This commercial for Folgers is remarkable, but is it not also realistic (the attitudes, not the acting)? I don’t have this problem at home, and it’s not because we drink Folgers Instant. My sweet wife makes a great cup of coffee as well as many other great things, both edible and non. Great home, great chicken pot pie, great kids–all kinds of great things.

The Ugly Mug Coffee Company has a good advertising campaign, possibly the most important element any coffee company can have–even more important than great tasting coffee.

Here’s an article written by a unique Dunkin’ Donuts store owner in Brooklyn, NY. She’s unique b/c she’s a Jewish woman partnered with a Muslim immigrant. But they are trying to get out of the doughnut business b/c Dunkin’ is suing them.

Cindy Gluck says she wanted a store manager to have a 15% stake in the franchise. She made the offer, checked with corporate, learned it was against corporate policy, and withdrew the offer. Afterward, corporate sued for violation of policy.

Some believe this isn’t about the policy, but about immigration. Gluck says it’s about Dunkin’ Donuts wanting to run small owner-operators out of business in favor of multiple store owners.

A daily cup of coffee may halt Alzheimer’s. Thinking is supposed to help too.

Baristas boogied while we dealt with the jitters, says this report from the Starbucks blackout.

In news from North Florida and South Georgia, “postal workers and tax preparers with valid identification can get a free iced or hot coffee from one of the 18 participating Dunkin Donut locations St. Augustine, Palatka and Waycross” on April 1 and 15. It’s part of a Hero of the Month program.

And from our coffee tip desk, use burrs to grind your beans, not blades.

Tags: coffee, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, free, coffee grinders

We’re having Toads in the Hole for supper tonight. It’s not an Irish dish, but it’s different than our usual fare, and I don’t like corned beef and cabbage. We bought some more or less traditional Irish soda bread over the weekend. That’s good stuff. I could eat that more often.

The last few years on St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve tried to talk myself into having a beer for the first time. This year, I won’t do that, but I did have my first beer back in January when I went to The Fresh Market, revealed my ID, and brought home a single can of Guinness Stout. I followed the directions by pouring it, chilled, into a cold glass. “A tiny plastic widget jets a stream of bubbles into the GUINNESS® beer when the can is opened. The result is black, white and beautiful,” according to the fans.

My experience varied.

I’m not sure what I expected, perhaps something that tasted more like barley and less like the spine-shuttering liquid in my chilly glass. I couldn’t drink more than half. Perhaps I should try Harp or even one of those sissy fruit beer I hear some men like, but I don’t plan to burn a path anywhere to find one. After all, what would St. Patrick do?

Pastor David Banks of Chattanooga challenged his congregation to set a goal for this year to do something out of their comfort zone which would influence someone’s life. Taking the challenge himself, he started Kingdom Blends coffee, which sells in the Folk Heart store in Northgate Mall and by phone. Part of the sale price goes to Kiva for third world family loans.

Your local Starbucks will close at 5:30 today for “barista re-education.” Do not panic.

UPDATE: Dunkin’ Donuts in Chicago is offering free small lattes today from 1:00 to 10:00 p.m. I believe they are 99 cents in other parts of the country. McDonald’s is also trying to win over coffee drinkers during the Starbucks black out.

Are you reading this with your afternoon coffee? How’s it smell? How’s your co-worker smell? Wait, I’m digressing.

In Rockland, Maine, the owners of the Rock City Coffee Roasters must deal with neighborhood complaints that it gives off an unpleasant aroma. One man said, “It’s not the same odor you get when you walk by the coffee grinder at a supermarket. That’s pleasant, but this was not.” But some others disagree, like the 1,200 folks who sign the “Save Our Smell” petition.

I took up drinking tea in college (strong and bitter)and that debauchery quickly led to coffee drinking. I did use a strainer or infuser, which is one up on a couple of my friends who just put the tea leaves into their mugs and tried to drink it up before it grew too bitter. Their last swallow was always the worst. Anyway, I’m sure my grades suffered for my vices, but I’m not ashamed of my past. I’m looking ahead.

It’s with a heavy heart that I notice tea-drinking is on the rise at the University of South Florida and apparently other college campuses as well. There are tea lounges with student artwork and occasional Halo competitions. But the worst of it is Bubble Tea.

Bubble tea comes in a variety of forms and flavors. Choices range from more familiar tastes such as green milk tea to more exotic ones such as taro – a tropical vegetable – milk tea. Essentially, it is tea with milk or creamer.

The drinks can be ordered with or without boba – sweet, chewy tapioca pearls that sink to the bottom of the cup. The pearls look like bubbles, giving the tea its name. Though the gummy-bear consistency is strange at first, the little pearls are oddly likeable.

“Almond vanilla milk tea is the most popular,” Nguye said. He said he also recommends mango and peach-flavored slushies.

Taro milk tea, eh? And I sold my soul to Earl Grey.