K-Squared Ramblings

Easy Office Environmental Tip: The Disposable Cup

If you work in an office, chances are there’s a water cooler somewhere. And if there’s a water cooler, chances are there’s a stack of disposable paper cups (or possibly, even in this age, styrofoam). And chances are that most people will walk up, grab a paper cup, take it back to their desk and then throw it away.

Of course, all those paper cups end up in a landfill somewhere. And there’s the material to manufacture them (even if it’s recycled). And there’s the energy that went into manufacturing them.

So why not reuse that paper cup if you’re only using it for water? It’ll dry out between uses, so the water shouldn’t seep through the wax. If you have, say, one glass of water a day, and you use the same cup for a week, you’re cutting down your paper cup usage by 80%.

Or better yet: do you have a coffee mug? You need to wash it out anyway before you put more coffee in (unless you’re keeping it full all day long). Why not wash it out earlier, and use the mug when you want some water?

Sure, it’s less convenient than walking past the lunch room and grabbing a new paper cup. But let’s face it: you work in an office. And Americans, on the whole, don’t get enough exercise. You might as well take advantage of the extra activity for some incidental exercise.

Full-Spectrum Coffee

Between cash, lunch and an errand, I walked the full length of the Irvine Spectrum today, and realized there will soon be 7 coffee shops in or near the shopping center—and 4 of them are Starbucks.

It opened with just one: a Diedrich Coffee, attached to Barnes & Noble.

Phase 2 (from the movie theaters to the carousel) added a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Phase 3 (from the carousel to the ferris wheel) doubled the number, adding a Kelly’s Coffee & Fudge, and a Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble, which moved into the new section.

Somewhere around here the Diedrich closed. Without the bookstore traffic, it was off in a corner where only people going to restaurants would see it.

Then they put in a Nordstrom, with a Nordstrom e-Bar.

Then they extended the mall past the Nordstrom, put a Target at the end, and put a Starbucks in the Target.

Then they built an apartment complex across the street, and put a Starbucks in the apartment complex.

Now they’ve gone back to the first section, adding a new row of shops in front of the movie theater. And they’re filling in a corner long left vacant…with another Starbucks.

Safari Blend Coffee

In honor of the release* of Safari 3, here’s a little something we found at Trader Joe’s.

The mug is from the short-lived Mozilla Coffee. It seemed appropriate. Now if I can just track down some Opera Coffee, or Explorer Coffee…

*Safari 3 was included in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released 2½ weeks ago. And it’s included in the 10.4.11 update for Tiger, released today. An updated version of Safari was released today for Windows, but it’s still a beta, according to Apple’s website and the license (even though the about box just says it’s Safari 3.0.4—the same version that’s in Leopard). I’d been planning to hold this until all 3 releases were out, but clearly they don’t feel that the Windows version is quite release-quality yet. So, on the premise that two out of three ain’t bad, I’m posting.

Priorities

The new shopping center, The District (built on a corner of the former MCAS Tustin base), has an ad campaign with the slogan, “A million reasons why.” Each poster shows someone posing with a random number and something that can be found, done, or resolved by going there.

Here’s a guy who has his priorities straight. They’ve got Peet’s, Seattle’s Best Coffee, there’s a coffee bar in the Whole Foods, and who knows how many more restaurants that serve it.

Of course, if he wanted more choices, he’d be better off going to the Irvine Spectrum. They’ve got a Coffee Bean, a Kelly’s, 2 Starbucks (and a third on the way), and a Nordstrom Espresso Bar. And once upon a time, they had a Diedrich…

Speaking of Diedrich, the one on Culver and Barranca is still around at least through next summer. I haven’t been by the one near UCI lately, but I seem to recall hearing October, so it may not be long for this world.

Hmm, you know what? That poster lists a lot of caffeine sources, but it doesn’t say anything about coffee. With luck they won’t be too confused if you just order a coffee, as in this strip from Real Life Comics.

Coffee Shops in San Diego

So, you’re going to Comic-Con, you want coffee, but you don’t want Starbucks. Maybe you don’t like their coffee, maybe you don’t like their size, or maybe you don’t like the fact that they sued a comic book artist over a parody several years ago.

I’ve been to a couple of It’s a Grind locations over the past few years, and decided to do some Internet searching for other coffee places in Downtown San Diego.

First, the chains:

It’s a Grind - highly recommended.

• 1603 India St. (India & Cedar in Little Italy, near trolley stop)*
• 690 First Ave. (1st & G, across from Ralphs, near Horton Plaza)
• 10th & J St. (marked as Coming Soon on website)

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

• 160 W. Broadway (Broadway & Front, near Horton Plaza)
• Also inside the Ralphs at 1st and Market

No sign of Kelly’s or Peet’s, and of course Diedrich is gone. Though Starbucks has 15 locations plus the Seattle’s Best in the Gaslamp Borders.

I found a couple of lists at San Diego Coffee Houses and String Beans. I’m not sure how many of them are actually downtown, but these appear to be:

Seaport Coffee and Fudge Factory

• 849 West Harbor Drive

Twiggs Coffeehouse*

• 702 Ash Street (Ash & 7th)

Brickyard Coffee & Tea

• 675 W G St (between 6th Ave & 7th Ave at the Seaport Village trolley stop)

If you get out to Old Town San Diego, I highly recommend stopping by the San Diego Coffee and Tea House. Seriously consider picking up a bag of Highlander Grog to take home.

* Not near convention center, but still downtown & near hotels.

So, are there any San Diego natives reading? Any suggestions–especially for places within walking distance of the convention center?

Sushi…Coffee?

I was catching up on my brother’s Flickr posts and found this photo:

©Brion Vibber, used per the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Not a combination I’m used to seeing…

He’s got a handful of other photos tagged wtf.

