Things you should know #3

War is bad but coffee is good; Flight Coffee goes to the dark side; AeroPress forgets definition of 'innovation'.

Hey, welcome back. It’s Tuesday 25 April - here are some things you need to know.

In this weeks edition: War is bad but coffee is good; Flight Coffee goes to the dark side; AeroPress forgets definition of 'innovation'.

Coffee’s importance in the Great War

It’s ANZAC Day so I did some googling about coffee and wars.

Turns out that coffee was a key part of soldiers’ rations. According to an article from NPR:

"Coffee was as important as beef and bread… it restored courage and strength…kept up the morale."

It certainly keeps up my morale when faced with eight hours of work… (am I really comparing sitting at a desk all day to the horrors of war? Yes. I am a millennial and EVERYTHING IS HARD!).

And if you think stashing a grinder in an AeroPress is pretty amazing, check out what the soldiers did:

"Some Union soldiers got rifles with a mechanical grinder with a hand crank built into the buttstock - they'd fill a hollowed space within the carbine's stock with coffee beans, grind it up, dump it out and cook coffee that way."

Interestingly, the article also makes some claims about who invented instant coffee (spoiler alert - they say it wasn’t a Kiwi, but according to Wiki, it was invented in Invercargill in 1890…)

Who knows what the truth is? Anyway, it’s a good read.

Flight Coffee is doing coffee pods

I haven’t hidden my hatred of coffee pods. You can read all about it in this post ‘Nespresso: Good or Evil?’.

Despite my scathing review of the Nespresso, Flight Coffee went ahead and launched their own coffee pods. Weird.

Does good coffee in a dog shit brewer make it any less dogshit?

Flight Coffee aren’t the first local roaster to launch coffee pods (see Ozone’s offering) but by far they are the most legit specialty coffee roaster, with actually amazing coffee, to do so.

This is big news, as it gives some speciality coffee legitimacy and cred to the Nespresso (which I still think is dog shit).

At over $1 a coffee/pod, it 'is an expensive way to have a cup of Joe, given you can make much cheaper and arguably better coffee with filter, espresso or even specialty instant - but here we are - the world is cooked.

If you try it, let me know.

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Heck, you can even Buy Me A Coffee to keep this going. Go on.

AeroPress releases a Fellow Prismo - wait, what?

AeroPress, the world wide leader in mixing innovation with deep conservatism, has released a new product - the AeroPress Flow Control Filter Cap.

It describes itself as an “innovative accessory [that] uses a pressure-actuated valve to eliminate drip through and maximize control over the brew process.” So that you can “make espresso-like crema and experiment with coarser-ground coffee.”

Now, if this sounds familiar, it is because this innovative product is nothing of the sort - Fellow released the Prismo over 5 years ago. See this video from Fellow back in 2018!

The AeroPress version is apparently better as it fits all AeroPress models and AeroPress filters. I’m not sure if that actually meets the definition of innovative, but alas.

Also, it’s not espresso unless you can make the right amount of pressure - can we just stop calling strong black coffee espresso unless it truly is?

It doesn’t appear to be available from New Zealand retailers yet, but is around the $45 USD mark (approx $70 NZD) from the AeroPress website - around $10-15 more expensive than the Prismo.

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Boom town - enjoy your week