Dead Programmer's Cafe

Category: Coffee and Caffeine

Ach, We Call It Coffee With Milk Around Here, Ya Latte Drinking Surrender Monkey

After many, many tries I think I am finally getting closer to figuring out “latte art” – making patterns on the surface of espresso crema with specially steamed milk. Here’s my best attempt to date:

It’s a weird hybrid of a rosetta and an apple.

To see much better examples of latte art, see this outstanding guide or just look over google’s results.

David Schomer has a commercial video for sale (which is terribly overpriced – $49.95 for 18 minutes), but fortunately there are a few free demonstrations out there.

I have to warn you, watching these is absolutely hypnotic :

http://www.coffeegeek.com/video/artigiano.mov
http://www.coffeegeek.com/tempphoto/sammy.mov
http://www.latteart.org/latteart.htm (click on “demo” for the movies).

Once I figure out the process completely I’ll post my own tutorial.

November 9, 2004
I Need 150 mg of Trimethylxanthine IV Push Stat!

Recently I visited New York offices of a certain Redmond based corporation. The corporation in question always has free snacks and soft drinks in its numerous kitchens (the home campus having an especially fancy selection at that).

Their office coffee machine fascinated me even more than “Colombian Supremo” vs “Colombien La Vereda” K-Cups and content of “Milds” in Mother-Parkers’ packets. (As a side note I’d like to add this rumor that Tim Horton’s coffee made by Mother Parkers is so addictive that some people think it contains cocaine).

Anyway, the Redmondsoft coffee machine is made by Flavia and uses packets that look like miniature iv bags:

I asked to keep one as a souvenir – they were out of coffee and this is actually a hot chocolate packet. The coffee packets were probably all injected by employees. They also had tea packets which were smaller in size.

October 1, 2004
Lunchtime TT : Thought Tally

* I purchased and used caffeinated soap (nice and minty, but I don’t think soaping up provides a viable caffeine absorption pathway). You think I am not going to try caffeinated steak? I’ll let you know how it is.
(See my old posts Enema of the State and Steak ala Deadprogrammer)

* lynspin came up with a perfect answer to “YOURE GOING TO DIE FROM ATKINS”.

* Coca Cola marketoids were giving out cans of Diet Coke With Lime. This kind of reminded me of Pepsi Clear years back. I wonder what it would take to get a can or a bottle of that stuff these days. Just out of curiosity. Also I remembered a story about “Marshall Zhukov .. getting a stash of Coke smuggled into Stalin’s USSR with the caramel coloring removed, in clear bottles with a red star on the cap”. One of my co-workers told me about Pepsi Kona, a coffee flavored Pepsi which never made it into the wild from marketing studies. The whole cola flavor distribution thing is kind of weird. New York area for instance is not getting Diet Mountain Dew Code Red, but it’s available in Florida.

January 16, 2004
Enema of the State
I am a caffeine aficionado. I mostly take it in form of espresso, but I don’t mind getting my daily allowance from regular coffee, soft drinks and/or caffeine tablets. I’ve been known to spike tea with caffeine. But recently I learned about two other methods which are probably taking it too far:
- As it is well known, chemicals are absorbed very rapidly through the colon. I hear of coffee enemas being taken by celebrities like Janet Jackson. Treat depression, my ass. Huh, that actually makes sense :)
- Caffeinated soap. I am actually thinking about trying this one. I am just not sure that it actually delivers 250 mg per shower and does not just contain that much.
May 26, 2002