Lincolnshire badly hit, though not as bad as neighbouring counties to the West and North.
Ferry Lane in Washingborough, one field flooded.
Ferry Lane in Washingborough, Sincil Drain usually a steep drop to the water, today to the top of the banks and not far below the footbridge
River Witham, Ferry Lane, boats tiding very high in the water, the tiver broad and close to topping the banks.
In the centre of Lincoln, the River Witham running fast and very high, within centimetres of topping the banks and flooding the city centre. There were no measures in place to prevent this from happening.
Guildford car free day, organised by bankrupt Guildford Borough Council, currently reeling from corruption allegations, on the one day it is nigh impossible to travel around Surrey via public transport.
Last month, Guildford Borough Council, posted a promo video that looked like a parody, in which it was promoted to visit Guildford for the Bank Holiday weekend, burger and chips, plastic takeaway cups.
Zero, aka Zero integrity, takes money from Nestlé. No reputable environmental entity would touch Nestlé with a bargepole, let alone take their money. Nespresso pods are a composite structure, difficult to recycle, hence the greenwash pod collection scam. Nespresso vile undrinkable coffee. Buy coffee from reputable roasteries, the pods will be aluminium or compostable.
A Zero project, plastic netting in a Primary school for ivy to climb.
Experience Guildford, a local BID that is killing struggling local businesses with the BID Levy, CEO Amanda Masters seen tossing her stick in the back of a brand new gas guzzling supercar and speeding up the street. Luckily no one run down. The success of Experience Guildford can be seen from the number of empty retail units, which in case you have not noticed, Experience Guildford Toy Town Rangers helpfully flypost to draw to your attention. If the trend continues, how long before we see tumbleweed blowing through the High Street?
Experience Guildford subsidises free car parking in the town centre car parks in the run up to Christmas, the one time of the year when the car parks are full to overflowing.
Experience Guildford is falling over backwards to promote the ghastly North Street development, multiple blocks 13-stories high, that would destroy the ancient market town of Guildford in the Wey Valley. It would also be in its own right, a major traffic generator, the building of a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The developer sponsored the worthless Customer Service Awards handed out by Experience Guildford. Two award recipients are board members. They and CEO Amanda Masters appeared in a promotional video promoting the development on behalf of the developer. The newsletter Experience Guildford ships out to local businesses is being used to promote the unwanted development, a misuse of the BID Levy.
Why was the developer wishing to trash Guildford given a stall? Guildford Borough Council has allocated £250,000 to fight the development at a Planning Inquiry, and yet, allow the developer a stall in the High Street at an event organised by the Council. A lack of joined up thinking.
Proposed North Street development: A series of interlocking courtyards, with fountains, gardens, the buildings no more than three or four stories high, staggered with patio gardens to allow sunlight into the courtyards, roof top gardens which would keep the buildings warm in the winter, cool in the summer and reduce run off during heavy showers. Moot point ground level retail as would shift the centre of retail gravity away from the High Street, at a time when a large number of empty retail units are unlikely to be let. The development integrated with a new bus station.
ReSpace in action, a large empty retail unit, recycled on behalf of the local community, run by volunteers, lots of little areas suitable for informal meetings, a small stage to host talks, a little eatery (but by no means a coffee shop), a zero waste area (but so far no stock), a seed bank, books, visual displays.
Very much work in progress, my thoughts should therefore bear that in mind.
Please no, the sweets, the only stock in the zero waste zone, focus on quality, loose nuts, cereals, grains, muesli, rice etc. In addition, washing up liquid, shampoo. Never loose coffee beans. They oxidise.
Olive oil and rapeseed oil is a possibility, but I have reservations. It very quickly goes rancid. I would rather see high qulity cold pressed, extra virgin, rapeseed oil and olive oil in bottles.
I buy green olive oil in Athens, it is the very first pressing, and it will have a provenance of where it came from.
A visit to Hisbe in Brighton to check out what they do, is a must.
Serious thought needs to be given to an in-house coffee shop. But not easy. Needs a crowd funder to buy or lease a decent espresso machine (cheap machines a waste of money). Then need a skilled barista or baristas. Would there be baristas in Guildford willing to put in a few volunteer hours? They in turn could show others how to, a valuable life skill. Next it would need planning consent for A3 use. Currently a bean -to-cup machine, a stop gap but by no means ideal.
