Coffee Urns

Where would I like my ashes to go when I die? Perhaps, a disused coffee urn or thrown into a coffee mug made in pottery class or even ground with my burr grinder into your coffee bit-by-bit.

Well, I guess a coffee urn needn't sound so somber afterall. A coffee urn is a coffee maker which can make enough coffee to feed a small army. You always see them at church socials and other places. I have to be honest and say, if you are going to make coffee in an urn ensure you are ready to serve the coffee. When I was a waitress, ok server if I'm going to be politically correct, we would set the urn up in advance and about ½ an hour before it was going to be served we would turn it on. You must serve it right away because most coffee urn machines are still boiling the water making the coffee taste faulty, sour and burnt.

Coffee urns generally are filled with water, a huge strainer-type filter is placed on a pole (pole is hollow and runs from center of the base) at the top. The water heats and is either sucked up the pole or boils over the filter and mixed together (with the filter holding in grounds).

Things to look for when purchasing a coffee urn:

* Ensure there is an on and off switch on the front of the coffee urn. Some do not have switches at all and the urn itself is so large that getting to the outlet, when it is full of water, can be daunting.
* Coffee urns can come anywhere from 30 cups to 65 cups. Do your homework and remember they generally take a long time to brew the more you make.
* Coffee urns still require the same amount of coffee. If you are using the small office coffee or restaurant coffee packages ensure you throw in one extra packet. The coffee grounds do not always saturate evenly.
* The coffee urn is hard to clean and will not fit in an average sink to rinse out. If you have a hose it may be better to spray the heck out of it.
* Always put the lid on, most machines will not work without the lid, but trust me, some older machines will spray everywhere.
* Cord length. I have seen many people rent coffee urns to set-up in their kitchen at Christmas. However, the counter space is too small to fit the coffee urn under the cupboards. The host wants the guests to be able to help themselves and wants to use the coffee next to the buffet except.she doesn't have an extension cord and the coffee urn cord will not reach the outlet. Oh my, it turns to complete mayhem.
* Always brew your coffee about ½ an hour before you would like to serve it. It takes a long time and doing it too far ahead of time will burn it and make it taste awful.

If you're in the market for a coffee urn click on the links above to start your search. Remember the above points and for goodness sake, invite me to your shindig. I'll bring the coffee and the coffee urn

Espresso Cups

Espresso cups are the cutest thing next to kittens. Look at them….mini cups, tiny little bundles of cuteness. Another name for these little beauties is the demitasse cup. They hold one to two ounces of espresso. Speaking of espresso, did you know that an espresso roast has less caffeine than other roasts?

One of the tricks to a great-tasting cup of espresso is to warm the espresso cup first. Many espresso machines have warmers built-in on the top. I quite like the sexy Bodum espresso machine, which has a dome to keep the espresso cups hot.

Most espresso cup shapes are similar. It is just the materials which are different in their construction. It is generally not tulip-shaped like wine glasses, but cylindrical shaped, so it gives an even whole flavor and keeps the heat regular. It also allows you to see the crema in its finest form.

The stainless steel espresso cups keep the heat in perfectly. They look snazzy, are easy to clean and are well worth the investment. You can also get them in an espresso service. Porcelain espresso cups look pretty and elitist, but they really don’t keep the heat in. You need a thick walled cup to get the benefit.

There are many designs of espresso cups with just about anything on them. You can get magical flower espresso cups or kitten espresso cups and Illy makes fantastic designs. I could easily become a collector of espresso cups. So many designs, so little time.

If you are like me and don’t do your dishes everyday and the espresso cups and saucers are laden with coffee glommage stains you can do many things to get them to sparkle again. The best thing to do is to soak it in Polident, makes the cups sparkle like new.

Although, espresso is made for sipping I like to do cups like shooters to get that kick start we all need after a night of knitting. I have many espresso cups and espresso spoons and they are great for kids tea parties

Personalized Travel Mugs

Imagine this…waking up every morning to my, the Coffee Bean Queen, photo on your personalized coffee mug! How could your day start any better? What a way to wake up in the morning.

Anyone can put anything on a coffee mug! You can put logos, pictures, photographs, words…just about anything. You can tell a lot about a person by their coffee mug:

* Do they have a trendy Starbucks mug? Then they are into brand names.
* Is it a photo of their kid? Then they are a family person.
* Do they have mugs with company logos? Then they are likely cheap and got it free…lol!
* I have a whole personalized mug collection, 50 in all, of my cats. They make me smile and the photos I chose each show their unique personalities. Does that say I’m a cat person?

Just think about it, personalized coffee mugs can make your personality known. It can always help you get revenge. I had a friend once who somehow got a picture of her husband kissing another woman. Instead of having the argument, she got the picture put on a mug, packed her husbands suitcase and when he came down for the morning she handed him his personalized coffee mug and kicked him out of the house. He stood there dumbfounded till he took a sip. Evil, but effective.

People I knew once got a wedding gift of personalized coffee mugs. They had photos on the mugs of the bride and groom. The best part was there were 10 mugs in all of all different stages of their lives. From babies on, what a trip down memory lane and great conversation pieces.

