“Drink Triple. See Double. Act Single.” — Sassy t-shirt. Smile Bar, Laos.
“Haiku are tiny seventeen-syllable poems that seek to convey a sudden awareness of beauty by a mating of opposite or incongruous terms. Thus the classical haiku characteristically fuses motion and stillness.” — Edward G. Seidensticker, from the Introduction of Snow Country (1957)
“
There was indeed no reason for him to go on. His excitement fell away. He looked down at his feet and saw that they had come to the crossing.
“The Milky Way. Beautiful, isn’t it,” Komako murmured. She looked up at the sky as she ran off ahead of him.
The Milky Way. Shimamura too looked up, and he felt himself floating into the Milky Way. Its radiance was so near that it seemed to take him up into it. Was this the bright vastness the poet Basho saw when he wrote of the Milky Way arched over a stormy sea? The Milky Way came down just over there, to wrap the night earth in its naked embrace. There was a terrible voluptuousness about it. Shimamura fancied that his own small shadow was being cast up against it from the earth. Each individual star stood apart from the rest, and even the particles of silver dust in the luminous clouds could be picked out, so clear was the night. The limitless depth of the Milky Way pulled his gaze up onto it.
“Wait, wait,” Shimamura called.
“Come on.” Komako ran toward the dark mountain on which the Milky Way was falling.
…The Milky Way spread its skirts to be broken by the waves of the mountain, and, fanning out again in all its brilliant vastness higher in the sky, it left the mountain in deeper darkness.
…As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a a roar.
” — Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country[video]
The Iced-Coffee Economy: Why the Cold Stuff Costs More -
Fascinating. #CoffeeEconomics
By: Kurt Soller via GRUB STREET
All this week, Jonathan Rubinstein, the owner of the Joe mini-chain, has gone into work wondering whether today will be The Day. “Each year, there is one day when the world changes,” he says. It’s the day when the entire population it seems switches from hot coffee to cold, served from plastic pitchers into cups full of ice.” When that happens, Rubinstein says, “my whole business changes for the next four months.”
That’s in a normal year, though, when his customers typically switch to iced from May through October. But with this year’s already steamy temperatures, Rubinstein is facing the possibility that what his baristas call The Iced Season could stretch a full six months. And, given the economics of cold-brewed iced coffee, that could cause vexing problems for high-end coffee shops.
Bodegas and diners and coffee carts still serve iced coffee by chilling their hot java, resulting in a watered-down and bitter swill that follows the same economics as hot coffee. But the best coffee shops — shops like Joe, and Stumptown, and La Colombe — use cold-brewed coffee. Cold brew (or Toddy, as connoisseurs call it, named after a particular brewing machine) is a relatively new phenomenon in New York. Think Coffee began serving it in 2006 and now, Rubinstein deadpans, “It’s no longer a trend. It’s mandatory.”
Let’s consider the numbers for a sixteen-ounce cold-brewed coffee versus a twelve-ounce hot coffee — the best comparison, as ice displaces about four ounces of liquid. The cold one will cost anywhere from a quarter to a dollar more. But the café will hardly claim the entire difference as profit.
Like the hot stuff, cold-brewing involves mixing pulverized beans with water, but the latter process requires about twice as much ground coffee. Those grounds infuse filtered water for 12 to 24 hours, creating iced-coffee concentrate. That liquid is cut with water to taste, at a ratio of about one to one. Yet even after all this dilution, a cup of cold-brewed joe can include 62 cents worth of ground coffee. A hot cup might include 35 cents’ worth of beans.
For a coffee shop to thrive, its owners must keep their cost-of-goods around 28 percent of menu price. This magic number, basically a four-fold mark-up, allows businesses to pay for labor, insurance, rent, equipment, and marketing. Sticking to that formula is much easier with hot coffee — invest about 50 cents, including the cup and lid and sleeve — then charge around $2 for a product with pretty reliable sales. The difficulty with cold brew stems both from the higher fixed costs and the unpredictability of iced season. “The hardest part is just making sure we’re prepared for cold brew,” says Caroline Bell, co-owner of four Café Grumpy locations. “You’ve just reminded me I need to order more plastic cups.”