ReSpace: We recycle materials, why do we not recycle people and buildings? A planning designation, owner pays no businesses rates, peppercorn rent, building brought back into productive use. For the owner, if the building in use, it does not deteriorate.
Those empty laundry detergent containers, empty shampoo containers, do not throw away, take to a zero waste shop and have them refilled.
That is what I did last week, laundry liquid from ecoleaf, the shampoo coconut from Faith in Nature (which matched the previous contents).
But please never put wrong liquid in mismatched container, it is not only the labelling, we have iconic shapes, ketchup bottles, coke bottles.
Classic, weed killer in a Coke bottle on the shelf in the garden shed.
A zero waste shop recently received a lot of stick when a foolish employee bragged she had found a use for an empty ketchup bottle, filling with cleaner.
If have an Nespresso machine do not not buy the disgusting coffee from Nespresso, and if thinking of buying choose an Opal One a superior machine, the capsules buy from reputable coffee roasteries.
Kiss the Hippo — compostable
Colonna — compostable and aluminium
April — compostable
Compostable, throw on the compost heap.
Aluminium, obtain a gadget from Colonna, Lakeland or Hotel Chocolat and use to extract the spent coffee grounds, scatter the extracted coffee on compost heap or garden, the emptied aluminium capsules, stack to increase their bulk, drop in a recycling bin.
If order from Riverford, veg box or recipe box, delivered in a card box which can be reused, recycled or composted, inside tins, maybe little plastic boxes, fruit and vegetables loose, strong paper bags or compostable plastic bags. The boxes are collected next delivery.
When we recycle, reuse, compost, we are not only reducing waste and closing the loop, we are also saving on embedded energy used to produce the products, thus helping to cut carbon emissions.
We face several global crisis
global warming
mass species extinction
pandemics
plastic pollution
When out and about, wishing for a coffee, never takeaway or offer a reusable cup, relax and enjoy coffee served in glass or ceramic. The only exception a kiosk or cart.
Riverford Organic Farms are best known for their veg boxes, but they also supply individual orders of fruit and vegetables and recipe boxes.
Organic is not sufficient, we have to look after the soil, regenerative agriculture, rewilding, how do we ship, where do we ship from, what is our carbon footprint, are we carbon negative?
We must look at lifecycle costs. Too many businesses, hype, greenwash, one part of their business, to draw our attention from other aspects.
An example would be Nestle and the podback scam, to draw attention away from other aspects of their business. Do not be fooled, buy coffee capsules from reputable coffee roasteries.
Kiss the Hippo – compostable
Colonna – aluminium and compostable
Riverford ship in cleverly designed boxes which can be reused, when reach end of their life can be shredded and composted.
Within the box, loose fruit and vegetables, packed in paper bags or compostable plastic bags or in small boxes of compressed card.
The large box collected on next delivery, the compressed trays used for kitchen waste to transfer to the compost heap, used as seed trays, when reach end of life pop on the compost heap.
The carbon offset scam tends to be just that a ploy not to reduce carbon emissions. Planting a tree that takes at least 20 years to reach maturity does not offset an easyJet flight of four hours.
We are not only facing a Climate Crisis, we are facing an ecological crisis, mass species extinction.
Riverford will be increasing biodiversity on their network of farms.
Marketing hype to make Big Business look good and Middle Class feel good?
The trick to finding great coffee is looking for transparency. Not a see-through bag, but a bag tells you where the coffee is from – the country, the farm, and sometimes even info about how it was produced. Coffee labelled like this is usually specialty. — Kiss the Hippo
A lost opportunity by Adventures in Coffee, trivializes an important topic leaving subscribers to the podcast none the wiser.
FarirTrade scam, pay growers a tiny premium above commodity price, coffee is coffee is coffee. Worse still, maintains farmers in poverty, no incentive for farmers to improve quality.
Percol is Big Business, low quality commodity coffee, find on the shelves of supermarkets. But hey, we greenwash with a FairTrade sticker.
