This Is A Coffee Plug

Last week, the big news among caffeine fiends (and other more sane coffee drinkers) related to the increase in coffee commodity price due to bad weather coupled with increased global demand (seen a Columbian, Panama CoE or Honduras recently?).  This distressed the Foodie Team less than one would imagine, given that now we are all armed with our own conical burr grinders to use at home and so we have the real option of just spending the money on beans to brew at home instead of drinking coffees by trained baristas.  Even if those baristas are now acquaintances and occasional verbal sparring partners, meaning that we would not like to see them without jobs, or worse, discerning consumers who keep them on their toes.

For a few minutes, we did ponder the possibility of becoming CoE subscribers.  However, viability was a real issue. After all, the Team could not claim this subscription as a tax-deductible expense, even though it makes absolute sense to claim that "it is imperative we have decent coffee to stimulate our brain activity to work effectively for the day, and the methodology of brewing the coffee at home has been proven to present a better Value For Money solution than grabbing a take-away cuppa every morning".

In my ear, SL was blustering about the immediate price impact in Sydney cafes ("House blend, I tell you, it was a house blend and the barista actually burnt the coffee and STILL they dared to charge that sort of money!").  FH was talking about how she preferred to drink her stovetop coffees and pour overs at home for most of the week compared to espressos elsewhere.  Even I was beginning to feel the pinch from walking past my regular cafe(s) every weekday morning. 

Someone suggested to me that maybe the Foodie Team should use this blog to plug for money so we could "support the fine dining lifestyle, earn a bit of extra cash like every other blogger out there".   A cafe owner described to me  how he was wining and dining some better-known food bloggers to ensure they put in a good word about his cafe to their readers.

I wondered, I considered, I pondered whether it was time to turn this blog into something more than just a casual hobby...

Then I received an email about a charity event happening at Market Lane Coffee this Wednesday night.  I tend not to go out too late on a weeknight, but I cannot resist the words "throwdown", "espresso" and "free" all on the same advertisement...

So there.  We are using this blog to plug for money.  To plug this event, really, for money.  Go have a good time, drink up on those coffees and beers, cheer on your nominated barista contestant, loosen those purse strings and support a good cause.  The benefit of an event like this is that you know the people there will be happy happy happy (beer!  espressos!  competition!) but cannot stay too late because most of them have to be at work before 7am :)

Now, let's say a fond hello again to my Sunbeam Grindmaster...##