The first added cost for cold brew comes from those clear plastic cups, or the compostable versions made from farming by-products that some shops prefer, both with wholesale prices that fluctuate based on the petroleum or corn markets. In either case, the cold cups can cost twice as much as the paper cups for hot beverages. The paper ones average around six cents, the plastic ones for cold brew go for nine to twelve. “When we first opened in New York two years ago, I had to be convinced clear cups were necessary,” says James Freeman, CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee. “But with iced coffee, the humidity in New York makes the paper ones disintegrate.” (Out West, Blue Bottle still uses paper cups, no matter the drink’s temperature).
The straw adds one or two cents more. The clumps of napkins customers swipe for sweaty glasses and foreheads alike further drive down margins. “My paper costs, which include cups and straws, increase by about 20 percent,” says Jason Scherr, the owner of Think, before adding: “Summer stresses me out.”
Renting an ice machine, a common practice among cafés, costs up to twelve bucks a day. And if that machine breaks, bags of ice bought en masse from Gristedes will add twenty or thirty cents to each cup’s bottom line — a “nightmare scenario” Rubinstein had one sweltering Upper West Side day.
All told, these variables, along with the extra coffee required for cold-brewing, add up to a goods cost of about 80 cents (and that doesn’t include milk, of which Rubinstein estimates customers use 20 percent more during the Iced Season). That means owners must charge at least $3 to keep their margins healthy. Those who charge less are consigning their iced coffee to be much less profitable. “For years, I was afraid to ask my customers for more than $2.50,” says Kenneth Nye, the owner of Ninth Street Espresso. “Until I realized that, every summer, my coffee-bean bills would skyrocket, and sales [revenues] would increase, but my grosses weren’t following it.” He now charges three dollars, his margins are even, and no customers have complained.
For cafes, the high fixed costs of cold brew are offset by some advantages. Unlike hot coffee, which goes bad in twenty or thirty minutes, concentrate lasts a week, resulting in less waste. Profit-minded owners could, in theory, hire lesser-trained (and cheaper) employees to man the pitchers during Iced Season, cycling out skilled employees who specialize in things like cappuccinos. And the fact that cold brewed coffee is pre-prepared means that queues move along more quickly.
Unfortunately, after Memorial Day, the customers who would fill those queues are in short supply. Coffee houses may see a higher ticket per guest, thanks to the increased price that comes with iced, but they’ll also get fewer total tickets. “It’s never our best season, especially in Chelsea” explains Bell. “Because New York City just empties out.”
That leaves cafes to hope to serve enough cold brews on unseasonably nice spring and fall days — when employees serve an influx of special-occasion drinkers along with the regulars who are ready to drop more dough for a taste of sweet iced goodness — to make up not just for the increased costs but the drop-off in business over the summer. And, by extension, to root for early heat waves like this one.
Back to Rubinstein: Each weekend in August, he sees his business drop 10 to 15 percent — a loss he’s hoping the current temperatures will help reverse. “When we have a nice spring day early, we bump up about 10 percent from a ‘normal’ day,” he says. “Maybe an extra $200 to $400.” Which may not seem like much, but quickly adds up when The Day — today, for example — comes in March instead of May.
[video]
SR-71. @Wikkman #thepowerandtheglory
(Source: whereisthecoool)
David Sedaris, the Author of ‘Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk,’ on His Reading Habits -
What book is on your night stand now?
I was a judge for this year’s Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, so until very recently I was reading essays written by clever high school students. Now I’ve started Shalom Auslander’s “Hope: A Tragedy.” His last book, “Foreskin’s Lament,” really made me laugh.
When and where do you like to read?
Throughout my 20s and early 30s — my two-books-per-week years — I did most of my reading at the International House of Pancakes. I haven’t been to one in ages, but at the time, if you went at an off-peak hour, they’d give you a gallon-sized pot of coffee and let you sit there as long as you liked. Now, though, with everyone hollering into their cellphones, it’s much harder to read in public, so I tend to do it at home, most often while reclining.
What was the last truly great book you read?
I’ve read a lot of books that I loved recently. “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,” by a woman named Barbara Demick, was a real eye-opener. In terms of “great,” as in “This person seems to have reinvented the English language,” I’d say Wells Tower’s “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.” What an exciting story collection it is, unlike anything I’ve ever come across.
