When I moved to a new neighborhood last year, my closest coffee shop turned out to be the Manhattan location of a two-store chainlet called Café Grumpy. To my untrained eye, Café Grumpy seemed a typical coffee shop, but I soon discovered it was famous in the coffee world for two reasons: 1. The shop owned two of only 250 Clover coffee makers then in existence. And 2. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz had seen a long line at my Café Grumpy, walked in to the shop, and later declared the coffee made by the Clover to be "the best cup of brewed coffee I have ever tasted." The Clover is a gorgeous stainless-steel device about the size of a microwave that makes just one cup of coffee at a time. It requires a special electrical outlet and more training than a nuclear sub to operate, but it produces coffee that tastes rich and true to the bean without acquiring the over-roasted flavor of most Starbucks coffee or the under-brewed flavor of what comes from most home drip machines. The downside: Clovers cost $11,000 or at least they used to. Starbucks ended up buying the company that developed the Clover which can no longer sell the machines to anyone else and is rolling out single-cup Clover brews in an attempt to revive the mega-chain's slowing business. You can buy Clover coffee at Starbucks locations in Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. Or at the Café Grumpy in my neighborhood.
The Top 10 Everything of 2008
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Awkward Moments
- Top 10 Best Business Deals
- Top 10 Worst Business Deals
- Top 10 Breakups
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Campaign Gaffes
- Top 10 Campaign Video Moments
- Top 10 Children's Books
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Editorial Cartoons
- Top 10 Election Photos
- Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas
- Top 10 Fashion Moments
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Financial Collapses
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Food Trends
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Stories
- Top 10 iPhone Apps
- Top 10 Late Night Gags
- Top 10 Magazine Covers
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Movies
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Museum Exhibits
- Top 10 News Stories
- Top 10 Non-fiction Books
- Top 10 Oddball News Stories
- Top 10 Olympic Moments
- Top 10 Open Mike Moments
- Top 10 Outrageous Earmarks
- Top 10 Photos
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Political Lines
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 T-shirt Worthy Slogans
- Top 10 TV Ads
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Underreported News Stories
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Viral Videos
A yearbook of all the top events you've been talking about