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Juan Valdez Coffee (giveaway)

Raul — Tue, 03 May 2011 18:00:29 +0000

photo credit: yopuz

Caffeine is the fuel of life. Or if not, at least the fuel of MY life. I can’t operate well without my morning coffee. I’m a big fan as well of Colombian coffee, to be quite honest, and I’m more of a fan if it’s grown by small farmers. So I was thrilled to hear that Juan Valdez Coffee was launching in Vancouver. I asked for more information about Juan Valdez Coffee:

In 2002, the FNC established the Juan Valdez Café coffeehouse brand, named after Colombia’s longtime icon and a household name in North America. It wasn’t long before the popularity and demand of the Juan Valdez Coffee brand and coffee beans grew, and a retail brand was created for consumers to enjoy at home. Selected from Colombia’s finest beans, Juan Valdez Coffees contain beans that exceed specific industry standards. This insures that every cup of Juan Valdez coffee consistently delivers great taste, every time.

Juan Valdez represents more than 500,000 coffee-growers. With his trusted friend Conchita always by his side, his mission is to symbolize the proudly kept traditions of those hard working men and women, who pick every bean by hand and are 100% committed to their families, their communities and the environment. Since 1959, Juan has been promoting Colombian coffee all over the world and ensuring that the most discerning consumers can always enjoy a cup of the Richest Coffee in the World.

I’m giving away a Juan Valdez Coffee gift bag, with a coffee cup and coffee for your consumption. And a picture of Juan Valdez himself! To enter my giveaway, tell me how many cups of coffee a day you consume. I used to drink only one cup a day, but after I entered graduate school, coffee and I became best friends. Until I realized how much of a water footprint it had!

For an additional entry (comment on this post counts as one, and a Twitter post counts as an additional one, total of 2) you can post the following on your Twitter timeline.

Told @hummingbird604 how much coffee I drink 2 enter 2 win a Juan Valdez gift bag. How many cups/day do YOU drink? http://bit.ly/jadpGI

I will be drawing a dinner from all entries that accumulate on May 10th at 2pm. Good luck everyone!

Virtual water: Should drinking coffee make you feel guilty?

Raul — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:01:34 +0000

While admittedly my research strength is on wastewater governance, I am well versed on the water scarcity literature. One of the concepts that has gained notoriety in the social science literature is the idea of virtual water. From the World Water Council’s website:

Virtual water is the amount of water that is embedded in food or other products needed for its production. For example, to produce one kilogram of wheat we need about 1,000 litres of water, i.e. the virtual water of this kilogram of wheat is 1,000 litres. For meat, we need about five to ten times more.[World Water Council]

Credit: Ianiv and Arieanna

Darren recently wrote about Salt Spring Island Coffee and how much guilt they put into their coffee cup paper sleeves with the phrase “the cup of coffee you’re consuming travelled 20,000 miles to get to you” (I’m paraphrasing). In my comment to Darren, I indicated that this kind of guilt was nothing. I would like to share with you just how much water was consumed in producing that one cup of coffee you can’t give up: 140 litres, according to the latest calculation of the World Water Council. Yes, you heard right. 140 litres of water go into producing each cup of coffee.

People who are unaware of the negative environmental impact of excess water consumption argue that, after all, it’s *just* a cup of coffee and that we have enough water in the world. My question to them is - How much of the world’s water is available for human consumption? Yeah, I told you about that a few months ago, remember? 0.38% – not nearly enough to sustain our current consumptive patterns.

Credit: Snap(R)

I’ll be the first to admit (disclosure time) that I do enjoy a cup of coffee, particularly when it comes to meetings with colleagues, friends, clients or the like. But I always feel guilty about it, and I try to find ways to diminish my water consumption, all the time. Moreover, a vast majority of my research work is on wastewater recycling and water conservation. Furthermore, I work hard at educating the public about the current state of the world in regards to water scarcity and the need to recycle and reuse wastewater.

The concept of virtual water isn’t new, but it is a powerful tool that helps us understand how negative our consumption patterns are. I just hope that the great work that water-focused researchers (myself included) are doing to highlight the negative consequences of our day-to-day activities and over-consumptive patterns can resonate with the public. Please remember that water is VERY, very scarce, before flushing your toilet, before purchasing bottled water, before taking long showers. Thank you.

Guest coffee shop review – The Edge Cafe (Cambie and Broadway)

Raul — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:06:30 +0000

As many of you may know, my friends Ianiv and Arieanna Schweber are the proud owners of Vancouver Coffee, a website focused on all things caffeine, and particularly, the local coffee scene. I’d been wanting to do a guest review for Vancouver Coffee, and I finally had a chance to do so. Head over to my guest review of The Edge Cafe and let me know what you think!

Greening caffeine consumption?

Raul — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:09:10 +0000

Photo credit: Ianiv and Arieanna on Flickr

Recently, Arieanna wrote a post about implementing more ecologically-friendly measures in coffee shops. I actually was very happy that she touched on this topic, as I used to consume a lot of coffee (not anymore).

Although I had thought about some measures (e.g. using my refillable coffee mug, not accepting paper cups, not using those little bags of sugar), I hadn’t really paid all that much attention. But Arieanna’s post reminded me that it’s important to reflect on these issues. And one of the commenters on her blog pointed her out to Agro Cafe on Granville Island.

I haven’t had a chance to visit, but I might just drop by sometime soon, if for no other reason, because the commenter (Jeff) mentioned that Agro Cafe had already implemented lots of sustainability measures. I’m curious to see them, and I’ll write about them soon.

No more caffeine for me

Raul — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:06:08 +0000

While having one of perhaps the most relaxed afternoons of my recent life with my friend Arjana, we were talking about my recent fainting spell and the recurring migraines. This morning, I woke up at a reasonable good time, after sleeping a solid 8 hours. I begun my work day with a cup of coffee as I would normally do, and less than 20 minutes later, I had a headache.

A blinding, head-shattering, “I need a nap right now and some analgesics” kind of headache. I just woke up from said nap, a few hours behind in my work. Knowing me, I took this as a controlled experiment. I re-read notes of the latest instances of caffeine intake and how my head felt. Strongly associated. Lots of coffee = headache/migraine. *sigh* That’s too bad as I *love* good coffee. But if I want to be able to work well, I’ll have to switch to non-caffeinated drinks. Good bye, iced mocha