Coffee Gift Guide – a gift guide for COFFEE SNOBS

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(Coffee Gift Guide)

*This post contains affiliate links.

GIFT GUIDE for Coffee Snobs

I’m a self-confessed coffee snob.

When I chose to move from the city to a small rural town that had no coffee shops that didn’t offer anything but large chain drip coffee, I got a little desperate.

So I started setting up my home espresso bar. These are some of my favourite products that coffee snobs like me will love:

For those times when you need more than one cup at a time, french pressed coffee tastes like the closest thing to espresso, because it keeps the largest amount of the oils in a coffee bean in the finished product. It also doubles as a great tea pot for loose teas: Bodum Thermal French Press

But I really do love my Americanos so I was anxious to find an espresso machine I could use at home.

I’ve heard that this fully-automated machine makes a real great cup ‘a joe: Breville Dual Boiler Espresso Maker

 

When my first espresso machine bit the dust, I upgraded to the Breville Duo Pro Espresso Machine

 

 

 

That machine makes a much nicer micro foam than my first machine, a great entry level DeLonghi that made a great espresso shot, as long as I stayed on top of timing and shutting it off: DeLonghi EC155 15 BAR Pump Espresso and Cappuccino Maker

 

Some coffee snobs prefer the old school stove top espresso maker and I always liked The Original Bialetti Moka Express

 

 

If using a stovetop, then a coffee snob may also need a milk frother to make a nice latte with. I chose to heat my milk and froth it with an electric frother like this PowerLix Milk Frother

 

If working with an espresso machine that makes the froth for you, a frothing pitcher  and a thermometer are absolute necessities: Myvision Stainless Steel Milk Pitcher comes in various sizes, it’s usually best to work with the smallest pitcher possible, so it may be good to have two different sizes.

 

Insta-Read Beverage/Frothing Thermometer

 

While a knock box is not a necessity, it sure makes everything easier. I love my: Breville Mini Espresso Knock Box

 

The best tasting coffee is made from the freshest of beans that are the freshest roast, and ground immediately prior to pulling the shot, or pouring over the grinds. I love my burr grinder by Bodum: Bodum Bistro Electric Burr Coffee Grinder

 

Aside from the MOST important item (the coffee beans), there is one thing left that a coffee snob appreciates, a great mug.

I like a mug that I can hold comfortably in my hand, so that my whole hand fits comfortably in the handle.

 

My favourite travel mug is the travel press by Bodum, it can be used for loose tea, pressed coffee, or with a regular lid for perked coffee.

 

So that leaves the beans and storage for them. Beans are best kept at room temperature in an air tight container away from light.

 

I’m the coffee snob who prefers locally dark-roasted, organic fair-trade beans. While these aren’t locally roasted to my home province of Nova Scotia, they are roasted in British Columbia, Canada: Kicking Horse Coffee, Grizzly Claw

 

 

Hopefully this gave you some great ideas for shopping for the coffee snob in your life!

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Formerly hot and ever-so-powerful!

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If for no other reason than to support Stephanie Dolgoff for writing a book that stirred up this kind of energy and lead ignoramuses like BB (comments on Steph’s blog here) to show himself for what a despicably insecure idiot he can be, I will be buying a copy of her book My Formerly Hot Life.

At the age of 35 (and looking good for my 35 years, I might add), according to BB, I am now on the slippery downhill slope to zero value. Huh!

Wow. Aside from the “power” I supposedly experienced as a younger self who was hot and well – young, I can think of far greater value that women like myself have experienced that are certainly worth celebrating, and offer a little reason for grieving the formerly hot life in a way… Being of the prime age for reproduction, as a for instance, is a responsibility that once was considered by other ignorant individuals of society to be the only real value of a young woman. And however much we lament the suggestion today that young women have no other value than their looks and their abilities to procreate with greater biological odds, women – the life givers, the carriers of the next generation DO become far more powerful as they age, just as do some men.

Ask any child what sort of value their mother has, and they can put into the simplest of words and expressions the most complex concept: that their 35plus-year-old-mother rocks this world! And for those women who have not yet had children by the time they reach that magical number of 35, whether by choice or otherwise, women (like the ever powerful man) become more powerful in their financial assets and ability to provide for their families, selves and society as they age. Yep, you heard me right BB, women also earn higher incomes, and accumulate greater knowledge as they age – and will continue to do so.

However, to suggest that women in general EVER had power and privilege surpassing that of men at any stage of their lives is a farce. How many women (young or otherwise) do we see elected to powerful positions? Yet we make up more than half of the overall population. How many women continue to work for less pay than that of their male counterparts in the exact same level of work? I suspect, if we were to look closely at women before the age of 35 in comparison to men of the same, and again at women over 35 compared to men of the same, we will find that the income gap is smaller in the older group than the younger. What power is there in that for young women?

As for the suggestion that young women hold such power that men that will go to war over them/us… is that act of war not in fact more an expression of the man’s power over the woman and desire to possess rather than celebrate her? Speaking from my own experiences, men who behaved in such manner were as far from my younger formerly hot self as I could keep them.

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