The Cost of a Cuppa, a BBC Radio 4 documentary looked at tea plantations in Assam, the appalling working and living conditions on the tea plantations, the child slave labour, whether the tea was supplied to some of the most expensive tea suppliers on the market or commodity tea it made no difference, the various designations meaningless, not worth the paper they are written on.
Tea workers in Assam earn 115 rupees a day, just over £1 ($1.50), well below the minimum wage (177 rupees in Assam). This is legal, as part of their wage is paid for with housing, clean water, sanitation, food. There has been a small increase in wages since the programme was recorded.
The housing is not fit for human habitation, no safe drinking water, no toilets, cesspits overflowing, roofs leaking. Plantation owners in India are obliged by law to provide and maintain ‘adequate’ houses, and sanitary toilets for workers.The women pick the tea leaves, hard work, but not hazardous. In the fields the workmen are spraying hazardous pesticides, no protective gear, wearing only t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. The chemical used deltamethrin, harmful possibly fatal if absorbed through the skin or inhaled. The local hospital sees 5–6 patients a week suffering from pesticide poisoning.
The Source, a year long investigation by The Weather Channel and Telemundo gathered evidence that child labour is commonplace during the coffee harvest in Chiapas, the poorest state in Mexico.
Armies of kids walking down a road, 60–70 lb sacks of coffee strapped to their backs. Kids as young as six, if not younger, picking the coffee cherries.
The coffee is mainly exported to the US, commodity coffee to large corporations, companies like Nestlé and tax-dodging Starbucks.
Nestlé when challenged denied all knowledge, they outsource the certification to a company called 4C, now Global Coffee Platform.
No mention of the square-root rule. Take the square root of the number of farms to be checked, then check once every three years.
The square-root rule is used. This is fine for uniform widgets, test a small random sample. It does not work when certifying working conditions on remote inaccessible farms.
The square-root rule, inspection of only a fraction of the number of farms, less than half of the square-root, then only every three years.
What this means is that for 5,144 farms the reality of any farm being inspected is vanishingly small, a little over 0.5%.
The larger the number of farms to be inspected in an area, then if we apply the square-root rule, the number inspected as a percentage approaches zero.
Incorrect to state organic not productive. Look to the work of Vandana Shiva in India.
We should be supporting grass-grazed agriculture, agroforestry, coffee trees grown in the shade of trees, slowly ripening of the coffee cherries. High altitude coffee grown in the shade of trees, protects the forests, yields higher quality coffee cherries, the growers receive a higher price.
Union Hand Roasted Coffee and Kew Gardens have worked together to help local communities protect Yayu Forest. The forest has designated status, but counts for little if the local communities are mired in poverty. Union offered to buy wild coffee picked from the forest. The forest is an important for biodiversity, and for genetics of coffee.
Ninety Plus Coffee have restored a degraded cattle ranch in Panama, on the estate they grow Panama Geisha.
Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique is working with local communities, supporting agriculture, health and education. The growing of high quality arabica is bringing money into local hands, supports local projects.
My advice to Katie, ignore the certification scams, not worth the paper they are written on, trust the roastery, look for direct trade, long term relationships with famers, what is happening on the ground, and please do not buy poor quality, stale coffee, from supermarkets or from retailers with no knowledge of coffee.
Read Coffeeography, where Stephen Leighton takes us on a journey, the relationships with the coffee farms.
Take a look at Kiss the Hippo, note the degree of transparency.
I recently had a conversation that was the exact opposite, asked of an amateurish operation that was roasting from home, Q grade of their coffee. Did not know. How can they claim speciality coffee? Was then given more information that did not match their website. Followed by a childish response, it was for them to decide what is their businesses and what information they supply. It goes without saying, I would not be buying coffee from Jackalopie Joe or recommending to others.
What applies to coffee equally applies to chocolate. Support bean-to-bar chocolate makers, who engage with the growers, form long-term relationships, pay a higher price for quality.
Adventures in Coffee a collaboration between Caffeine Magazine, Jools Walker and Filter Stories. Presented by Jools Walker and Scott Bentley.
