The stars come back to fight out the UKBC - Boughton's Coffee House

Can we save foil bags from landfill?This is the 'coffee bag', one of the most imaginative ideas the trade has seenfor the re-use of the familiar one-kilo packs which are used throughout thecafé sector. The inventors are suggesting that the entire coffee trade couldusefully take the idea up.Those packs are nearly always sentfor landfill, because they cannot berecycled in a conventional way – butwork between a social enterprise companyin Aberdeen and the local CaberCoffee company has created a newkind of heavy-duty and waterproof carrierbag.The process turns out to be extremelyclever, while not too complex.To form the new bag, the used coffeepacks are not cut, except for the topsbeing snipped off - they are folded, andstitched together."Ten one-kilo coffee bags make onecarrier bag - three each side, and thenthe ends and base,” explains FindlayLeask of Caber. “We can even use torncoffee bags, and the result is that younow have a carrier bag with one-wayvalves! There is no lining, so the waterproofingapplies to the inside as muchas the outside."The most difficult part was the handle,but the social enterprise companyhad a supply of webbing, which tookcare of that."The idea came up after a localschool had experimented with foils inits workshop. One of their firstexperiements was an apron made fromcoffee bags, which turned out to beabsolutely waterproof and splashproof.The social enterprise company,Glencraft, employs several dozenworkers with disabilities, visual impairmentor learning difficulties, andreceives the used packs free fromCaber, which then pays £5 each for theresulting new bags.These are not being re-sold, but arehanded out around the trade toencourage wider use of the idea."This is a very interesting way of reusingsomething which must otherwisego to landfill," says Findlay Leask. "It isa great way for the industry to giveitself green credentials, so we're notinsisting that this is unique to us - it's asubject which the entire industry couldtake up.”Kaldi is obliged to a news stationin Boston, USA, for their house doc -tor's recent presentation on "WhyDoes Coffee Make Me Poop?" Thedoctor contends that caffeine stimulatesmovement of the colonic muscles,thus promoting peristalsis, thecontraction and relaxation of intes -tinal muscles that causes bowelmovements. However, he adds,dairy products, excess sugar, evensweeteners, have a similar butrather less desirable effect which wewill not go into here. There appearsto be a good reason for drinking coffeeblack.Starbucks has explained the logicbehind its curious Christmas promotion,the 'limited edition, exclusivegift card made entirely out of stainlesssteel'. The 'limited edition' wasactually of five thousand, andStarbucks put them on sale inAmerica in December at $450 -although the cards were loaded withonly $400 in credit. The brand toldthe American press that it cost themfifty dollars to make each card - andthen added the remarkable view thatit expected one in every 10Americans to receive a StarbucksCard of some kind at Christmas.A British managing director askedKaldi this month - why, in one chaincoffee shop, do baristas wear t-shirts with 'trainee' on the back, andyet I still get charged full price? Whydon't I get a 'trainee' price? (Like ina hairdresser?)The US Patent and TrademarkOffice has refused to let the Dunkin'Donuts chain trademark the slogan'Best Coffee in America'. Meanwhilethe chain has speculated that itmight try again to make a mark inBritain - it did not succeed the firsttime, but the logic is said to be thatits new range of breakfast sandwiches,'slightly milder' coffee anddoughnuts will now appeal toBritons.A consumer who complained to anAmerican newspaper about a baristafitting a sip-through lid with her barehands has been told that there hasactually been a study on the subjectof the transmission of unwantedmatter across takeaway coffee cups- the University of Virginia demonstratedthat half of the volunteerstouching contaminated coffee-cuphandles caught colds.16