Coffee makes a comeback...

Starbucks stock hasn't been doing so hot lately. According to a story on NPR, it's share price has been cut in half over the past year because of growing competition from the McDonalds experiment in the gourmet coffee realm and some overall cutbacks in household budgets due to the state of the economy. People just seem to be shying away from the four dollar venti lattes and frappucinos it seems. To get more people in the store and compete with Mickey D's, Starbucks will be introducing one dollar cups of coffee served up in those 8 ounce short-sized cups that used to be reserved by people in the know ordering off the menu.

This seems like a good idea from a profit perspective, but I can't help but think Starbucks is kind of deglamorizing it's own product.  It seems if they're truly going to lower their product to the level of a fast food chain standard by going the dollar menu route, why wouldn't I just go to McDonalds for my cup of joe?  Not that espresso and coffee was really that much of an art form at Starbucks to begin with, but at least they sort of gave you the impression that they were at least trying their hardest to pose as a serious coffee purveyor.  

The real deal is at these independent places where they treat coffee like fine wine with complexities that have to be cherished and appreciated from the time the bean is roasted and ground up to the moment it hits your mouth.  And this goes far beyond a fancy coffee press.  Specialized instruments that make coffee by the cup and tailored to your exact specifications are cropping up including this $20,000 gizmo as mentioned in The New York Times:

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

“If you just want equipment you’re not ready,” Mr. Egami said in an interview.

The siphon bar actually sounds pretty cool, and it almost seems like it would be fun just to watch one of these things in action.  The technique they employ to make coffee with these things is pretty obsessive though:

A siphon pot has two stacked glass globes, and works a little like a macchinetta, that stove-top gadget wrongly called an espresso maker by generations of graduate students. As water vapor forces water into the upper globe the coffee grounds are stirred by hand with a bamboo paddle. (In Japan, siphon coffee masters carve their own paddles to fit the shape of their palms.)

The goal is to create a deep whirlpool in no more than four turns without touching the glass. Posture is important. So is timing: siphon coffee has a brewing cycle of 45 to 90 seconds.

“The whirlpool, it messes with your mind,” said Mr. Freeman, the owner of the Blue Bottle. “There’s no way to rush it.”

Mr. Freeman said he practiced stirring plain water for months to develop muscle memory before he brewed his first cup of siphon coffee. Even now he starts every day with a five-minute warm-up. The evidence of good technique is in the sediment: the grounds should form a tight dome dotted with small bubbles, the sign of proper extraction.

I've heard about people being passionate about their caffeine, but this is nuts!