Monday Coffee News
Happy Monday! Some interesting coffee-related news: Starbucks brought back the mini Frappuccino again this summer, French pressed coffee may be bad for cholesterol levels, #coffeeinacone is taking Instagram by storm, and Oszko launched a Kickstarter campaign for undies made using recycled coffee grounds.
The mini Frappuccino has returned! For a limited time this summer, starting May 16th, all flavors of Frappuccinos (including my weakness, a.k.a. the S’mores Frappuccino) will be available in a mini 10 ounce size at participating Starbucks stores in the U.S. and Canada.
The executive editor of Harvard Health Letter, Heidi Godman, recently published an article in which she warns against the possible health hazards of coffee made using the French press method (adding hot water to coffee grounds in a French press pitcher, waiting a bit until desired brew strength is reached, and then using a mesh plunger to press the coffee grounds down and out of the way before pouring out the brewed coffee). Her objections to the process have to do with the absence of a filter to catch diterpenes, oily substances found in coffee beans, which may end up in the brewed coffee and can contribute to the rise of cholesterol in consumers. In the same article is a quote from Dr. Eric Rimm (professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) which states “Five to eight cups a day of unfiltered coffee may actually raise your ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol.” Dr. Rimm goes on to recommend watching your LDL levels and keeping your unfiltered coffee consumption down to 4 cups (5 for filtered coffee). – I would need to see more studies on this, but 4 – 8 cups a day is a lot of coffee anyway (I’m in the 4 -5 range myself).
Dayne Levinrad claims #coffeeinacone is the most Instagrammed coffee, and since 1 million posts with that hashtag have been liked since January, it’s entirely possible. So what is it? Coffee in a cone, and the hashtag #coffeeinacone, is the brainchild of Dayne Levinrad, owner of The Grind Coffee Company, in Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s pretty much exactly what is sounds like: it’s coffee…in a cone. The waffle cone is specially made and lined with a blend of heat resistant chocolate and then filled with either espresso or macchiato – and then consumers have 3 to 10 minutes to drink it before the hot coffee destroys the whole thing.
I love when creative people come up with new uses for recycled coffee grounds – and Oszko has done just that with their line of mens’ underwear. By adding used coffee grounds to the yarn used in production, the underwear is supposed to become more odor resistant and can be worn comfortably for longer than normal pairs (which sounds kind of gross, but the marketing is aimed at outdoorsy types, so I can see how that would come in handy). Anyway, check out the video for their Kickstarter campaign below:
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