Back in college, I too occasionally stopped by a coffee shop to rush a paper while having a quick snack. However, I never really spent hours on end occupying a table with books and papers scattered all around me. With that said, I’m not saying that I preferred libraries for studying. If anything, I spent less time actually studying in the library than I did at coffee shops. I guess I just prefer studying in my own room.

My problem with studying in coffee shops is that the place provides too much distraction. I usually end up people watching more than studying when I’m in a public place. As for the coffee advantage, I can always just brew a cup of coffee right at my own place. Besides, I hate having such limited table space for my clutter.

However, I do agree that in some instances coffee shops are one of the best places to “study”. One perfect example is on-the-job training for baristas, which I know doesn’t count since it’s their job already! Another “subject” where coffee shops would serve as a perfect place for studying is language.

If you want to learn a second language, the perfect place to do it is not in some classroom repeating each word the teacher tells you, but practicing your new found knowledge conversing with locals. This means heading out to a public place such as a coffee shop in the country where the language is spoken as a primary language. In short, if you want to learn Thai in Bangkok, learn it from teachers there, but practice in coffee shops where you’ll be forced to converse with locals.

Aside from that, I can’t think of “subject” where coffee shops are that appropriate as a venue for learning. How about you, do you study in coffee shops?

Image via ArbiterOnline

I’m sure you’re familiar with coffee-based desserts like tiramisu and affogato (scoop of vanilla gelato or ice cream drowned in a shot of espresso), but have you ever used coffee as an ingredient for when making savory dishes? The Brown Sugar and Coffee Barbecue Sauce recipe below from Chef Art Smith is a great way to introduce your palate to the wonderful world of coffee-based and coffee-flavored dishes. The barbecue sauce can after all be used for a good variety of meats.

Brown Sugar and Coffee Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 3/4 cups chopped white onions
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons minced seeded jalapeño chile
• 1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons mild-flavored (light) molasses
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree
• 1 cup low-salt chicken broth
• 1 cup freshly brewed strong coffee or 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 cup hot water

Preparation:

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions, garlic, and jalapeño; sauté until onions are tender, about 7 minutes. Add brown sugar, chili powder, molasses, cilantro, and cumin; stir until sugar dissolves. Stir in crushed tomatoes with puree, broth, and coffee; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until sauce thickens slightly and is reduced to 4 cups, stirring often, about 35 minutes. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and chill.

For more coffee dish ideas, read Epicurious’ Cooking with Coffee article.

Image via Cafe Groenhout

If you’re looking for the perfect place to swing by to grab a cup of coffee, and may linger for a few minutes or two too, what better place(s) to go than the winners of this year’s Best Brew Awards!

Yes, the votes are for the Krups Best Brew Awards are in. Listed below are the winners and their address so you can easily find them in case you’re located near any of them.

Condesa Coffee – Atlanta,Georgia
This cafe and espresso bar specializes in roasting Counter Culture Coffee adn are known for using local and organic ingredients for the small plates on their menu.
Address: 480 John Wesley Dobbs Ave. NE Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30312
Open Mondays to Fridays 7AM to 7Pm, Saturdays 8AM to 8PM, and Sundays 8Am to 7PM

The Thinking Cup – Boston, Massachusetts
Thinking Cup is the first coffee chop in Downtown Boston to exclusively serve the renowned “Stumptown Coffee”, and is very proud for being an ambassador of this high-end specialty coffee.
Address: 165 Tremont St, Boston, MA 02111
Open Mondays to Wednesdays 7AM to 10PM and Thursdays to Sundays 7AM to 11PM

Metropolis Coffee Company – Chicago, Illinois
Known not just for being the best cafe in the area, but also for being their small batch artisan coffee roasting. Visit this coffeeshop for a cup of coffee, and take home with you a nice bag of fresh ground beans.
Address: 1039 W. Granville Ave., Chicago, IL 60660
Open Weekdays 6:30AM to 8PM, Saturdays 7AM to 8PM, and Sundays 7:30Am to 8PM

White Rock Coffee – Dallas, Texas
This coffee shop is no stranger to awards having been called the Best Coffeehouse in Dallas several times since 2005. They are known for their wide gourmet coffee selection and their signature White Rocker Latte, a triple espresso made with organic fair trade coffee.
Address: 10105 E. Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75238
Open Mondays to Thursdays 6AM to 11PM, Fridays and Saturdays 6AM to 12MN, and SUndays 6AM to 10PM

