coffee

The Starbucks planner for 2012 is a 180-degree turn from last year’s elegant design that came in red velvet and metallic finishes. This time around, it’s all about trees, evoked with natural materials – wood and coarse-weave fabric. It’s acquired through the usual means of stickers for each drink purchased during the designated holiday period (November to January).

There are five iterations shading from light to dark, each named after a tree. This one’s Cherry, the middle shade (#3).

What’s more, the design took more than a few cues from the Moleskine notebook.

This unboxing happened at Starbucks Harbour Square at the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex.

“Let’s give big hugs – and little gifts of hope.” Actually, I’m fine with the big hugs. Really.

The coarse-weave pouch is an innovation – it’s the first time it’s been done by Starbucks Philippines. The pouch keeps the planner clean, and is also handy for receipts, a pen, and other little items.

No worries that the planner inside will be damaged by things you might keep in the pouch – the covers are made of thin pieces of wood, with the siren design and edge text in bas-relief.

There’s a Moleskine-style elastic on the back. As always, the planner comes with coupons – nine, this time around, less than there used to be, at one per month, but then it takes less drinks to get the planner this season.

Instead of a Moleskine-type ribbon marker, a kraft-cardboard bookmark is provided. I love the horizontal layout. 

Now we come to the best thing about this planner – the paper. It is smooth, creamy, and fountain-pen friendly. The stiff nib of my daily-warrior Parker Jotter simply glides across the paper, as if it were glass. Or ice.

Another good thing for FP  users – there’s minimal show-through! 

As with every Starbucks planner, this one has magnificent photography.

A pocket attached to the inside back cover holds the coupons and bookmark. Again, just like the Moleskine. It’s handy-dandy for keeping more stray bits of paper and other ephemera. 

The size is smaller too, compared to previous editions. It’s about the size of a Kindle and fits neatly in my handbag, where I hope it gets along with all the pink things in there.

Photos taken with a 2MP Nokia C3.

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Starbucks Philippines finally figured out that the perfect complement to their coffee in the mornings is a more substantial breakfast than they had been wont to serve.

This August, customers all over Manila were delighted to find new breakfast offerings.

 Apart from the breakfast, there’s new merchandise too, in the warm earthy colors of fall.

Via ceramic cup with lid, a great partner to Starbucks’ instant coffee. I got the orange one. It gives a more ‘morning coffee’ feel to my first-thing-when-I-get to-the-office java, than in a plastic tumbler.

The familiar tall plastic tumblers in a Via version. 

The Starbucks Anniversary designs always feature the original siren. The brown echoes the hues of coffee.

Here’s what’s new – a glass water bottle. The steel tumbler also boasts a new color scheme.

As always in each seasonal merchandise collection, there is a gaggle of gaily-colored plastic tumblers, these covered in a drift of autumn leaves. 

Photos taken with a Nokia C3 at the Harbour Square (Pasay City) and Greenbelt 1 (Makati City) branches.

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Coffee is big business. This is clearly true in the Philippines, where, as the President declared in his State-of-the-Nation address yesterday, one government agency alone spent P1 billion for coffee during the previous administration.

And with food and its preparation being important in Filipino culture, the quest to find the perfect way to prepare a cup is never-ending.

Single-serve coffee machines have been popular abroad for some years, and have recently reached our shores. One of the most visibly marketed here is the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (CBTL) system.

CBTL had a demo some weeks back at the Powerplant Mall at Rockwell, where they showed off two models, the Kaldi and the Contata.

I saw a demo of the Kaldi, thanks to pretty and helpful sales associate Sy. She guided me using the system which is easy to use. Just pop a beverage capsule (CBTL offers coffee and tea) in a slot in the back and pull the lever down. Hot water from a chamber at the back of the machine shoots through the punched capsule, resulting in a no-hands-brewed cup of coffee.

I must say the crema on the espresso was rich, thick, sublime. Sy also showed me how to use the accessory CBTL milk frother, which steams milk for lattes and machiattos. The latte she made me was one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever tasted.

The Kaldi (above) comes in red, white, blue, and yellow, the Contata only in black. 

The beverages can be enhanced with the addition of “flavored powder sachets” which come in French Deluxe Vanilla and Special Dutch Chocolate.

Their promotional flyer gives the price of the machines as P13,750; the frother (which comes in white and black), P4,250. Capsules per box of 10 cost P400. At the time of the demo, they were having a special sale. The Kaldi and the frother together would have cost around P14,000.