C is for Coffee

NPR’s Morning Edition ran a story on finding the perfect balance of caffeine. Apparently as little as 100mg—typical for a 6-ounce cup of coffee—is enough to give most people a lift. Depending on tolerance, anxiety and jitters start showing up as early as 200mg.

And yes, a cup of plain coffee has more caffeine than a shot of espresso.

The story was followed by one looking at why children have so much more energy than their elders. One of the biologists they interviewed was Michael Rose, an evolutionary biologist at UCI. I actually took a class from him once, on an evolutionary approach to explain the aging process. His take on it is that youthful energy is all about exploring the world and filling up your brain. Once you’re an adult, you don’t need to explore as much. It also means you take fewer risks, increasing your odds of survival.

Drazi Drinks

Last week, after going out to see Superman Returns, we wandered over to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I ordered the new honeydew ice blended drink. Katie ordered the pomegranate-blueberry drink. When we picked them up from the counter, though, the combination struck us both as funny:

Yes, they were green and purple.

Paper cutter with laser sight!

Every once in a while you see something that gives you the feeling that yes, you’re living in the future. I got it the first time I saw Wolfgang Puck’s self-heating coffee at the grocery store. I also got it when I saw this:

I mean, how can you go wrong with a paper cutter that has a laser sight?

A few weeks ago, Warren Ellis wrote about “detecting outbreaks of the future” and possibly setting up a website for “future hunters.” His latest Bad Signal mentions setting it up at the currently-defunct DiePunyHumans.com. This kind of stuff should fit right in.

You know you need coffee when…

• You pour yourself orange juice, then very carefully put the carton back…in the cupboard.
• You walk into the lunch room for coffee, but forget to bring your mug.
• You momentarily forget how to make coffee.
• You set up the coffee maker, but leave out a critical step like positioning the coffee pot.
• You get the coffee, then forget to drink it.
• You pour yourself a bowl of Wheat Thins.
• You try to slice fruit into your cereal, but you do it over the sink instead of your bowl.
• You pour yourself coffee, then immediately wash your mug and head for work.

Feel free to add to the list in the comments!

Coffee rings caused by capillary action?

I was preparing my latest favorite work-suitable drink a few minutes ago, and a drop of tea spilled over the side of the mug and ran down to the base. Naturally it immediately spread around the entire base, forming a ring on the desk. It was easily wiped up, but then I thought—why does it always spread around the entire base to form that unmistakable coffee ring?

It occurred to me that it might just be capillary action with the liquid flowing along the V-shaped channel formed by the table and the edge of the mug. Some googling did turn up the fact that ring-shaped coffee stains from single drops are caused by capillary flow: as the drop evaporates, it draws water from the inside.

But the instant ring from the mug? Either it’s something else, or it’s so obvious no one has throught it worth writing about.

Edit: *sigh* Read first, then post. I was just reminded that capillary action specifically refers to fluid moving against gravity. Any other thoughts?

Moroccan Mint Mocha

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has a drink they call a Moroccan Mint Latte. It’s a tea latte with chocolate. You can get a fairly good approximation by making hot chocolate using mint tea instead of hot water. Katie suggested Bigelow Plantation Mint (after I mentioned that I’d tried it with Stash Moroccan Mint), which seems to work well.

Update: I forgot to mention the key difference between the two varieties of tea that I tried. Black tea works better with chocoloate than green tea.

Chains of Coffee

We have four coffee-house chains in the area, in addition to local places.

My favorite is Diedrich Coffee, with a couple dozen locations in Orange County, two each in LA and San Diego… and three each in Houston and Denver. (In the last few months, Diedrich has started selling T-shirts that say, “Venti, Schmenti.”)

Then there’s Kelly’s Coffee and Fudge Factory, which had about five locations the last time I checked but now has about thirty scattered around Southern California with one more in Lake Havasu… and according to their website, they’re opening one in Riyadh. Yes, Riyadh.

And then there are the international chains. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is all over the American Southwest and Southeast Asia. Starbucks, of course, is everywhere.

At one point we had all four chains in one mall. The first phase of the Irvine Spectrum had a Diedrich Coffee attached to the Barnes & Noble, before the bookstore hooked up with Starbucks. The second phase added a Coffee Bean. The third phase added a Kelly’s, and the Barnes & Noble moved to the new section… and added a Starbucks coffee bar inside. Unfortunately the Diedrich’s was off in a corner, and without the bookstore to bring people in, it eventually closed.

Edit: I can’t believe I forgot these, but if you really look for them, you can find Peet’s and Seattle’s Best. Neither has many stores in the area, though.

Useful warning labels

Forget “Coffee is Hot!” and its variations. What they really need is a warning on iced blended drinks that anything larger than about 12 ounces may separate and require frequent re-mixing unless drunk rapidly. And those are the ones that are mixed well. Let us not speak of the ones you get at the café downstairs from the office, or at rush hour when everyone else in town wants a Frappucino NOW and the baristas are just trying to get through with the blenders as fast as they can. You know, the ones that end up like a coffee-flavored snow cone with a straw.

For some reason, coffee just doesn’t seem to blend with ice as well as fruit does.

Last of the Lazy Lizard

While cleaning the apartment this weekend, we found a long-forgotten bag of “Lazy Lizard” Mozilla Coffee. RJ Tarpley’s, the company which sold it (and donated a percentage of profits to the Mozilla Foundation) disappeared last summer. By September, I couldn’t even find a whois record. The domain name has since been picked up by a link farm.

It was decent coffee, and it helped support some good software. And I got a nifty mug while they were still in business. There was maybe half a pound left, but 12-month-old decaf coffee just isn’t fit to drink anymore, so instead of brewing one last pot in salute, we tossed what was left.