Do you consider yourself a fiction or a nonfiction person? What’s your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives. The worse off the subjects, the more inclined I am to read about them. When it comes to fictional characters, I’m much less picky. Happy, confused, bitter: if I like the writing I’ll take all comers. I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the “Harry Potter” books. They’re read by the great Stephen Fry, and I play them over and over, like an 8-year-old.
What book had the greatest impact on you? What book made you want to write?
I remember being floored by the first Raymond Carver collection I read: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” His short, simple sentences and -familiar-seeming characters made writing look, if not exactly easy, then at least possible. That book got me to work harder, but more important it opened the door to other contemporary short story writers like Tobias Wolff and Alice Munro.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
I would want him to read “Is There No Place on Earth for Me?,” Susan Sheehan’s great nonfiction book about a young schizophrenic woman. It really conveys the grinding wheel of mental illness.
What are your reading habits? Paper or electronic? Do you take notes? Do you snack while you read?
I sometimes read books on my iPad. It’s great for traveling, but paper versions are easier to mark up, and I like the feeling of accomplishment I get when measuring the number of pages I’ve just finished — “Three-quarters of an inch!” I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time. Notewise, whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.
What is your ideal reading experience? Do you prefer a book that makes you laugh or makes you cry? One that teaches you something or one that distracts you?
Yes, all the above.
What were your favorite books as a child? Do you have a favorite character or hero from one of those books? Is there one book you wish all children would read?
There was a series of biographies with orange covers in my elementary school library, and I must have read every one of them. Most of the subjects were presidents or founding fathers, but there were a few heroes thrown in as well: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett. I loved reading about their early years, back when they were chopping firewood and doing their homework by candlelight, never suspecting that one day they would be famous. I wish all children would read “Is There No Place on Earth for Me?” That way they’d have something to talk about when they meet the president.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
Boy, did I have a hard time with “Moby-Dick.” I read it for an assignment 10 years ago and realized after the first few pages that without some sort of a reward system I was never going to make any progress. I told myself that I couldn’t bathe, shave, brush my teeth or change my clothes until I had finished it. In the end, I stunk much more than the book did.
What’s the funniest book you’ve ever read?
The staff of The Onion put out an atlas that gives me a stomachache every time I read it. I can just open it randomly, and any line I come upon makes me laugh. For funny stories it’s Jincy Willett, Sam Lipsyte, Flannery O’Connor and George Saunders. Oh, and I love Paul Rudnick in The New Yorker.
What’s the one book you wish someone else would write?
I’d love to read a concise, non-hysterical biography of Michael Jackson. I just want to know everything about him.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? Have you ever written to an author?
I’m horrible at meeting people I admire, but if I could go back in time, I’d love to collect kindling or iron a few shirts for Flannery O’Connor. After I’d finished, she’d offer to pay me, and I’d say, awe-struck, my voice high and quivering, that it was on me.
If somebody walked in on you writing one of your books, what would they see? What does your work space look like?
When stuck, I tend to get up from my desk and clean, so if someone walked in they’d most likely find me washing my windows, or dusting the radiator I’d just dusted half an hour earlier.
Do you remember the last book that someone personally recommended you read and that you enjoyed? Who recommended you read it, and what persuaded you to pick it up?
My sister Amy and I have similar tastes in nonfiction, and on her recommendation I recently read and enjoyed “Tiger, Tiger,” by Margaux Fragoso.
What do you plan to read next?
I’m looking forward to the new Michael Chabon book. I loved “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”
——-
All of the reading recommendations you will need for the next year or two.
From the New York Times. Published April 12, 2012.
Fantastic article from the WSJ. Highlights:
In his memoir “Don’t Mind If I Do,” Hollywood playboy emeritus George Hamilton, now a ripe 72, provided some tips he learned over the years for attracting the most gorgeous women in the world, including the hardly press-shy Liz Taylor. “A world-class playboy once told me that the key to mesmerizing women is to listen to them and look deeply into their eyes. It was a lesson I’ve never forgotten… . My father also had advice for me. It was always important, he told me, to be a ladies’ man and a man’s man.”
And:
“When money is everything, charm goes out the window.” Evans differentiates between style, a good thing, and fashion, a superficial thing. “Style preceded fashion for these guys.”