I fell under the spell of the luxurious cup of coffee the machine created, but the system was rather too pricey for me. Other brands of machines cost only half as much – the Nescafe Dolce Gusto at $135 (P6,000), the Bosch Tassimo at $125 (P5,500).

For coffee lovers like me, you can’t go wrong with a single-serve system, and somewhere out there is the right one for you.

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If I won the lottery I would open a coffee shop for writers, where writers can caffeinate and dream and write in peaceful, aesthetically pleasing, and food-and-coffee laden surroundings.

It will open its doors at 1130pm, perfect for late lunches of pasta, sandwiches, and hearty soup. After that, you can settle in to write, with a potful of coffee by your side and your choice of dessert beside it. Waiters will only murmur gently when they take your order, and then leave you alone, not to disturb you again except when you summon them for a refill or another slice of pie or to give you your bill when you ask.

Brewed Benguet arabica and apple pie at Hill Station Cafe, Casa Vallejo, Baguio City. 13 April 2011.

They will never ask you to leave, even if it’s late. The manager will merely dim the lights gradually as a signal for closing time, which is at 430am, just before sunrise. Then you can move to a breakfast place for eggs and bacon or arroz caldo and go home and sleep. Most writers are more productive at night and the wee hours, anyway, because then there are no more interruptions – phone calls, meetings, and excited people rushing up to you to gab about one thing or another, that may or may not be interesting. Usually it’s not.

There will be free wifi with the strongest possible signal obtainable, and plentiful sockets for Macs and netbooks and mobile phone chargers and tablets inset along the baseboards and on the floor. The password for the wifi will change everyday: “tolkien”, “nickjoaquin”, and “arabica” will be some of them. Because the owner is a writer, and knows a great many words, no password will ever be used twice.

A cozy corner at Hill Station Cafe, where I wrote my Manila Standard-Today column for that week. 13 April 2011

For those who prefer to write in longhand, bottles of Waterman ink in blue-black and South Sea blue (a lovely turquoise) will be offered on a tray to refill a fountain pen, on the house. Other inks of different brands and vintages – J. Herbin, Diamine, Pilot Iroshizuku, Private Reserve, Sailor, Noodler’s  - will be listed on a special menu, like fine wines. Notebooks with guaranteed fountain-pen friendly paper will be offered on the menu’s reverse side – Clarefontaine, Rhodia, Daycraft, Green Apple.

Regulars will have their own personal reserved spaces in quiet corners. My friends will have their own personal chairs with nameplates affixed to the backs, and no one else would be allowed to use those chairs.

Writers Yvette Tan (“Waking the Dead and Other Stories”, a short story collection) and Clarissa Militante (“Different Countries”, a novel) chat at the BenCab Museum cafe in Baguio, 10 April 2011.

There will be a few paintings and photographs on the wall, but most of the space will be taken up with books on shelves, wall-to-wall. Anyone may read them within the premises. There will be memorabilia from writers – one of Butch Dalisay’s baseball caps or old Macs, Jing Hidalgo’s lipstick, a book of poetry by Gemino Abad, with the poet’s annotations in the margins.

At night, around six o’clock, the place will turn into a bar, with beer and nuts and sizzling sisig, so that writers so inclined may get drunk and maudlin and reminisce about the good old days, or raucous and combative and rehash old grudges, as they are so moved. Maybe over the kibitzing a story or poem idea may be born, collaborations made, and money-making schemes hatched.

On weekend nights there will be poetry readings, or open-mic nights, where anyone who wishes can strum the guitar, sing the blues, or perform stand-up comedy.

A dream coffee-shop? A sanctuary of the mind? Who’s to say it cannot come true? Why put off fulfilling your dreams if you can make them come true today?

I will buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.

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“Galaw-galaw, Neni,” said Doc Nonoy. “Move it, move it.”

“Walk fast and live long,” said Doc Amer.

Both physicians were my classmates from elementary to high school. Sometimes we see each other now that we’re older, and I’m struck by how they still look like teenagers. I, on the other hand, also still look like a teenager, but weigh twice as much as one.

Both of them have been into running since back then.

I have been into avoiding running since back then (like, what? where’s the fire?) but I can manage to put one foot in front of another to walk.

