East coast coffee update

Last weekend, we returned from a ten-day trip to the East Coast - three days in Manhattan and a week in DC. L went for work and J and I tagged along. In NYC, I got to a few of the coffee shops linked from Ritual's web site: Gimme!, Joe, and Abraco. Actually, we stopped by the last one only after dinner in the East Village, when it was closed. In DC, I went back to Murky in Arlington, and to Peregrine in DC (located where Murky used to be). (Someone I spoke to at Murky said they'd likely be re-opening in the district, although it would not be called Murky.)

The espressos I got were excellent and of varied styles, from the dark, rich and spicy at Gimme, to the medium-dark, rich and smooth at Joe, to the dark, complex and wine-like at Murky. The best, though, was a single-origin (El Salvador, I think) espresso at Peregrine: multi-layered complexity, on the lighter side, spicy with underlying smoothness. (All of Peregrine's shots are hand-pulled, but unfortunately I did not get back to try their regular espresso.) Still, I doubt even that one has dislodged my favorites: the single-origin espressos at Blue Bottle Cafe, which are syrupy smooth, sweet and complex.

What surprised me was how few options there were for brewed coffee. Gimme had thermoses of previously brewed coffee. Joe had one bean option for previously brewed coffee or french press coffee. Murky had two. Peregrine offered individually poured drip. Abraco looked to be little more than an espresso counter. I guess it's not bad, but nothing like Ritual, where the regular coffee is freshly made french press and you can order a Clover of pretty much any of their beans. Or Blue Bottle, where you can get a siphon coffee or cold filter coffee. (Blue Bottle's individual hand-poured drip coffee is usually a disappointment for me, although I certainly find it difficult to do that uniformly excellently.)

I was also surprised that Murky and Peregrine served Counter Culture Coffee, roasted in North Carolina and shipped up in a few days, instead of roasting there own. It's not that there's anything at all wrong with CCC, but I'd think they'd want to control their own roasts. The roasts of Ritual and Blue Bottle are not tremendously different in darkness, but the overall emphases and styles of their coffees are quite different.

So, although I love the coffee tourism, I'm glad to be home, with my beans from Ritual and Blue Bottle waiting for me in the freezer, joined now by some from Murky.

yeah, pretty much

This post on Open Left, about the documentary Food Fight, notes

We prowl our farmers' markets instead, scooping up vegetables so fresh that the soil still clings to their roots. We buy our other basics at the local health food store or Whole Foods, or maybe Trader Joe's. But, once in a while, we run out of toilet paper or cat food or some other staple and, in a pinch, we dash to the supermarket across the street. Whereupon we are confronted, aisle after aisle, with the reality of what the average American eats--and, quite frankly, it freaks us out.

That actually has been my reaction the whenever I go into Safeway in the last few years - seeing the aisles and aisles of "food" and being bewildered that most of the country eats this way.

Public Library Can Be a Little Too Public

I've been going to the main San Francisco Public Library to read up on the uses and pricing of financial derivatives. (The useful stuff seems to be Reference-only.) One day after lunch, I put my head down on my book for a nap, and was woken by someone new at the table talking loudly. When I looked up, I saw a middle-aged white woman talking to someone apparently about twenty feet over my left shoulder. But when I looked in that direction, I could not discern to whom she might be talking. Then, however, she went to work on what appeared to be her problem set on basic AC circuits, muttering to herself only occasionally. This didn't bother me for a long time, but, eventually, I decided to seek someplace quieter. I was initially delighted to find an individual desk at a sunny window overlooking Civic Center plaza, but quickly noticed that the somewhat rotund, long-haired white man at the other desk in the alcove was distinctly stinky. (I couldn't make out what he was reading.) This constant sensory perception was perhaps more easily managed by nervous system facilitation than the randomly interjected commentary at my previous location, but it was still distracting. I reflected, though, that he had to put up with a non-smelly, short-haired, skinny white guy reading about financial derivatives, a comparably obnoxious stereotype.

From my childhood in Hawaii onward, I recall loving going to the public library, without ever dreading running into mentally ill or homeless people. I would assume, however, that the library staff take more care in ejecting all adults without children from the children's room.

Visit to Murky Coffee

Last week L had to go to Washington, D.C., for work, and J and I tagged along. On the recommendation of someone who staffs the siphon bar at Blue Bottle, I went to Murky Coffee in Arlington, VA. (The store in the Capitol Hill area has closed.) I got to sample only two of their coffees, so it might be a mistake to generalize from my impressions.

On the first trip there, in the late afternoon, I bought a bag of New Guinea "Kuta" coffee. The roast appeared to be somewhere between Blue Bottle roasts and Ritual roasts. They ground half for me, which I made in a cheap automatic drip machine in our hotel room. The other half, I froze in a jar during our stay and brought back with me to make in my French press at home. It was excellent, although different, made both ways. In the automatic drip machine, the malty, nutty / woody character stood out clearly and distinctly. (I still haven't figured out how to describe the acid flavor.) In the French press, the same flavors were less distinct, but blended smoothly and ever so evenly across the palate. It is at least as good as the New Guinea I've had from BBCC, probably better. (I haven't seen a New Guinea at Ritual.)

This was the main impression of the French press of delicious Kenyan I had at the cafe: a complexity of flavors balanced "just so". I found their preparation of the Kenyan perhaps slightly weak, but the lack of intensity reinforced my perception of striving for delicateness. It did not have the stunning complexity I've tasted in Kenyans from Ritual, but was probably more "accessible". (I've not seen a Kenyan at BBCC.)

The decor of the cafe itself reinforced the impression I had gotten from web sites prior to my visit, that the owner cares passionately about coffee and people and not as much about the other aspects of running the business. Still, I will eagerly go there again when I am in D.C.

