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BONUS NEWSLETTER! This newsletter comes packed with games, from crosswords to word searches to a nonogram that is essentially impossible.
If you somehow beat them all, follow and dm @newyorkcoffeenewsletter on Instagram with screenshots for a secret prize!
Enjoy!
Every day a new thing happens with coffee
and It’s too much.
But, if we could learn all the world’s coffee knowledge,
we might not even enjoy it anymore.
The learning is the happiness after you go from ‘I like coffee because it’s sweet and chocolately’ to “I am moving from this $70 tamp to this $150 one because it’s got a better weight that can compress my coffee 1% better”.
Even I like learning if a coffee shop is good or not, even if I don’t enjoy the coffee itself. I like to know.
So, today we’re going to go over a lot of coffee news, knowing the joy of learning in an insurmountable universe of information.
It’s the hobbyist’s highest aspiration: to never become a master.
The New York Coffee Crossword
It’s our first one! Some of the hints are in the newsletter, so read through it first then come back :)
Play here: The New York Coffee Crossword
Coffee News
General News
Mayor Adams got indicted! He’s almost definitely colluding with Turkiye and has claimed that he “needs to reign” in response. REIGN, not resign.
Looking into it, Adams seems to have pressured city officials to allow a 36-story Turkish consulate to be built despite safety concerns, and in return got a 10 million dollar campaign donation, fancy hotels, and even a hair transplant. Is that really worth it to get a consulate in NYC?
I love Turkiye too, but this is something else:
Prosecutors said Adams would fly on the Turkish airline even when it was inconvenient. "You know first stop is always Istanbul," he wrote in a 2017 text message when his partner expressed surprise that they were flying from New York to Paris through Istanbul.
I must wonder, what kind of crackpot are we going to get next, and what does this mean for coffee? Is it a good thing? A bad thing?
Some questions are too difficult even for newsletter writers.
The push for Return-To-Office is creating a pre-pandemic level of out-of-house coffee—please give your opinions on the matter to the nearest JPMorgan Chase outpost.
And op-ed piece was written by Juan Pablo Solís regarding the EUDR (EU Deforestation regulation) coming into effect in December this year; it mostly focuses on how it disproportionately impacts small farmers and imposes a financial constraint on compliance.
Double Roasting [re-roasting light roasts] is a thing, now. It works because dark-roast enjoyers aren’t typically looking for fruity and acidic notes, which get muted when double roasting. It’s a great option for donating light roasts and medium roasts that don’t quite work out.
Honduras 2024/25 coffee exports up 15% compared to last year.
Break time!
The New York Coffee WORD SEARCH
Play here: The New York Coffee Word Search
The word search is generated new every time, so you can play it a few times to find all the words!
And now…
Coffee Company News
Nguyen Coffee Supply, a company famously spreading the good word about robusta coffee, got a contract with Kroger to be in their stores. Hooray, Nguyen!
Black Rifle Coffee Company and Keurig are teaming up to sell more cans of coffee in grocery stores. The article mentions that Keurig may be trying to tap into the conservative market that BRCC has, but they are coming on as a distributor and not putting their name on the cans [yet]. If you don’t know Black Rifle, they’re a vet-started coffee company that apparently leans pretty politically right. If you seem to think “oh it’s probably a good company because it’s owned by vets”, they offer a 50% discount on your first subscription if you give them your military ID. I don’t know if you know this, but your data+your loyalty is worth more to them than the discount. I’m sure Keurig is eyeing that data too.
And actually, the distribution of BRCC being streamlined and their already military-focused marketing might be a good candidate for Keurig trying to get into the military market [more than they are].
Pret a manger agrees to pay $3.9M to FOX Group [from Israel] for cancelling their part of a contract stating they were going to open 40 new stores there [Israel] by 2033. The company that owns Pret, JAB holding, also owns Panera Brands, Keurig Dr Pepper, JDE Peet's, and Espresso House—they cited travel restrictions [and therefore training complications], but we all know you don’t need any real training to work at a Pret [that can’t be done over exhaustingly verbose corporate videos], so it’s likely another reason 👀. JAB holding’s owners still seem to support Israel, though (the history is a little complicated so feel free to Google that on your own time). The plot thickens.
JDE Peet’s, another JAB holding-owned chain, is creating a project to help Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua increase coffee yield, farmers’ household income, and resilience to climate change. It is getting $15.3 millino for these efforts.
Knoops chocolate company finished a crowd-investing effort; they are a company that “personalise each and every drink to our customers’ taste through the art of Knoopology”.
The New York Coffee Nonogram
Play here: The New York Coffee Nonogram
Give up on all your coffee aspirations and play games on your kettle
In a great move by the kettle development industry, you can play “wormy” on your kettle, by completing a sequence with the buttons and knobs to access the game. You have to collect 40 bow ties as a definitely not snake.
If you win, and win in under 28 seconds, you can win a championship belt.
If you have a Skagg EKG Pro, you can play Bricky instead!
This week’s coffee shop spotlight!
An outpost of Culture Espresso just short of Times Square, this place can be defined by one word:
forgettable
It doesn’t mean it’s bad, but Culture 36 just didn’t give me an experience I remember. In fact, the thing I remember the most was the door:
Culture Espresso is known for their cookies, which they’ve stopped claiming on their website are ‘the best in the city’. Their Bryant Park location would say otherwise. I wouldn’t bother getting cookies here, but if you’re a tourist and going to Levain anyway, might as well continue the string of mid-tierism.
I wonder if I even got anything here.
Ah yes, I did.
Extremely memorable however was this enormous poster advertising a true American Abomination™:
And that’s it; we can move on with our day.
Thanks for tuning in!
Enjoy your coffee!