Hacked Gadgets has posted a link to the "Internet Enabled Coffee Machine" - essentially, if you’ve got a hankering for coffee, you can tell your coffee machine to make it. Just access it from your computer. This could also mean that, if preloaded with coffee, you could message from your mobile phone on your way home to start the brew - and have it ready when you walk in the door.

Tags: internet enabled coffee machine, coffee, coffee gadgets

The Urban Tea Merchant is celebrating 3 years in Vancouver. Here are the details of an event they are holding to celebrate:

Please join us on Sunday October 14th for free birthday cake and birthday tea.

We are very pleased to have Angela Cooper perform Fon Saaw Mai Akkaporn - a traditional Thai dance at both 1:00pm and 3:00pm. This would be a perfect time to reserve your Afternoon Tea or Tea Ritual.

Please call (604) 926-3392 for reservations.

Tags: urban tea merchant, tea, vancouver

In Spain, we stayed in a beach-town called Sitges. It has a very popular shopping strip in the centre of town, and there you can find Firenze Gourmet Coffee. It is one of the more posh store fronts, with automatic doors and comfortable leather seats.

It looks like it could be a chain from it’s organization, but I can’t find any evidence that it is anything more than a well done local shop.

Here, you can order your coffee at the bar or sit and be served. I again ordered the Cafe con Leche. They serve up your coffee with a side of milk chocolate, which is a nice touch.

The coffee was better than my experience at the train station. More foamy, but still with that subtle coffee and silky milk texture that I enjoyed about Spanish coffee. Firenze seemed to perk up at night again when people flocked there for dessert. Worth a shot to anyone in Sitges.

Tags: sitges, spain, spanish coffee, coffee spain, coffee sitges, firenze, firenze gourmet coffee, firenze coffee

Dunkin’ Donuts is quite entrenched in Spain - more so than Starbucks, for example. It is, however, called something different. It is known as "Dunkin’ Coffee":

All of the chain stores we saw were busy, all through Barcelona and even one in Sitges. The prices were very good for a coffee & donut (under 2 euros), and there seemed to be a mix of both locals and tourists buying the fare.

I have to say I was surprised to see this chain there. Both the coffee and the fare seemed out of place. And yet, it seems to do quite well.

Tags: dunkin coffee, dunkin donuts, spain, coffee in spain, chain stores

My first experience of coffee in Spain was at the Barcelona Sants train station. We were stuck there waiting for a connecting train, so I went to the cafe.

All across Spain, you basically have the same three coffee choices. Café (espresso), Café con Leche (espresso, half and half with milk) either with hot milk or cold milk, and Café Cortado (espresso with only a bit of milk).

I went with the Café con Leche, which is made with whole milk. The whole milk adds a lovely silky richness to the coffee. I actually enjoyed Spanish coffee - it was not as hard of a roast as in Italy or France, and I enjoyed the creamier texture of the whole milk.

Now, I didn’t exactly start off with the ‘best’ place to have coffee in Spain, but I enjoyed it nonetheless!

Tags: coffee, spain, coffee in spain, spanish coffee, barcelona, barcelona coffee, cafe con leche