If you’re one of the few who have this cup, keep it safe.  It’s now going to be a collector’s item – Buddy Brew just changed their logo.

It’s funny that my favorite coffee and my favorite beers all have dogs on the label.  I think if I ever start a publishing company, just for luck, I’ll use the image of a dog as a logo.  I’ll name it after my old Golden Retriever, Sunny.  “Sunny Golden Girl,” was her registered name.

I miss that dog.  Anyway…

“Shorty” isn’t the name of a dog, it’s the name of a friend.  Not my friend, but the friend of the owners of Buddy Brew.  They have a kind of funny story on their website about how he’d come over and tasted some coffee, and told them it was the best coffee he’s ever tasted, and the Buddy Brew folks realized they’d accidentally mixed two different bags of beans together – and then spent hours getting totally wired figuring out exactly what they’d mixed so they could recreate it.

And recreate it they did, and named it after their friend Shorty who helped discover it.

Shorty’s Blend (which I had at a full city roast) features the strong, natural taste of chocolate and toasted cashew, lightened with some nice vanilla notes, and finishing with a mild, pleasant woodsmoke aftertaste.  It’s a medium body coffee with low acidity.

I’d call it a good “all day” coffee, and also think it would work as a desert coffee.

Talk about happy accidents.  This “Shorty’s Blend” is most definitely a groovy brew.

You can find it and other wonderful coffees at BuddyBrew.com, and no, this is not a sponsored advertisement.  I am a paying customer.  I just happened to really like their coffee.

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As long time readers know, my preferred coffee brewing method is via either French press or cup-top cone drip.  That being said, if I were to have an actual coffee machine it would be a precision-brewing thermos carafe type.

Guess what I got for Father’s Day?

I do have to say that there’s a huge advantage to this machine in that, in reality, it’s a bit of a robot.  In the strictest sense of the term, this thing is pretty much robotic.  It’s my robotic coffee maker.

It wakes up before I do.  It heats the water for me.  It pours it into the coffee grounds.  It stores the coffee in a vacuum-sealed stainless thermos.  Then it emits a pleasant tone to indicate that there is hot, fresh coffee waiting for me before my bare feet even touch the carpet.

Kind of hard to argue with the advantages of that, methinks, even if I am a French press coffee snob.

Being that I think of it as a robot, I’m seriously considering giving it a name.  Which name?  I don’t know yet.  It’s not exactly a Robbie nor is it a Maximillian.

One thing that I found amusing is that on the box, and on a sticker still glued to the front of the unit, is this sales pitch:

FASTER.

HOTTER.

BETTER.

I don’t know, but that sounds vaguely like a marketing scheme for a new porn site.  Maybe I should name it Ron Jeremy?  I don’t know, though, because that doesn’t sound very robotic.  Maybe I should just name it “Microsoft Bob.”  Then again, maybe not.

I do really like this coffee maker, and for several reasons.  First and foremost is because it is, in fact, a thermal carafe that doesn’t sit on a burner and cook the coffee until the flavor is destroyed.  The second thing I really like is that it has a non-standard, precision heating element that zaps the water to the perfect brewing temperature, and keeps all the heat and steam sealed in the coffee maker so that none of the coffee flavor goes wafting off on the breeze.  The system features moisture seals from the beginning to the end of the brewing cycle, including where the machine docks with the the top of the carafe.

Last but not least, it has elegant, sophisticated electronics controlling the whole thing.  The brains of the robot, as it were.  That pleases the geek side of me.

I like it.  I won’t use it all the time, but on work mornings when I want to be greeted by coffee as I wake up, this fills the ticket quite nicely.  I hereby declare this a groovy brewer, and if you’re interested in more, there’s a link below that will take you to Amazon.

Mr. Coffee BVMC-PSTX91 Optimal Brew 10-Cup Thermal Coffeemaker

(Full disclosure:  If you actually buy it using the link above, I get some pennies from the sale.  If 70,000 people actually buy it from my link, I’ll make enough money to go out to dinner!  Maybe even at a restaurant other than McDonalds!  W00T!)

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A study published in the May 2010 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease purports that caffeine may protect against cognitive decline that occurs as a result of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  The report goes on to specify that caffeine can help:

• Normalize brain function and prevent degeneration
• Reduce effects of Alzheimer’s
• Improve memory and overall cognitive performance
• Protect against Parkinson’s disease

(Bullet points were stolen from this excellent article in Nature City.)

Caffeine appears to reduce amyloid-beta production, and that in turn helps inhibit growth of plaques in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s.  The other effect — and this falls into the realm of research that shows happiness is, in itself, incredibly good for you — is that caffeine can act as a powerful mood lifter, relieving the depressive symptoms which are thought as the most prevalent complication of cognitive decline.

So, coffee (or at least the caffeine in it) is a mood lifter?  I guess so.  I know I’m significantly less happy in the morning if I don’t get it.

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