Friends you should not be paying a premium for natural filters, in fact unlike “organic anything else” they are cheaper to produce. Later the author will assert unbleached filters are more environmentally friendly. Melita coffee filters, for the home brewer probably the most important innovation after the French Press. I owned an original Mister Coffee, its claim to fame was the same as Kureg hot water through a filtered grounds of the right amount of quality coffee. Subjects not pursued - Joe DiMaggio Mister Coffee spokesman was the son of a San Francisco restauranteur. Omission #2 - Green Mountain Coffee Roasters are only a paragraph. Omission #1 - Kureg is not even a footnote, There are some glaring omissions along with some fascinating subjects not pursued. Washington’s the Nations first soluble coffee in their knapsacks.

Served hot Postum was offered as a coffee substitute it was popular before the advent of instant coffee.įYI/During the Spanish Civil War (1935), The Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers left NYC with jars of G. Postum originated in Battle Creek, Michigan which incidentally is the home of the brothers’ Kellogg, but that’s another story best told in Nuts Among The Berries! ( An exposé of America's food fads,© 1967by Ronald M Deutsch available on Amazon). Practicing mono-Agra-culture encourages blight, remember Ireland and the potato famine, coffee’s equivalent is leaf rust.īefore Starbucks America was the home two coffee substitutes - Who can forget Postum or Ovaltine, both products I remember. Adding coffee grounds to your compost heap adds nitrogen, (Thank You Wikipedia) We should be shipping our spent grounds to South America as a soil additive to aid production. I wrote a blog about adding coffee grounds to your garden for your acid-loving plants, but in fact, the acid is leached out by brewing, it’s in your cup.

Cotton yields product each season while a coffee tree takes five years to mature. There the similarities end, we grow cotton in open fields while coffee does best in the shade on tropical mountainsides. Second, after harvesting, the fruit is mostly useless Its remarkable coffee and cotton share a few characteristics:įirst, both products deplete the soil it’s raised in

The moment someone picks the berry, the clock is running the product passes out of control of the grower. Most of this book explains how we got here, with detailed remarks on the coffee economy.Įvery roaster starts with the best quality beans he can find at a price he’s willing to pay. At least we did, until Five Buck’s (thank you Dave Ramsey) burst upon the scene, and became a morning destination.

I can’t recall what brought this book to my attention, but it’s a compelling story well told about a commodity we pretty much take for granted. by Mark PendergrastĪ history of America’s favorite morning beverage Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World (© Sep 28, 2010).

Uncommon grounds by mark pendergrast