KC Perky

Good Morning, bean heads. How much coffee is there in KC? Enough to fill these huge coffee pots.

There is a SUPER-massive coffee map update pending. Hold on to your seats, because its going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 more shops as well as map functionality additions. Its taking a long time to verify the listings as well as just get it all organized properly, so it might be a bit yet.

So, with this many new shops, and many of them being much farther south than I usually am, I have realized that there are way too many shops in town. Especially for just one man to drink from all of them and keep the listings up to date. Therefore, I am seeking somebody who lives /works in roughly the OP/Leawood area and is as crazy as I am to join me is my exploration. Email me if you’re interested.

Brandon Briscoe of The Roastarie wrote a very nice article on coffee tastings over at Tastebud Magazine here in KC.

Go check it out: Tastebud: Drink Beans

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So there I was, just minding my own business.  Wearing green.   Dancing a jig.  Wanting to drink a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake.  When this beast ruined St. Patrick’s Day:

That’s right, the McDonald’s McCafe atrocity.

4 Stores in a row, no Shamrock Shakes.

According to the manager at the 4th store, McDonald’s marketing department is working so hard to promote the McCafe coffee, they skipped doing Shamrock Shakes all together!

Such a shame.  Their coffee isn’t even that great.

Who could have ever guessed that the two would go so well together?
Yeah.
Every programmer that ever existed.
So, of course, a programmer made a coffee social networking site.
And so did two others.
So far.

Coffeenatic, Barista Exchange, and Barista Connection.
Mercy.

OK, fine, it might not be as bad as blood diamonds are, but the coffee industry definitely has its indiscretions in Africa too.

This coming Saturday, there will be a free screening of Black Gold, a documentary exploring the global coffee trade and its impact on the people who produce the coffee.  The screening will take place at Jacob’s Well Church at 7 PM.  A brief discussion will be held afterwards to explore ways we (Americans) can work for justice in this multibillion-dollar industry.

Much of my coffeehouse exploring happens during my commute to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Over the last year and a half since I started this mission, I have covered a lot of ground, mostly in the urban corridor, as that’s where I’ve traveled to and from work. However, this pattern will be changing in just a few months- my commute will go from 20 miles to 2 blocks, so most of my T/R morning coffees will be at Eljay’s and City Market Coffeehouse. That just means I’ll have to make more of an effort to hit the suburbs to keep bringing you good shops we hadn’t heard of before. That, or …. just read a pretty little book??

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<— This is you, KC.

You love coffee.

I love coffee.

I am here to help guide you.

There are a ton of KC coffee shops and there are a number of good local bean producers. I’ll be focusing more on the prior, but will still touch on the latter too. Facts, gossip, and bold-face funny fabrications are all par for the course. Haters of sarcasm should get their own coffee blog.