Gordon Brown had a wheeze of off balance sheet accounting, the PFI scam. It made public spending look low, a prudent Chancellor. Infrastructure, hospitals, schools, incinerators, built by the private sector, leased by the public sector, for which the tax payer is paying ten times the original cost.
Incinerators have to be fed. Local authorities sign contract for minimum waste. If fall below, they pay penalties. There is thus a disincentive to reduce waste.
Government needs to step in and annul these contracts.
Incinerators emit CO2. They should be forced to buy carbon credits for their emissions, and be hit with a carbon tax.
Incinerators emit carcinogens and other toxins.
Mass is not created or destroyed by incinerators. What is left residual waste, plus what goes up the chimney.
The residual waste is heavily contaminated with heavy metals.
A scandal several years ago, residual waste spread on an allotment in the North East, the Byker ash scandal in Newcastle – in which the city council was prosecuted after 2,000 tonnes of ash from the old Byker incinerator was found to contain potentially cancer-causing dioxins.
Incineration is not green energy, it is dirty energy. It is also destroying valuable resources which should be recycled, or placed in an industrial biodegrader.
All these measures in place, many incinerators would no longer be viable, and those in the planning stage shelved.
The figures published by local councils for recycling, are for that collected, it does not mean that collected is recycled. it is going to incineration.
Local councils need to do more to encourage recycling, some do, most do not.
We all should do our part, reduce, recycle, reuse.
We should also tackle the worst offenders, Waitrose and M&S obscene levels of plastic packaging. Is it really necessary bananas in a plastic bag, a coconut shell hacked off, then wrapped in plastic shrink wrap?
Mindful Chef, owned by Nestle, deliver recipe boxes, overpackaging, obscene use of plastic. Their frozen food boxes, a card sleeve, plastic film over what appears to be a paper tray, a plastic-lined paper tray.
Waste does not exist in the natural world either in time or space, the output of one process is the input to another, a closed loop system. We should emulate the natural world.
In Lincolnshire, the official green agenda carbon neutral by 2050, two decades too late, opposition to on-shore wind turbines, support for oil and gas exploration.
Are reusable coffee cups doing more harm than good?
Indie coffee shops are as always showing the way, ahead of the game, compostable coffee cups, reusable cups, but are we doing more harm than good?
We are in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, takeaway coffee cups, contactless payments, necessary evils to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Best practice is that shown by Coffee Aroma. Only one person allowed into the coffee shop at a time, contactless payment only, takeaway cups a necessary evil, no reusable cups. No reusable cups accepted, anyone who tries will not be served and if persist will be asked to leave.
At the other end of the spectrum, Brian of Brian’s Coffee Spot going around coffee shops insisting they take his coffee cups, in one coffee shop he handed over two different coffee cups, then bragging on social media his cups accepted and encouraging others to do the same. Highly irresponsible behaviour.
A minority of coffee shops have reusable coffee cups on sale. Why reusable cups on sale? If on sale customers will expect to be able to bring in reusable cups. When I have queried this, no one should be using reusable cups during coronavirus pandemic, I was told if someone brings a reusable cup, they fill a takeaway cup, up to the customer to then fill their own reusable cup. Somewhat self-defeating.
It cannot be emphasised enough, no one should be taking a reusable coffee cup to a coffee shop, no coffee shop should be accepting. It is to introduce an unnecessary disease vector that puts staff and customers at risk.
Compostable coffee cups are not compostable, at least not on a compost heap, they will biodegrade in an industrial biodegrader, though I have found they will compost on a well made compost heap. What do we we do with them once we have drunk our coffee, unless on our way home to drop on the compost heap, assuming we have a garden let alone a compost heap.
Reusable coffee cups simply address a symptom, not the underlying problem of grab it and go, instant gratification, pointless consumerism.
The only way to enjoy a coffee is to relax in an indie coffee shop with coffee served in glass or ceramic, which sadly not possible in the midst of coronavirus pandemic. And even when coffee shops were open, even before the first lockdown, many coffee shops were only serving in takeaway cups contactless payment to reduce the risk of cross infection.
Coffee shops get lumped together with pubs as hospitality, they should not be, they were not spreading coronavirus.