The new year having rolled around again, as it does every year, I trotted out that hoary old resolution of getting more exercise, and walking it is because it doesn’t require highly-developed motor coordination skills.

So today I went to the mall and bought a Cuisinart four-cup coffeemaker with steel carafe, endorsed on the box by chef Paul Bocuse. I’ve used a French press for eons and felt it was time for a change.

What does this coffeemaker have to do with exercise? We’ll get there, I promise.

This brand of coffeemaker advises the use of paper filters, and comes with two free ones. I do not like my coffee tasting of paper and I do not want trees chopped down just for me to get my caffeine on.

Well, what do you know, the Starbucks across the street from the appliance store had this lovely mesh permanent filter.

I went home and made coffee using ground arabica I bought in Baguio last July, since all my fresh coffee was at the office. The old Baguio arabica was stale and tasted horrible.

I refused to give up on brewing coffee en hora mismo in that smart Cuisinart. So I walked about a kilometer from my house to the nearest Starbucks, where I got this bag of Caffe Verona in the sweetest scarlet Valentine’s Day packaging. (I always was a sucker for cute packaging.)

I walked another kilometer back home and settled down to brew myself some strong, bold coffee for a night of writing.

And that’s how my love for coffee motivated me to get some exercise today and obey my physicians’ instructions.

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It was excruciating – pain radiating from my right thumb to my wrist, then forearm, then shoulder, all in the course of three days. There had been some discomfort in the previous months, but this time it was agony.

Refusing to take meds or try any remedies pending a physician’s advice, I gritted my teeth, leaned heavily on Alex for support (she almost buckled under the weight), and made my way to the emergency room of a Makati hospital late one night last week.

That afternoon I had done some research and by a galactic coincidence a story popped up on Yahoo! Finance that seemed related. “The Baby May Be Giving You Mommy’s Thumb” screamed the headline.

The condition is called De Quervain’s tendonitis and is an inflammation of the tendons below the thumb down to the wrist, and may result from carrying heavy babies from lower cribs and scrolling and texting on smartphones. It may be treated by painkillers, splints, steroid injections, and surgery.

With the text was a diagram that showed pain beginning at the base of the thumb area and radiating upward. My pain was the radiating kind but it wasn’t emanating from the base but from the thumb joint, which was red, swollen, and painful to touch.

I poked it. Oww. Bad idea.

At the hospital, two residents attended to me, a female and a male. The lady doctor looked over my chart.

“Is the pain severe?” she murmured.

“Yes. Assuming childbirth to be number ten, my hand pain is the number eight orange frowny-face on the pain chart,” I said. I described the situation.

“Radiating? I see. Has the pain reached the ancilla?”

“If by ‘ancilla’ you mean ‘armpit’, then yes, it has.”

They sent me out for x-rays and when I came back, the male doctor looked them over and spoke. ”Have you seen how I write?”

What the hell does that have to do with my hand, I thought, but of course I realized he had a point – somewhere – and was about to make it. I put on a puzzled face.  ”No…”

He took up a pen, gripped it in four fingers, his thumb hanging free. “I have the same condition you have. It’s called focal dystonia – ‘writer’s cramp’.”

Focal dystonia is a neurological condition that may be accompanied by radiating pain or uncontrolled curling or twisting of the fingers, and usually afflicts people who rely on fine motor skills, like guitarists and surgeons. And writers.

“Oh, cool!” I was elated. “I’m a writer! It figures! Hey, wait. So you mean I don’t have De Quervain’s tendonitis or ‘mommy’s thumb’?”

He glared. “No, you have focal dystonia, ‘writer’s cramp’!” I nodded with understanding. Of course. He had it himself, so naturally he wouldn’t want to call it some sissy girly name.

“Is it a joint thing, or a repetitive motion injury thing?” I asked.

“It’s a stress-related nerve thing, and you might need therapy, and you definitely need rest,” he said. He scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper, pushed it to me. “Here’s my hand specialist’s number. Call her.”

I wanted to ask if the specialist was so specialized as to specialize on only the left or the right hand, but remembering the story I read on the Internet, I asked instead, “Can I have a splint? Or steroids? Hunh, can I, can I?”

He frowned. “You can have a pill. Here’s a prescription.” More scribbling.

“But it hurts bad,” I whined.

“Oh, all right. I’ll prescribe an injectable so you can sleep tonight.” He waved me over to a nurse, who inserted a plastic shunt into a vein on my left hand, then a syringe into the shunt.

