales floor like the wide open plains of Wyoming.
My turn, eventually, to explain that a friend has run out of coffee capsules, I’d like to buy her some, but am not sure what she likes. No problem. By tapping away at her screen for a while the sales assistant can tell me, in complete confidence of course. “This one, and this one . . . and a leetle bit of that one,” she says, pointing to the long thin black boxes of capsules that are arranged under glass, like precious artefacts. “She likes very much the Arpeggio,” she adds, making me think that I would probably like it very much too. While paying, I gabble on about maybe one day buying my own Nespresso machine, and that’s it. Game over. They happen to be having a sale, and 10 minutes later the lady has sold me the whole shebang so skilfully I don’t mind heading back to the office like a pack donkey.
Source: Irish Times
Coffee is an art form in Seattle
04.02.10
SEATTLE–"Listen, this is important. Before we pour, you have to be sure the foam and the espresso are the same consistency," Jackie McCallum says. "They both have to be silky smooth."
McCallum is jovial and patient as she shows Cindy Strohmier of Duvall, Wash., how to make a heart-shaped pattern atop a latte at Caffé L'Arte, but there's a hint of an intensity that might serve her well at an international barista competition she plans to enter next fall.
"Let's face it, I'm a coffee nerd," McCallum says after a demonstration for a caffeine culture walking tour in central Seattle.
A coffee nerd? Well, at least in Seattle, McCallum won't be lonely.
The Pike Public Market on the waterfront is said to be the clear No. 1 tourist attraction in Washington state, but caffeinated creativity seems to infuse everything about this area.
And it goes much deeper than the fact that this city is where the global Starbucks empire (including its Seattle's Best division) got started.
Source: Toronto Star