Perhaps my favorite thing about Saturday is a relaxing cup of high quality coffee in the morning.  I drink coffee all week long, but on weekdays it's usually Starbucks beans through a drip machine in my office--which is not quite as enjoyable as the work-free coffee I treat myself to on Saturdays.  Don't get me wrong . . . I love and appreciate the weekday office coffee, but Saturday coffee really rockz.  I usually make my Saturday coffee at home using a French press (pictured above) . . . and right now I'm making coffee with beans from a small roaster in Palmer Alaska, the Charter Blend from the Coffee Roastery--that my sister sent to me last month.

The past week's been packed full of interesting coffee information and I've been meaning to blog about it all week, but didn't get around to it until Saturday coffee time.  So what did I learn about coffee this week?  Well, for starters, there was this fascinating article in the NY Times about a new $20,000 coffee machine called a siphon bar that coffee houses here in the US have begun importing from Japan.  The article was written by the son of a friend/former co-worker, who emailed to alert me to the very cool and impressive fact that it was her son's 50th article published in the NY Times.  The article's written by Oliver Schwaner-Albright and is accompanied by a series of beautiful photos by Peter DaSilva.  In addition to profiling the $20,000 siphon bar, the article also profiles another high-end one-cup-at-a-time machine . . . the $11,000 Clover, which is also growing in popularity among professional coffee makers around the US.  Together, according to Schwaner-Albright, the recent growth in the popularity of these machines signals "the resurgence of brewing among the most obsessive coffee enthusiasts."  The espresso method of making high-end coffee is still by far the preferred method among most coffee fanatics, but this article definitely makes me want to try some of this fancy new-style brewed coffee.  Anyone know if there are any coffee shops in the DC area with a siphon bar or a Clover?

Although I don't know whether there's a siphon bar or a Clover in DC, I do now know of a very cool operation here in DC called Counter Culture Coffee.  I have a very good friend living in Brooklyn, who not only made me the cappuccino pictured below last Saturday moring, but who is also my go-to source for all coffee-related information.



This friend of mine is studying and writing about sustainable coffee production and distribution full time and taught me a lot about the issue when I was visiting her last weekend.  I'm not gonna go too deeply into what she taught me, because I want you to hear it straight from her--I need to bug her to do some guest blogging.  But, in a nutshell, she was explaining to me a current trend toward cutting out the middle-people in sustainable, socially responsible coffee distribution.  Much like I enjoy shopping at the farmers market on Sundays because I can speak directly with the farmers--and don't need to rely on an "organic" certification (with standards that are gradually being watered-down by big business that wants a piece of the trendy "organic" action) for assurances that a product was sustainably-produced--so too are some coffee lovers going directly to the growers . . . working directly with the growers to make sure the product is of the highest quality and to make sure that the growers themselves are being fairly compensated for their sweat and hard work.

This is where Counter Culture Coffee comes in--a coffee roaster with its home base in Durham, NC, but with a "Regional Training Center" here in DC (1836 Columbia Road NW, Suite 202, Washington DC 20009) where they hold a free "cupping" (coffee tasting) every Friday at 10 AM that's open to the public.  I've never been to one--in fact, I just checked out the organization's Web site for the first time today--but I'd love to go to a cupping, so let me know if you're interested in joining me.  The Counter Culture Coffee Web site is very nicely put together . . . very informative.  Check it out.  Happy coffee drinking, folks.  Enjoy your weekend.