What if I didn't drink coffee?

Representing my church I attended the AGM today of Christian Aid (Ireland). The event was held at Bewley's Hotel near Dublin Airport. For those outside of Ireland, Bewley's is a well established and historical purveyor of tea and coffee in Ireland. I guess they also purvey guest rooms too. But it's not Bewley's that I want to talk about - though it is coffee related.

Christian Aid is an international development organisation who raise funds and help local churches connect with vital projects in the developing world. I noted down what the Chairperson said was the driving motivation behind Christian Aid: "To eradicate absolute poverty because absolute poverty is an affront to God."

One speaker highlighted a recent trip to Ethiopia - the home of coffee. His presentation included the story of a small group of women who pooled some money in order to give micro-loans to the local residents in order for them to develop some sort of livelihood. The way this collective of about a dozen women initially raised some capital was through coffee. Actually through not drinking coffee.

Part of the tradition for many in rural Ethiopia is the drinking of coffee in a ritualized way. Typically this coffee ritual takes place three times a day. However, these ladies for-goed one ritual each day and pooled the saved money instead - about five cents each. Five cents!!

You and I wouldn't think twice about such a trivial amount of money, but once enough had been collected fair loans could be made. So the story continued:

A woman takes out a small loan from the group and buys a large bag of corn and a large can of kerosene. These then she decants into small vessels and sells on to others at a small profit. From that profit she buys a goat which she milks for extra income. Her newly earned money is then used to buy another goat which she breeds with the original and several months later the goat gives birth to two more. These new goats are sold for a decent enough amount of money to start to give hope for this woman and her life is transformed. All for just skipping a coffee and investing five cents. It was a powerful lesson and one that, as I write this now, causes me to think about what I could do if I skipped the occasional coffee and did something else with the money.

Costa Coffee in Ireland???

Wandering around Dublin city centre on a cold, wet, windy Saturday morning is not really my idea of fun. Especially when accompanied with three under-5 children, one of whom had had a high temperature the night before. Still, a bit of fresh air and exercise never killed anyone. Probably.

However, my morning was brightened up when I noticed a Costa Coffee store on a busy corner of Dawson Street just up the road from my favourite toy shop - all 50 sq. meters of it (if that) packed form floor to ceiling with classy toys! So while the kids were peering in through the toy shop window I headed into Costa for some coffee and the low-down on their arrival in Dublin.

Costa Coffee have been brewing up a pretty decent cup in the UK for years, and as a chain store over there would have been the biggest rivals to Starbucks - with probably a couple of hundred more outlets than the mermaid. What I have always liked about Costa is their support of Fairtrade long before it started becoming trendy and certainly long before their biggest rival did. That and they do a nice selection of pastries.

I return from my recon trip with a vanilla latte for my wife and a regular latte for me, plus a chocolate mini yule log. (I can't believe I bought something so Christmasy already...but I guess we were in the process of helping out Santa).

"Get this," said I to herself. "Costa have been in Ireland for ages and I never knew it! And they have 27 cafés across the country!!"

"Let me stop you right there," says she, nipping in the bud any thoughts of an another pilgrimage....

Coffee Diagrams

A while ago someone asked me if I would explain what the differences are between the various styles of coffee. So, going on the premise that a picture is worth a thousand words I shan't bore you with intricate details......even though I might find it interesting. Instead, here's a great picture I came across:



(Designed by Lokesh Dhakar)

Why would you do that????

My mother-in-law from America has been over for the last couple of weeks. Although living in Ohio for many years her family history is from the South. Every now and then she will give me a little insight in to some of the customs of that part of the country - like what they serve for breakfast: biscuits and red-eye gravy.

The "biscuits" I can cope with. Think a lighter, fluffy/flaky bread roll, a bit like a plain scone but less dense. (Nothing like a chocolate digestive biscuit). Served with the biscuit is some bacon. Ok so far. All this is topped with red-eye gravy. Here's how that is made: after frying the bacon remove the meat from the pan, but leave the fat and juices behind. Then add to the pan......my goodness I can hardly bring myself to say it......then add to the pan............coffee!!!!! And you got yer gravy.

Please, anyone from the Southern States, can you confirm this abomination is true?

That said, I did take my m-i-l to Temple Bar market last weekend where we sampled chocolate covered bacon.

Farewell to Starbucks

I wasn't planning on going to Starbucks in Ranelagh today, I just happened to go past it. Actually to be more precise I happened to go past where it was! I wound up doing a double-take and thinking, 'Wow! Starbucks has closed.'

The door was open so I peered around inside the empty store, save for a display of coffee packets and a few bits of unsold merchandise. I found someone to explain what had happened. Apparently this wasn't the only Irish store to close. Five of them closed on Friday!

Unfortunately the grounds ran out for Starbucks cafes in Ranelagh, Dundrum, Tallaght, Swords and Dalkey. I can't help feeling the people of Dalkey may be feeling a little bit smug right now.

While I'm not really bothered about these stores closing down, I do feel sorry for the people who worked in them. I guess that even in a small country such as this the mighty Starbucks over-stretched itself. I'm glad I finished visiting them all when I did! It almost now gives my Starbucks coffee Odyssey an historical perspective.