Cafe Dulce – Los Angeles, California
Customers flock to this coffee shop not only for the great coffee, but also specialty lunches featuring Asian fusion food.
Address: 134 Japanese Village Plaza, Bldg E, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Open Daily from 8AM to 10PM

Tinta y Café – Miami, Florida
Tinta y Cafe describes itself as your neighborhood coffee house that stands between two different worlds: Little Havana and Brickell. And by the way, they accept deliveries.
Address: 268 8th Street, Miami, FL 33141
Open Mondays to Saturdays 7AM to 7PM

Four Barrel Coffee – San Francisco, California
This coffee shop is the place to go if its good coffee and good conversation you want. Proudly Wi-Fi free (Yes, no Wi-Fi connection there), they encourage their customers to interact and converse in the real world.
Address: 375 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Open Mondays to Saturdays 7AM to 8PM and Sundays 8AM to 8PM

Other winners with no websites: M.E. Swing Co., 9th Street Espresso, and Elixr

Image via Krups USA

Espresso con panna, or espresso with cream, will give you the caffeine boost that only espresso can give in one small satisfying shot and at the same time tickle your taste buds with the hot and cold medley from the contrast between the cream on top and the coffee at the bottom.

If you plan on getting a good espresso con panna, like the one in the photo up there (which coffee-addict Noemi Ruth swore the me it definitely is), make sure you don’t go for watered-down versions that some coffee shops serve. Stay away from their espresso con panna if you see the barista taking out his canned whipped cream, which might be less fattening than old-fashioned hand-whipped heavy cream, but won’t give you the same satisfying creamy goodness of a properly whipped cold cream.

You can also make espresso con panna at home quite easily. All you need to do is to whip up some cold heavy cream and add your whipped cream on top of a freshly brewed single or double shot of espresso (a 3oz shot should be enough to start your day right). You can add a tablespoon of sugar or a drop of vanilla extract on the cold cream before you whip it up, depending on sweet you want your whipped cream to be. It’s also a good idea to make more than you need for a couple of espresso shots and just store the rest in your fridge for your next espresso con panna.

Photo via NoemiRuth

Forget about Starbucks and all the coffee chains you’ll find in just about every corner of every city. I’m talking about the little shops that no one else in the world might know about, but that locals swear on. If you have a coffee shop in mind, you might want to enter your fave shop for the “KRUPS Best Brew Awards 2012″.

The awards is KRUPS way of honoring the best coffee shops throughout New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. Those who want to have a say on who wins only need to go to KRUPS USA Facebook page to be able to cast your vote. Note that voting will be limited to coffee shops on their list (from last year’s awards), but you still get to do a write up on your fave coffee shop in case it isn’t on the list.

Voting started yesterday and is only open till February 24, so you’d better start spreading the word if you’re rooting for a shop.

The best baristas also get a nod from KRUPS as they accept entries for a seat on the “KRUPS Coffee Council”, who with the rest of the Coffee Council members will get to help KRUPS out year round during regional events and promotions, media opportunities, new product demonstrations and more. If you want to be a coffee council entrant, you must submit a “video of yourself (3 minutes or less), in which you describe who you are as a person and as a barista, explain why you would be the best barista in your area to sit on the KRUPS Coffee Council, and demonstrate your knowledge and skill in preparing one coffee or espresso-based beverage.”

Image via KrupsUSA

Customizing your Twitter background need not be complicated. In fact, you can easily change your background, even have it automatically changed daily, by using a service called InstaBG. InstaBG makes use of Instagram photos to generate Twitter backgrounds that you can use to liven up your own Twitter account. To get free Twitter backgrounds from InstaBG all you need to do is log in to the website using your TwitterID, tweak the options, preview your background image, and click on “Set this image to Twitter” to see the changes on your Twitter page.

InstaBG-generated collage using “coffee” as tag

InstaBG-generated collage using “caffeine” as tag

What’s even better is that you can choose the theme/tags of the Instagram photos that will be used as part of your Twitter background, just like the caffeine and coffee photos I used to come up with collage above. You can also choose the background color, tile size, and spacing between photos.

So why settle for a boring Twitter page when you can liven things up with a coffee-themed background?

