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Perfect Coffees.Com Newsletter Issue #8

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Sept. 1, 2004

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In This Issue
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=> Tea Tips
=> Feature Article
=> Recipe Of The Month
=> Coffee Trivia
=> Our Sister Web Site
=> Contact Us
=> Subscribe/Unsubscribe information

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Tea Tips
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We've all heard it before, you mention that you're hot, and someone will point out that you can actually cool off by drinking hot tea.

The logic behind this claim, is that the hot tea makes you sweat and that helps cool you off. Does that sound right to you or is it just a tall tale?

Rumors and tales like this are passed around for years, but here is why it isn't true.

The amount of heat lost by sweating and evaporation will never exceed the amount of heat gained by the hot drink you've consumed.

Also, the extra heat makes your blood vessels near the skin dilate to help cool your blood faster. The nerves in your skin can sense this, causing you to feel flushed and warm.

It's true hot tea does make you sweat more, and will increase your cooling. But the amount of extra cooling won't be enough to offset the heating-up from the tea.

So next time someone points out that you should drink hot tea in the summer, don't rush to put the kettle on. Grab a tall glass of iced tea, an iced coffee or lemonade instead.

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Feature Article
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Seeing the World on Ten Coffees a Day

By 9:10 a.m., John "Winter" Smith, just Winter to those who know him, had already been up for three hours, visited four Starbucks, eaten one Starbucks doughnut, and downed a Starbucks DoubleShot espresso and 12 ounces of regular Starbucks coffee.

Winter is on a mission to visit every Starbucks in the world. On this day alone, he has mapped out four more stores around Phoenix and two in El Paso that he needs to hit.

A contract computer programmer, Winter works just enough to fund his obsession, for which he has laid out specific rules: He stops only in Starbucks that the company owns—eliminating the more than 3,000 licensed spots in places like airports and grocery stores—and he has to drink caffeinated coffee in each.

In the seven years that the 32-year-old has been on his quest, he's been to 4,122 stores in North America (including some that have since closed), 114 in Britain, and 53 in Japan. Starbucks operates 4,025 stores in the U.S. and 846 internationally. So Winter is doing pretty well.

Except for this one problem: The company opens an average of 10.2 new, company-operated Starbucks a week around the world and has no plans to slow down.

Neither does Winter. As Starbucks continues its unstoppable, Frappuccino-fueled global takeover, he seems to be trying to show that someone can move even quicker. "I can always visit them faster than they can build them," he says in his robotic, slightly nasal monotone. "That's just a numerical fact."

The details are hazy, but as Winter recalls it, the idea for the quest was born while chatting with employees at his Starbucks hangout in Plano, Texas, in 1997.

The topic of the chain's growth kept coming up. "The idea randomly popped into my mind," he says. "What would it be like to visit every Starbucks? Would I be the only one? Could I do something unique?"

Late that summer he flew to Minneapolis for a rock concert and made a point of visiting a few Starbucks. He was hooked.

A normal trip works like this: Winter maps out a route and loads his Honda Civic—bought for $4,000 on eBay—with a pile of Starbucks T-shirts, CDs, books, a computer, an egg-crate mattress, and, for protection, a baseball bat.

He blazes through the stores (hitting a record 28 in one day on a swing through Portland, Ore., in 1999).

At night he tries to find a Wal-Mart parking lot, where he can sleep in the Civic undisturbed. The car has no air conditioning and smells of stale coffee.

Starbucks hasn't exactly embraced Winter. A few years ago it sent him a note—along with a copy of founder Howard Schultz's book and some mugs—but has been quiet since.

In a recent statement, a Starbucks spokeswoman wrote, "Winter demonstrates a great enthusiasm for the Starbucks Experience," and called his passion "flattering."

"There's no such thing as completeness," says Winter, who double-majored in philosophy and computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.

"There's no way to be finished unless Starbucks goes out of business or changes its name. Those are two scenarios under which I would essentially be done, but there's really no such thing. The best I can hope for is to keep up. I can't foresee myself stopping."

Winter stares into the bright Phoenix sun. "It's too rewarding an experience."

Written By Daniel Roth

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Recipe Of
The Month
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Fresh Peach Crisp

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds fresh peaches, peeled, pitted
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup soft butter

Instructions.

Preheat oven to 375°.

Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.
Slice peeled, pitted peaches into the prepared baking dish.
Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon into a medium bowl.
Cut butter into flour mixture with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Sprinkle crumbs evenly over peaches in baking dish.
Bake at 375° for 45 to 50 minutes, until topping is golden brown and peaches are tender.
Serve peach crisp warm with cream or whipped topping.

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Coffee Trivia
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The prototype of the first espresso machine was created in France in 1822.

Italy now has over 200,000 coffee bars, and still growing.

Adding sugar to coffee is believed to have started in 1715, in the court of King Louis XIV, the French monarch.

Roasted coffee beans start to lose small amounts of flavor within two weeks. Ground coffee begins to lose its flavor in one hour. Brewed coffee and espresso begins to lose flavor within minutes.

The most widely accepted legend associated to the discovery of coffee is of the goatherder named Kaldi of Ethiopia. Around the year 800-850 A.D., Kaldi was amazed as he noticed his goats behaving in a frisky manner after eating the leaves and berries of a coffee shrub.

A good coffee picker can pick 10 baskets of coffee cherries in a day. Roasted and brewed that translates to 2,400 cups.

A pound of tea, on average, has nearly twice the caffeine of a pound of roasted coffee.

Caffeine content is directly related to the altitude at which the coffee is grown. The higher the altitude, the less caffeine. Therefore; gourmet coffees are naturally lower in caffeine than typical supermarket canned coffee blends.

Most coffee is transported by ships. Currently there are approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the beans each year.

The first "coffee break" on the moon took place at 7:27pm, July 20, 1969. It was three hours after landing and four hours before the historic walk that an astronaut on the Eagle spacecraft radioed Houston control to say, "If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee."

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Our Sister Web Site
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Thanks to all of you who are doing your online shopping at our sister web site at: 1stopshoppingonline.com

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Contact Us
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If you have comments or questions about our web sites or coffee newsletter we would love to hear from you. Your opinion is more than just important. To us it is everything.

Our contact email is Comments@perfectcoffees.com

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