Coffee Weapon

What haven’t curled up with a good book lately?
Upon learning that this brewed coffee delicacy is produced from beans picked from the excrement of the “Luwak,” a catlike animal common to the region. Author and Scientist Massimo Marcone adventures begins with a request to investigate the mystery shrouding the world’s most expensive, bizarre and also the most coveted brew, Sumatra’s Kopi Luwak coffee.

Marcone explains his penchant for unusual foods in his recent book In Bad Taste: The Science and Adventures Behind Food Delicacies. His discovery that the coffee bean is effectively cleaner after passing through a Luwak’s rectum.
“When I incubated the sub-samples, allowing ample time for bacterial growth, I was shocked to see that the Kopi Luwak beans had one hundred times fewer bacteria than the corresponding control samples.” He also uncovers how progression through a Luwak’s digestive system chemically alters the bean so that it produces a different, richer flavor. Umm yea..A few chapters in and you might just find yourself hankering for a cup of Kopi Luwak joe.

A Man stole five jars of coffee in an act of revenge at being accused of a theft he had not committed.
Lee Tobin’s temper got the better of him after he was accused with a theft from the One Stop shop, in the town’s Wynyard Road, magistrates heard.
Alan Davison, prosecuting at Hartlepool Magistrates Court, said: “Mr Tobin was suspected of acting suspiciously by a member of staff, who challenged him and asked to see his bag.
“He emptied it and the bag was searched, but nothing was found.
“But later, CCTV footage was reviewed and staff saw him leave with six
jars of coffee which he hadn’t paid for.”
In police interview, Tobin, 29, said he was “upset and frustrated at having been searched and in temper took the items as a form of revenge” and that he sold the coffee for £5, Mr Davison added.
Tobin, of Campbell Road, Hartlepool, admitted committing the theft on May 10.

Another case of coffee missiles.. this time in Texas. A 29 year old man has been robbing convenience stores by hurling his payed for coffee at the cashier then stealing the money from the open register. This was recently a problem in both Pennsylvania and New York. Police have not apprehended this character yet, but apparently know who it is because they know his age.

Coffee is indeed a popular weapon in N. Carolina, following the coffee road rage episodes another coffee weapon has resurfaced, poison. A woman in N. Carolina has been charged and jailed for trying to kill a man the she was caring for by poisoning his coffee.

The man she tried to poison doesn’t believe she would do such a thing to him.
“She had no reason to poison me, no reason,” he said.
“I can depend on her, as far as that goes,” he said. “Debbie’s a good person.”

So I should mention something about my free cup of Starbucks coffee on Thursday.. I have really only been in Starbucks a few times. The coffee I had from there always has a burnt taste to me but it’s free today so what the heck. We usually go to Starbucks when the wife wants a book since the Starbucks around here is in a big bookstore.

This place Starbucks can really be intimidating to someone like me, a regular coffee drinker. Oh well the coffee is free today and I’m already stoked up from the pot of Folgers from this morning. I get in line, check my watch,  yep still time for some free coffee. As long as this line keeps moving and I can place my order before noon.

Looks like they are not so happy to be giving away the coffee this morning. Suppose a lot of us here aren’t part of their regular Starbucks crowd.  As I get closer to ordering I have a gaze at the board above those busy, annoyed looking baristas. Yikes, I don’t see anything that I recognize, nothing resembling cup-of-regular-coffee. What the heck is a Venti and why would i want the special.. It’s a low-cal frappe-mocha with a triple shot of caffeine boosting apricot oil. Yuck, do people actually buy those. It’s on sale today. only $4.90.. what?? I’m sorry but I would never pay that for a cup of Joe. Anyways I spot tall coffee on the board, oh yes, that’s for me, I like my coffee tall and long lasting so it lasts along time. yes!

Somehow I feel out of place standing in line but finally I am the next to order, just in time as they are just a couple of minutes left in the free coffee give away. The nicely dressed woman in front of me places her order. She orders a Ethiopian cha-cha mango fruity Raspberry frappe-latte with cinnamon-hazelnut dust, steamed French laced soy milk. “Make it a Grande” she says. I’m thinking, Why not pour it directly in the toilet and  just watch it. Wow, I guess there is such a thing as crapp-achino.

Finally, it’s my turn to order, To make it look like I know what I’m doing in this snazzy coffee house, with confidence, I tell the barista, ahem “Hello I would like a fresh regular extra-Columbian roasted full flavored java, add no sugar with whole milk and make it a large.. um.. tall.. yes make it tall!” I’m so proud of my order but the female barista just stared at me dumbfounded. “I’m sorry sir but we would have to brew you a pot of regular coffee and if you are in line for our free coffee offer that just ended five minutes ago. Groans from behind me , I just tell her, relieved, “never mind I think I’ll just go read a magazine instead.”

Kevin

The owner of a coffee stand north of Seattle is offering free coffee for a year to anyone who helps catch a robber.
Troy Malchow hopes the offer will create a buzz that finds the man who pointed a gun at him Wednesday at Perfetto Espresso.

Malchow, who has owned Perfetto Espresso for a decade, says the business had never been robbed until Wednesday. But in the past two weeks, his business in the parking lot of an auto repair shop has been both vandalized and robbed.

Also
A well-known antiques auctioneer from Maine who disappeared nearly five years ago after telling his wife that he was going to get a cup of coffee was found in Allentown last week trying to rent an apartment.

Claude Van Tassel, a 71-year-old father of 12, apparently has no plans to return to his old home in Lyman, Maine, or to be reunited with his family.

Van Tassel and his wife were shopping at the Ames department store in Dover when Van Tassel vanished and was reported missing in April 2002. She said they had gone out for breakfast, he went for coffee, and she went to buy something in the mall.

Beatrice Van Tassel said her husband told her to find him when she was ready to pay, but when she was ready, he was gone, she recalled Friday. His car was found in the mall parking lot, she said.

”I have no idea why or how he left,” she said. ”He ran away like a little kid.”