“This is (unpronounceable name of medication),” the nurse said. “It’s going to sting going in. Oh, and there’s an aftertaste of buko juice.”

“What kind of painkiller gives more pain?…oh, never mind. Lemme have it,” I said, wincing as he slooowly pressed the plunger and the taste of coconut filled my mouth.

The shunt was kind of cute, because it was pink. I wanted to keep it as a caffeine delivery system to shoot espresso or Cobra energy drink straight into my bloodstream and! to! the brain! but Alex stared at me with narrowed eyes and of course no one wants their eldest daughters fixing them with disapproving looks so I let the nurse remove the shunt. He wouldn’t have let me leave the hospital with it anyway.

For being a mostly good girl while in the emergency room, I was given my favorite treat by Alex. She took me to ingest caffeine the old-fashioned way at Starbucks where she had a Mocha Peppermint frap and we shared a banana loaf slice and a tuna croissant.

Lifting my plastic cup of Zen iced tea, I tried to balance it on my palm while holding with four fingers and trying to find a way to rest my thumb, until Alex pointed out that I could maybe hold the cup in my left hand. Brilliant child. Whatever would I do without her?

By the time we went home, the pain was gone, and I slept well again, my slumber serene, knowing that I had ‘writer’s cramp’ as befits a writer.

But ‘mommy’s thumb’ would not have been amiss, as I am a mommy too – a grateful one, to be blessed with an Alex like mine, and an Erika waiting at home with a warm hug.

The lesson here was that even a minor ache may turn out to be a condition for which one needs medical treatment. I had ignored the hand pain for months, belonging as I do to the Ernest Hemingway tough school of writing, where you bind up your bullet wounds with a dirty handkerchief clenched between your teeth and keep on typing.

But my neglect meant that my condition had deteriorated to the point where I needed to get x-rays and see a specialist. I am thankful that the emergency room resident who saw me last week made a spot-on diagnosis and treated me with sympathy and smiles.

It was a stern reminder, though, that anyone can benefit from – take care of yourself, so you can better take care of others. ***

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My birthday was last week. My offspring asked me what I wanted to do most of all in the world on my special day. I said, “Read a book at Starbucks.”

They said: “No, really, Mama. What would you like to do that’s FUN!!! and ENJOYABLE!!!”

I replied: “Really, for me drinking coffee and reading for a couple of hours is my idea of FUN!!! and EXCITEMENT!!! and adventurous blazing ACTION!!!”

So we went to Starbucks Powerplant Mall. It being my birthday, and me being the lazy person that I am (and I really work hard at it, lemme tell ya), they got in line for coffee-and while I sank my behind into a soft and comfortable couch.

We sat around for a while sipping our Peppermint Mocha hot coffees and fraps until the kids got so bored that they upped and went to the video game arcade, promising to come back for me in, “Like, an hour or two, or when Offspring Major finally beats Offspring Minor at Tekken 6.”

Ensconced in warmth and fuzzy softness and pepperminty coffee flavor, I finished Dr Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo’s book of travel essays Looking for the Philippines. And what a lovely book it is, and what a charming and enchanting country we have, seen through Ma’am Jing’s eyes.

When the kids showed up to collect me, we had dinner at Zaifu (sushi and stuff) and dessert at Sugarhouse. Now that was another part I liked.

Behold! French apple pie, blueberry cheesecake, dulce de leche mini cake, and almond sans rival – an exciting adventure in pies and cakes that led to much chewing and swallowing action.

A good book, coffee, cake, and children –  simple things. Do we need really anything more?

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Last June my California-based mother sent my sister packets of these, which she passed to me, not being a coffee drinker herself. I liked it a lot. It blew me away that I could have the taste of brewed in this convenient form.

Earlier this month, Via was launched in the Philippines.  Starbucks Via Ready-Brew is, their website says, “not instant coffee as you know it. This is rich, flavorful Starbucks coffee in an instant.”

Okay, their copy could use some work, but what about the coffee?

First, the packaging. Via’s colors are red-orange, mustard, and dark brown, used extensively in the boxes of twelve and the three-packs. Why there are no six-packs, I have no idea.

If you’re a fan of design, as I am, these are sleek, classy, and conform to the Starbucks standard of style.

