It’s certainly interesting that people are exploring other options for creating hot dark beverages that taste at least somewhat similar to coffee, but it’s also entirely possible that synthesized caffeine makes its way into other beverages entirely. Obviously there’s tea as a substitute, but there are also lots of soft drinks and energy drinks with caffeine.
So long as caffeine remains cheap, increasing price of coffee will likely be met with caffeinated substitutes that have nothing to do with the coffee plant.
It is Slate, and unfortunately click-bait is practically required for news sites nowadays. The article is pretty good though. It talks about the very real situation that global warming is going to change how and where coffee can be grown in the nearish future.
For sure, but in this capitalist hellscape, in order to stay up and running, they need clicks, and click-bait works. The article is less doom and more harsh reality with alternatives
I find it interesting that they glossed over the simplest solution, which would be switch to buying sustainable, shade-grown coffee thus forcing coffee plantations switch to it from market pressure. But I realize it’s not the main topic of the article and that has its own issues - how to make sure it really is sustainably shade-grown, for one.
But also, maybe this is my cynicism showing, did anyone else think these sustainable coffee-esque options wouldn’t stay sustainable if they became popular? Especially with something like annual crops, once other companies see there’s money to be made they’ll jump on the trend and now land (and forests) is being cleared for these crops.
That’s about USD$33 for 180g (coffee is a drug so I assume sold in grams in the US?), so it’s nothing short of “pretty fucking expensive”, but still interesting (horrifying?) that a commercial coffee operation can work here.
You’d think that, but it is not. I buy 12oz bags of coffee. Alcohol is also sold in both fl oz and ml, so a bottle of beer is 12oz, and a bottle of booze is 750ml.
Hmm ok, well apparently 12oz is 340g, we’d never see coffee sold in that weight. Normally 200g (7oz), 500g (17.6oz, 1.1lb), or 1kg (35oz, 2.2lb). The one linked is a bit smaller than standard at 180g (6.3oz).
A more typical price here would be say $15NZD - $20NZD for a 250g bag (and slightly cheaper per g for larger bags).
$20NZD is about $12USD, and 250g about 7oz, so scaling up that makes it about $20USD for 12oz (including tax), so same ballpark! Honestly, I’m surprised. Normally stuff is more expensive here
Oh yes they are tiny, and have to cover costs from a developed country price point so no cheap labour. Plus they can only grow coffee part of the year (seasonal). Plus the unique aspect of it and limited availability would mean higher prices.
Ok, this is the hedgemeister being really nutty here, but this makes me think of Planet of the Apes (the original, not the remakes), in which there’s some sort of plague that kills off everyone’s dogs and cats, but doesn’t affect apes, who are then taken as pets instead. For some reason this causes them to evolve and take the place of humans as the dominant species. The law of unintended consequences! So along the same lines, if coffee beans go extinct, what if a synthetic alternative is created which accidentally makes humans telepathic, or better yet, removes their need for sleep? If there’s a sci-fi story in there somewhere, please feel free to take it and run with it. As for me, I think it’s time for a lie down . . .
During periods of short supply and/or increased coffee has been often been replaced or augmented by various other ingredients. For example:
… during the American Civil War, Louisianans looked to adding chicory root to their coffee when Union naval blockades cut off the port of New Orleans. With shipments coming to a halt, desperate New Orleanians looking for their coffee fix began mixing things with coffee to stretch out the supply. Acorns or beets (cafe de betterave) also did the trick. Though chicory alone is devoid of the alkaloid that gives you a caffeine buzz, the grounds taste similar and can be sold at a lower rate. – source
Not looking forward to it since I imagine these will be reminiscent of coffee rather than indistinguishable. But then if coffee is going to be that expensive, substitutes don’t need to be as good as coffee, just more appealing than tea.
I tried to substitute tea for coffee a while back because the coffee I was drinking was giving me really bad anxiety in the mornings, but the higher caffeine teas were honestly just as bad or worse, and the tannin content would have me all jittery. I think I’m particularly sensitive to tannins, though. I couldn’t really ever find a tea that was a good balance between enough caffeine and low tannin content, while switching from a blonde roast to dark roast pretty much solved my issues with coffee…
I think I will invest in a shotgun now so that when coffee becomes unaffordable, instead of drinking a chickpea substitute I can just blow my head off.
Grinding uncooked white rice is the vintage method for cleaning granite mortar and pestles, but it isn’t terribly effective at getting them clean. These days, that method is mostly for “seasoning”, preparing a mortar for use by grinding off any leftover bits of unpolished stone so that they don’t get incorporated into any of the food you want to grind.
Since we stopped putting lye in soap, the modern cleaning method is hand-washing with warm water, a mild detergent, and a stiff-bristled brush before towel-drying thoroughly. Granite and marble actually have a relatively low porosity, so washing the soap out with water isn’t as much of a challenge as it would be with highly porous volcanic stones like pumice, but it’s still best to use an unscented soap so there’s no fragrance to be left behind.
If your problem is specifically a rancid garlic smell you want to neutralize, then try the following:
Use 1/4 cup of baking soda and 5 drops of dish soap, then add just enough water to make a paste. Grind with the pestle and be sure to coat the sides completely. Then add 1/2 cup of vinegar and stir until the sides are coated in foam. Let sit about 5 minutes, then rinse with hot water and dry thoroughly.
Yes, it was pretty gross. It all started when we went through a phase where all the fresh garlic we were buying had mold in it. After a few weeks we gave up and went back to powdered garlic, so our m&p sat around and occasionally got various soups slopped on it. That last part miiight be my fault.
The m&p was totally dry this morning so I took “after” photos and added them to the Google album. Still some darker spots but better than it was before.
I’m sorry but what does cast iron have to do with a mortar and pestle? Am I your AI hallucination? (If you are human or English is not your first language, please disregard.)
You misread. They mean a thicker layer of polymerized oils building up would produce a “cast iron pan” effect on the granite. A layer reminiscent of what people try to achieve on well seasoned cast iron.
I was thinking through what would happen should the OP follow the advice by another user which recommended baking the mortar and pestle.
Since it has a heavy film of fats,my thought is that baking at a low temp would create a finish similar to that on seasoned cast iron. I’m not thinking that would be a plus but others might think otherwise.
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