If I'm drinking coffee at the time, that is. :)

Sickness and Health

In the first week of July, for the third time this year, a fairly mild viral cold incubated a subsequent bacterial infection in my sinuses, producing fever, intense sinus congestion, and general malaise. After starting antibiotics a week later, I slowly felt much better over the two-week course.

Perhaps as part of this general distress, and certainly as part of my love / hate relationship with coffee, I resolved once again to quit the stuff. However, on the night of the 4th, I did something different. I got out of bed and threw away all the coffee I had in the freezer: parts of half pounds of Brazilian coffee from Blue Bottle and Ritual. (Now, I'm sure that some of you will say, "Well, of course, you wanted to throw away the Brazilian. You should have been drinking [your favorite coffee].", but that's not where I'm going with this.) The previous time I quit, it took about twelve days to get through withdrawal, and this time was pretty much that. For the first days, it was pretty bad, but it was often difficult to tell the caffeine-withdrawal headache from the sinus infection pressure headache. Towards the end, it was hard to tell caffeine-withdrawal grogginess from antibiotic-side-effect dizziness.

Instead of buying, grinding, brewing, drinking, and cleaning up after coffee, and especially while unemployed, I am trying to meditate more. I had thought I could both drink coffee and meditate, since the Buddha nature is in all things, but in practice for me it seems to be an "exclusive or" proposition. The coffee, however delicious, makes me feel more stressed, while it reduces my ability to focus and remember all the things I want to do. This is fine if I have a lot of non-thoughtful tasks that need energy to be done, but not so great if I have to think carefully about what I'm doing. Apparently, I generally respond to stress not by being frenetic, but by shutting down, so the "excitement" of caffeine is not terribly practical. Job-hunting is stressful enough.

Coffee also reduces my openness to stopping activity for a while to sit, even if the "activity" is not terribly productive. And besides being critical for my own growth, meditative cultivation is foundation of my and L's relationship, and of our marriage vows in particular. By this, I mean that the presence of mind which comes from sitting is the basis from which we try to act towards ourselves, each other, and our friends and families.

Even after all this, I still can't say I won't continue drinking coffee at some point, but for now it seems like I'd be better off if it were only the occasional indulgence.

Learning More About Peak Oil

which is what I've been spending more time doing during my time off... To start:

A primer from a great site, including "five myths".

Basically, the U.S. uses oil and natural gas for about 60% of its primary energy. World oil production now appears to be at peak and decline appears immanent, and natural gas will probably do so soon. (Since natural gas expands on its own, it is more easily recoverable, but its production drops off much more quickly once decline starts.)

The Five Myths:
1) OPEC could produce more if it used current techniques
2) Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will save us
3) A small downturn can easily be made up with energy efficiency
4) Canadian Oil Sands will save us
5) Biofuels will save us

Although production is roughly symmetrical on the way up and the way down, the way down will not resemble the way up for (at least) three reasons:

1) Demand is now much larger, and continuing to grow, which will lead to increasingly large unmet demand, i.e., unmet needs for those who cannot afford the higher prices. See the Hirsch Report (PDF), from the U.S. Dept of Energy.

2) The oil which was easiest to take out of the ground has been extracted, and future amounts will be more difficult to recover. This is summed up in the idea of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI or EROEI). Initially, EROI of oil was about 100:1. Now it's more like 15:1, and will keep falling. (See this graph from this presentation.) This means that the amount of oil we can actually use will fall faster than the amount of recoverable oil. (See the "Gross vs. Net Energy" graph in this presentation.)

3) Oil imports, on which the U.S. is highly dependent, will likely fall even faster than net production does. The idea in the "Export Land Model" is that demand for oil in countries which are still net exporters will continue to grow exponentially even as production declines, leading exports to decline significantly faster than production. Explanation of and support for this idea is provided at the link above.

So, the world, and the U.S. especially (Europe is much more energy-efficient), is looking at a large and rapid loss of an energy source on which it's completely dependent - for the production of fertilizers, production and transport of food, manufacture of medicines and about every other product in our modern lives, and transport of people from home to stores and work every day (not to mention air travel). So far, the most serious U.S. effort to prepare for this transition has been the invasion of Iraq (see "Is the Bush administration aware of this?" down the page at this site).

Laid Off

On the last day of April, at 4pm, I was informed that my services were no longer needed at the company. It was not a complete surprise by any means, as it had seemed for a while like it was not the best fit. Now, I'm cleaning up the house a bit and getting started on the next job search. If you have suggestions about where I should look for work, or, more generally, what I should do with my free time, please let me know.

Long Time No Update

January was a bit trying as I spent most of it sick. I caught two colds in a row, presumably from our adorable little day care vector, and wound up with one of the bacterial sinus infections to which I am prone. After a course of antibiotics, I am much better.

Back on my bicycle, I have found that the new Blue Bottle cafe is a very easy detour on my ride to Caltrain in the morning. The espresso blend they for the cafe is mostly Central American and has a flavor palate of roasted nuts, brown sugar, maybe cinnamon and orange peel, and just straightforward earthy brown coffee. A little acid for my taste but delightfully complex. If only they had food before 8am.

I am disappointed but not terribly surprised that John Edwards has left the Democratic primary race. In his place, I have no idea whether to support Obama or Clinton. Out of perennial disgust for the Democrats, starting after the 2002 midterm elections, I registered Green. I had meant to re-register Democratic to be able to vote for Edwards, but now the point is sort of moot, and it doesn't really matter whether I "support Obama or Clinton". Since I'm in California, it doesn't matter who I vote for in the general election.

Work is still going along. As in many areas, every bit more I learn makes me aware of how little I know.