This Via double-walled tumbler has an inner metal container for the drink, encased in a plastic sleeve divided into compartments that hold up to six packets of Via. For the forgetful, this is a great way to ensure you’ll always have your Via wherever you go. Just remember to fill the compartments when empty.

The bottom of the Via tumbler unscrews for access to the stored packets.

I can’t resist merch! I already have the regular green Starbucks cup strap. The Via strap has more charms. I use these to keep my USB drives handy.

Try their three flavors – Colombia (medium), Italian Roast (extra bold), and decaf. What’s great is that Starbucks Philippines gives free single packets of Via with purchase.

This Via bearista makes my drinks and keeps them safe. Really.

Oh, the coffee? Brewed is in a league of its own, but Via tastes much better than the regular kind of instant coffee, coming much closer to the real thing. For that reason, it’s a fantastic innovation in caffeinated convenience.

Photos taken in available light with a 2-mp Nokia c3, except for the bear photo, taken with a Nikon Coolpix L21.

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When I was growing up we had so many books that we could have built a house with them, the way environmentalists today build structures from plastic soda bottles or beer cans. I can’t imagine living without books. It wasn’t until I was in elementary school that I found out not everyone loved to read as much as our family did.

So every time I’d visit other people’s homes I’d see if they had books and how they stored them. When I was in college there was this guy, a friend of friends, who invited a bunch of us to their big old house in Manila. His name was Ditto Amador, the brother of the actress Pinky. He had science fiction and fantasy books piled up on the floor of his bedroom knee-high while a sheaf of papers was impaled to the wall with a sword, I swear I am not making this up. We all thought it was extremely cool and we wanted one.

Over the years, hundreds of my books were lost or damaged or stolen or given away. I wish I still had them, so I can revisit the familiar cadences of sentences that drew me to different worlds. Now, through the marvels of new technology, I can rebuild the library of my childhood, and carry with me the books I love as an adult, and later on bequeath them to my children, the stories and wisdom and knowledge of the world all in a gadget I can hold in my hand.

I recently acquired a pre-loved Kindle 2. This gadget is a brainchild of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. The first-gen model – Kindle 1 – was released in 2007 and followed in 2009 by the second-gen version, while the third-gen device – Kindle 3 – ships on August 27 and pre-orders are sold out.

The Kindle uses e-ink (electronic ink) technology reminiscent of an Etch-a-Sketch and is not backlit, eliminating eyestrain caused by glare which is the problem when reading on computer monitors, phones, and the iPad. You can read in bright sunlight, but you’ll need a booklight in the dark.

Kindle 2 uses only one font but offers eight font sizes and both landscape and portrait orientation options.

How does it all work? Digital files of books in the proprietary .azw format are sold at the website and may be downloaded to your Kindle through wireless technology called Whispernet (the Kindle comes in 3G and WiFi flavors). A file may be received practically anywhere in the world there is telecom access in under 60 seconds – yes, in the Philippines too. It’s like it was sent as a mobile phone message to you – it’s that fast, and it’s free.

The Kindle 2 also reads other formats such as .mobi (Amazon bought out Mobipocket some time ago), .txt, and supports .pdf and mp3 and Audible audio book files.

The device is light and thin and may be held comfortably in one hand for a long period of time, say, reading in bed at night or while waiting for your police clearance at the NBI. The Kindle 2 has a 6-inch display in 16-point grayscale, giving an acceptable level of detail for viewing some types of graphics. For text, it is superb.

Control buttons are at the edges and bottom of the device. “Previous page” and “Next Page” on the left, “Home”, “Next Page” “Menu”, “Back”, and the five-point joystick on the right. On the bottom is a QWERTY keyboard for searching for books at the Kindle website through wireless; for looking up word definitions in the built-in dictionary; adding annotations (the e-equivalent of scribbling notes in the margins); and more.

The Kindle 2 only came in white, which looks clean, though newer versions also come in graphite that offers better contrast.  No, they don’t have it in pink yet, though I have hopes.

The power switch is located at the top of the gadget, with a headphone jack for listening to audio books.

Beneath the Kindle is a USB port for downloading books from a PC and for recharging. Once fully charged, the battery lasts about a week to ten days with normal use and wireless switched off.

It is a delight to read on the Kindle, and to be able to hold 1,500 books with one hand and carry them with you wherever you go. I can give away most of my ink-and-paper books now, saving only those that have sentimental value.

But I still want a sword.

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