Great Coffee in New York City

More and more serious coffee shops have  been popping up throughout New York City over the past couple of years. Guests are becoming more knowledgeable in the coffee arena and expecting a little extra value out of their cup of joe. There is really so much to learn about coffee and the logistics that are involved from seed to cup. As guests become more appreciative of the process so too will their taste buds. There is a much larger nuance of a customer’s coffee preferences from the aroma, flavor, body, fragrance, etc. than there has been in the past. Customers are realizing that the options for ordering a cup of coffee keep extending further and further.

Experienced coffee drinkers will most likely going to stay true to their favorite shops, but for those who are willing to explore, the New York Times has created an online map of New York City that generates great coffee that surround an address you input. So if you would like to find a great cup of coffee in your vicinity, you can try out the coffee map of New York City here!

 

 

 

Intelligentsia Coffee now inside Urban Outfitters!

The new location of Chicago-based coffee company Intelligentsia can now be found inside the Urban Outfitters at Herald Square. The shop opened in a great space within the Urban Outfitters shop at the end of last week. The space has a full white marble counter top, large decorative coffee urns, a pour-over station and uses a La Marzocco espresso machine. Unlike its outpost in the High Line Hotel, in addition to sweets from Mah-Ze-Dar bakery this location also conveniently serves salads and sandwiches to go. The savory options on the menu are being managed by Urban Outfitter’s director of food service.

Next time you find yourself in Herald Square you can pop into Urban Outfitters for a delicious cup of Intelligentsia coffee!

Intelligentisa Coffee
1333 Broadway
New York, New York 10018

To view some pictures of the new space click here

Stronghold Williamsburg Verb Cafe is closing

The Verb Café has been open on Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1999.  The café could not afford to keep their doors open after a rental fee increase of 70% and is now set to close. The Verb was not necessarily known to brew the best cup of coffee, but was more of a popular hipster hangout which attracted many artists and musicians over the past fifteen years. It is uncertain whether or not they are relocating or if this is the final adieu, but either way the Williamsburg locals will always treasure the memory of Café Verb.

Coffee Green Bean Prices on the Rise

The biggest arabica coffee rally in two decades is beginning to force smaller-brand roasters to quietly raise wholesale prices, even as top names such as Starbucks Corp resist. The price of arabica coffee futures, the type used primarily in roast and ground brews, surged 80 percent in less than seven weeks on Wednesday, rising above $2 per lb in the biggest such rally since July 1994.
One private-label roaster in the New York area is set to raise its prices by 10 percent to 15 percent within the next few weeks. NY TIMES ARTICLE

A New Take on Blue Bottle Iced Coffee

Recently VC-funded Blue Bottle Coffee released its newest product this week at EXPO West, a natural-foods conference in Anaheim: a ready-to-drink, packaged version of its New Orleans Iced Coffee. Blue Bottle partnered with Clover Organic Farms to offer this all-organic product with the same ingredients you’d find at a Blue Bottle shop – coffee, roasted chicory, cane sugar, and Clover milk. Except now, it is packaged in a 10.66-ounce milk carton and scheduled to hit shelves at every Whole Foods in Northern California by mid-March. Future roll-out will include Blue Bottle’s shops (Bay Area, L.A., and NYC), west coast Whole Foods stores, followed by a launch in the NYC area in mid-to-late May.

Starbucks Benefits From Transfer of Store Sales to Online Sales

For the first time online traffic has surpassed foot traffic this past holiday season, according to Starbucks CEO/president and chairman Howard Schultz. A large majority of consumers also opted to purchase gift cards as opposed to gifting specific products.

Fast Casual reports that Starbucks processed more than 40 million new card activations valued at more than $610 million in the U.S. and Canada during Q1. This included 2-plus million new activations per day in the period immediately leading up to Christmas, and $1.4 billion of card loads globally, Schultz said.

Starbucks is not only benefitting from the transfer of store sales to online sales, but also the gain of new customers who purchased gift cards. Most of of the gift card recipients were first-time Starbucks purchasers, thereby strengthening opportunities for brand loyalty.

Coffee Bartering at Tonx: Starbucks Card for “Higher Quality” Coffee Beans

Coffee subscription company Tonx is offering dollar-for-dollar credit towards “better quality” coffee beans in exchange for your Starbucks gift card balance. Their philosophy: “We Source. We Roast. We Ship. You Brew.” The Tonx team comprises coffee mavens whose resumes boast high-end roasters Ritual, Intelligentsia and Stumptown.

Tonx’s homepage forces prospective subscribers question the value of a dollar through a compelling visual:

$38 at Starbucks = 8 frappucinos

or, 11 cappucinos

or, 17 drip coffees

or, 48 cups of “carefully sourced, expertly roasted, super fresh coffee.”

The website proceeds to highlight the company’s differentiation points— “highest quality beans, brew guides, affordable tools, one-on-one brew help, coffee ratings, weekly publications,” and most importantly, “happiness.”

Starbucks Pays it Forward X 870

In light of the holiday spirit, a Starbucks drive-thru in Newington, Connecticut has just broken the “pay-it-forward” record. Yesterday, at least 870 customers paid for the order of the person behind them. In turn, this Starbucks location received the gift of giving too, as the higher than usual traffic led to a spike in sales. Good Morning America covered the random acts of kindness.

“Secret” Menus, or Not-So-Secret Menus…

Mark Wilson, contributing writer at Fast Co. Design, detailed the ins and outs of “secret” menus at restaurants including Chipotle, Starbucks and In-N-Out Burger. Chipotle’s “Quesarito,” Starbucks’ 170,000 customizable beverage permutations and In-N-Out’s “animal-style” fries are a few of the secret (or not-so-secret) menu options that add to these restaurants’ mystique and allure.

“I think of it as the customer’s the brand manager,” Chris Arnold, Chipotle’s Communication Director says. “The experience of the public is something different for everyone, like an iPod in a way. How many billions and billions of iPods are in circulation, and yet no two [playlists] are alike. You buy a burrito, I buy a burrito. We pay the same thing for it, and they’re two very different things.”

Read about Wilson’s comically relentless quest to order the arcane “Quesarito” at Chipotle, amongst his other classified culinary discoveries.

Coffee & Tea Festival

The 9th annual Coffee & Tea Festival NYC will take place from Sat. 3/22-Sun 3/23 at the 69th Regiment Armory. Featured on Food Network’s Unwrapped, the festival will exhibit over 60 international tea and coffee varietals, and tastings will be available along with complementary (and complimentary) food. As per request, the 2014 lineup will showcase more coffee than prior years. Tickets are on sale now.