Small-Town Coffee Purveyor Goes Grande

Climate change to blame for rising prices

(NEWSER) - Sure climate change is scary, but now it's also making coffee more rare and expensive: "This is terrifying news," writes Alex Knapp in Forbes . "Coffee is my lifeblood." He started feeling withdrawal the moment he read "The End of Cheap Coffee" in Good Magazine , which reported on the rise of $5 and $6 coffees in fancy US coffee bars. One bar owner rang the bell of doom by explaining that cheap coffee is "a historical anomaly. ... We’re going back to where coffee began, as an exotic, beloved culinary experience.” More»

There was a good reason to sue over hot coffee

(NEWSER) - We’ve all heard the complaints: America is the land of lawsuits, the kind of place that has to label its coffee with “Warning: Hot!” But Cracked takes a second look at the frivolous lawsuits of legend:

• Woman sues McDonald’s for millions ... because her coffee was hot. The coffee she spilled was hot enough to give her third-degree burns over 6% of her body. And she actually got just $640,000, some of which went to pay for skin grafts. Plus, the jury still called the accident 20% her fault, and reduced the award accordingly.

Unlimited Internet access comes with new content system

(NEWSER) - Starbucks will offer free unlimited Wi-Fi at its company-owned stores starting July 1. Battered by the recession and the successful challenge mounted by McDonald's, the coffee giant will also plug its customers into customized content—including free access to pay sites like the Wall Street Journal's, Frank James blogs for NPR . The goal is to draw users in and keep them around, notes the LA Times . More»

This cup o' joe is quite fancy

(NEWSER) - Attention coffee snobs: You have a new mecca. Starting today Café Grumpy in (where else?) New York will offer a $12 cup of coffee. That’s just coffee—not a cappuccino or a latte—so why the high price tag? “There are flavors you would expect in a really nice glass of wine,” the president of the distribution company tells the New York Post , going so far as to call it “a cacophony of nuances.” More»

Some people prefer the cheap stuff

(NEWSER) - Sadie Stein tried very hard to become a member of the coffee elite. First she went to the new "coffee meccas" in New York City, where she "drank cup after ceremoniously-prepared amber cup, even though I hated it." Then she attended a seminar on different roasts, hoping to see the light. "I still didn't get it," she writes at Jezebel . More»