Travel Mugs

The best place to get a travel mug is at trade shows where they give away swag. I can honestly say I have never purchased my own travel mug. I never really leave the house very much these days, but people always give me theirs or I ask to borrow one and never give it back.

Being that I am not the neatest person in the world, a slob actually, I find that often I leave the coffee in the travel mug for days, sometimes weeks, till it grows moldy and I throw it out. If I took care of my things I may dish out for one of those travel mugs which plug into your cigarette lighter in your car. I’ll wait to borrow one from my friends for now.

There are many types of travel mugs:

* Plastic dollar store travel mug varieties, which don’t keep the coffee warm
* Thermal stainless steel travel mug varieties
* Some travel mugs have handles, some do not
* Some fit into your car cup holder, others do not
* Travel mugs also can have a bright polycarb (plastic) outside in a rainbow of colors.
* You can even design your own logo and get custom coffee travel mugs made
* Some hold enough for one cup and others can handle two or more. The trend right now seems to be the 16 oz to 18 oz variety

There are many kinds of travel mug lids. I prefer the thumb slide lid. It is easy, spills are unlikely and it keeps the heat in my stainless steel, vacuum mug. Then there’s the travel mug lids that look like the tops of the kids “sippy cups.” I’ve used those before and when driving on the highway, taking a turn, it has swooshed all over my seats. There are many, many other types

Coffee Mugs

Millions of coffee mugs everywhere and all seem exceedingly unique. When you open your cupboard at home or at work you very rarely see a set of matching coffee mugs. I have loads and loads of coffee mugs at my house. I have some packed away in boxes because they were sentimental 50 years ago. I think we all have an overabundance of coffee mugs. I don’t know about you, but I have one or two favorite mugs and the rest collect dust, unless someone pops in (which isn’t very usual). Give the unwanted ones away to the Salvation Army, let them go free and let someone else enjoy them… or if you hate coffee mugs smash them on the ground and use the shards in your plant pots or… I daren’t say it!

So, where do coffee mugs originate from? Well, think about it. When hot water first came on the market, after fire, I bet some doughhead tried to hold the boiling water in their hands (cup-like) till they received scalding 3rd degree burns.

Enter the Beaker People. The Beaker people loved their mugs, aka “Beakers”, so much that they were buried with them as prestige items. So, who were these Beaker People? If you’re thinking about the Muppets you are completely off base by thousands of years. It began in Bronze Age Europe, 2500 BC – 700 BC. A Beaker burial is a single crouched inhumation, found in a bowl-shaped or bell-shaped mound-type grave, with prestige goods like a highly decorated pot, called a beaker. As, the Bronze Age People began farming, and did not travel like the hunter-gatherers by the preceding Neolithic People, Archaeologists have regionalized the beakers by it’s distinctive markings, since the same patterns were usually found in proximity to one another. Beakers were characteristically bell-shaped with trendy markings for its era, like rope markings, braided markings and a series of cross-hatching.

Other items of prestige buried with the inhumations in a beaker grave include: flint arrowheads, bronze daggers, copper daggers, awls, basket-shaped earrings and discs of gold, barbed and tanged arrowheads, stone bracers, battle axes and shale conical buttons etc.

Could you imagine the trouble the Archaeologists would have in this era trying to pinpoint a common thread among us. My favorite coffee mug has Ned Flanders from the Simpsons on it, my second favorite I think I stole from somewhere and it’s logo is some type of business. The Archaeologist, we’ll call him Dr. Creighton, would probably find Simpson coffee mugs all over the world. Creighton may hypothesize that everyone with a Simpson coffee mug must have come from the same region, likely Hollywood, and migrated in some fashion. Who knows. The point is nowadays a coffee mug is something we don’t really think of, I think we still have our prestigious favorites, but I don’t know about you, but I would never want to be buried with mine.

Coffee Service

So, the King of Canada is coming for tea, but you do not have any…what do you do? You could try soda or give him a glass of milk, but I think that would be in poor taste. What you could do is ask him to drink coffee. Get out your best coffee service and wow the pants off him. Honestly though, if the King of Canada is coming to your house for tea you have two problems…you’re out of tea and you are lazy – just go out and get some - and if the King of Canada shows up on your door you are delusional. There is no King of Canada, they have a Prime Minister.

A coffee service generally includes 8 cups, 8 saucers, a coffee carafe, a cream pitcher and a sugar bowl. It can be made from pottery, china or stainless steel. A proper coffee service must match and sometimes it includes sandwich plates.

Office Coffee Service

There is another type of coffee service and it is basically having coffee delivered to the office. Office coffee is very important for employee productivity. If you do not have coffee, staff go out to get some losing work time and staff may become tired and have that lack luster business etiquette.

There are a few types of coffee services available:

* Some coffee service companies provide the coffee maker, service the coffee maker and deliver coffee in all its various forms, whether its liquid coffee or coffee packets. Generally, you need a contract.
* Some coffee companies only deliver coffee and you have to get your own coffee machine.
* Some coffee companies also provide all of your vend products, including pop machines etc. These type of coffee services can be expensive if you buy the equipment outright or you can negotiate for a trial, see if it is worth the investment first and then cut a deal with the coffee service provider.