Twitter backgrounds generated using InstaBG

Obviously, brewing a fresh pot of coffee will entail a bit more effort on your part. You have to grind up the beans, scoop them into the coffee maker, and wait for the delicious freshly brewed coffee to drip, but if you think about it the time it takes for you to do all that is just about the same time it will take you to wait for your coffee in line at Starbucks during the morning rush hour. What’s even better about just having your coffee at home, is that you can spend your waiting time taking a shower or doing some other chore.

If you like drinking your coffee while on the go, there’s no excuse either because you can always just pour your coffee in a thermos and drink it at leisure. Another advantage to doing this is that you end up helping the environment since less disposable cups are used.

Last but not least, making your own coffee means having the liberty to always make it your own way. Sure Starbucks and most coffee shops are great at providing choices, even letting you give very specific instructions, but it still means having to pay extra for some things. And yeah, if you like one of Starbucks’ and other coffee shops’ particular blend, you can always buy them in packs, still saving you some money when you prepare them at home.

Photo via Kamlau.com

There are so many hangover cures that have been debunked by science over the years, but coffee remains to be one of the most widely accepted hangover cures. Sure there has been studies explaining why coffee doesn’t really help anyone with a hangover. Some even say that it can make a hangover worse. Two of the main reasons cited for this is that it can make a person more tired after the caffeine boost wears off, and can make a person even more dehydrated since it is a diuretic.

Well the ever fickle science community (or at least researchers of this particular study) finally agree to what we coffee lovers have known all along, the combination of coffee and aspirin is really perfect as a hangover cure…at least if you are a rat. According to Professor Michael Oshinsky, of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, rats who were given doses of caffeine and anti-inflammatories responded well to the treatment and were relieved of the headaches. The headaches, which were induced by making the rats drink ethanol (a pure form of alcohol), is similar to the migraines we experience after having a drink too many.

So while the scientists get stuck debating on whether they coffee will cure a hangover or not, I will just have my coffee maker and a bottle of aspirin on hand day after New Year.

Photo via Fooyoh

The good news is that if you don’t like waste and want your cup of coffee to do more good than just perk you up,  you can actually reuse those coffee grounds instead of throwing them away. Some great ideas for used coffee grounds include:

Ant repellent – Air dry the used coffee grounds and sprinkle them in areas where ants frequent. You’ll immediately notice that ants will avoid the areas where the coffee grounds are sprinkled. If you have an ant mound on your yard though, prepare to sacrifice an entire pot of coffee because the use coffee grounds won’t be enough to do the trick.

Hand deodorizer – Some smells are nearly impossible to get rid of with just soap and water. If you get smelly hands from handling food items like fish and garlic, wash the smell away by rubbing your hands with used coffee grounds instead of soap before rinsing with water.

Organic fertilizer – Mix used coffee grounds with the compost you make from your kitchen waste. The coffee grounds will instantly boost your compost’s nutrient level, since it is rich in Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, Magnesium, and Copper.

Image via Missouri Organic

In storing your coffee, you need to take into account the reasons that affect coffee’s freshness AND flavour. Coffee loses freshness easily when exposed to air, so this means always going for an air-tight container. Coffee also absorbs moisture easily, so this means no storing it in damp places like your freezer or fridge. Aside from absorbing moisture, it also absorbs the flavours of other food near it, again this means making sure that you get an air-tight container.

For soluble coffee (think Nescafe and Taster’s Choice), the above tips are enough to address their storage needs, since they have a very long shelf-life anyway. This means that the air-tight glass containers they come in are good enough, as long as you remember to keep the lid on tight.

When it comes to ground coffee though, you have to be extra careful about storage. Ground coffee loses flavour and spoils the fastest, which means that you should always keep it in air-tight containers that won’t let light pass through. The reason for this is that the coffee interacts with sunlight, making it lose flavour. The best containers in this case are air-tight non-reactive cans. Even if you do store ground coffee properly though, you can expect them to spoil in a week or two (if not days). So never ever try to store ground coffee in bulk.

You can store coffee beans in greater bulk than ground coffee, but again you have to make sure that they are stored away from the light. At the least, make sure your air-tight containers are stored in a cabinet or in the pantry where it is cool, dark, and dry. Do not open the container every day, but take a small amount and transfer it to a smaller coffee can to decrease the number of times you expose the stored coffee beans to the air.

If you follow the above advice, you can ensure that your coffee will give the full-bodied flavour every cup should give.

Fairmont and Main Script Coffee Storage Jar Courtesy of Coffee-Maker.org.uk