When we come out of lockdown, it should be slowly slowly, pause at each stage with a willingness to immediately impose hard lockdown, with testing in the community. We should close our city centres to traffic, pedestrianise the streets, the first to open as the weather warms up indie coffee shops and restaurants with socially distanced tables in the street. Win win for everyone, kick starts the local economy, helps local businesses, improves city centre ambience.
I would berate Scott though not for forgetting his reusable cup and using a takeaway cup. I would berate Scott for using either. If the coffee was so good he wished to brag about, why did he drink it from a disposable cup (pandemic excepted but then should not be using a reusable cup)? I would berate Scott for not relaxing in a coffee shop, the excellent coffee served in glass or ceramic. To do anything less, is to not do justice to the coffee and the person who brewed it.
Would we treat a red wine in this way, slosh into a takeaway cup and jog off down the street? I think not, not unless we are a wino. Therefore why do we treat coffee with such contempt?
It is double trouble when companies extract fossil fuels to manufacture more plastics. They contribute to both the #ClimateCrisis and the plastic pollution crisis.
We face several existential crisis, global pandemics, climate change, plastic pollution, mass species extinction. We have to address all, we cannot pick and choose.
UK later this year hosts COP26. Cumbria has given the go ahead for expansion of coal mining, Leeds airport expansion, relaxation of rules on night time flying at Leeds Bradford Airport.
Worrying about drinking a cappuccino is pissing in the wind. We would better direct our efforts at closing down drive-thru takeaway coffee outlets.
Plastic-lined takeaway cups contribute to plastic pollution.
Currently whilst in the midst of a global covid-19 pandemic, a takeaway cup a necessary evil to reduce risk of cross infection. No one should be taking a takeaway coffee cup to a coffee shop, no coffee shop should accept, it is to introduce an unnecessary disease vector which puts staff and customers at risk.
Grass-fed cows, the grass continually eaten acts a carbon sink, improves soil structure, soaks up rain water, soaks up carbon, slows flash floods, good for wildlife. We have woods, hedgerows, ponds and marshes.
Yes, we should be concerned about about our carbon footprint. A cappuccino is the least of our worries.
Drinking a cup of coffee, drive to a drive-thru coffee shop? What of flights?
Fake milks cause huge environmental damage, soy destruction of rainforest (and unless certified organic almost certainly gmo), almonds drain the California water table.
I would not have coffee beans shipped from outside the country, not when add shipping cost. On the other hand, if out of the country, I may pick up a bag of coffee and bring it back home.
But what of my arranging coffee beans to Cyprus? If not, do we deny coffee shops source of speciality coffee beans?
Beggars belief incineration being suggested as alternative to landfill, landfill we are running out of, hence a landfill tax.
No, we close the loops, we reduce waste, we do not use takeaway cups, we do not use reusable cups. In the natural world waste does not exist either in time or space, output of one process feeds into another process.
How many coffee shops place their spent coffee grounds outside in a strong paper bag to be taken away to be used on the garden?
Carbon neutral transport? Electric vehicles powered by renewable sources, or the carbon offset scam? The only way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere is not to emit carbon.
We have to look at whole life cycle cost. At best the plastic cup can be downcycled, the metal cup recycled many times, the energy recovered.
And that was the problems with the discussion, takeaway cups or reusable cups, which is the better? Neither, neither should exist, instead we should address the underlying problem of takeaway culture.
If we care about the coffee we are drinking, let us do it justice, let us show respect for the barista, the roastery, the farm and the growers.
I don’t want my money going to the destruction of the planet, and putting peoples lives and land at risk just so that I can have a creamy coffee in the morning!
A man flogging fake milk tells us to drink fake milk. Now who would have guessed that?
This is what you get @Oatly, a childish, quirky, smirky attitude, not an adult, substantive response from an accountable company. Throw around false stats then strike a pose when you're called out. https://t.co/L1tja0KAwX
Oh look @oatly , if you behave like an over-sensitive big food corporation, members of the public start to notice! So now you're not only alienating influencers and food writers, but people who read their words! Bravo @Cynfab3@JoannaBlythman@fleroy1974https://t.co/AdCSCPtM43
Wow… Read the thread… Both tweets. Could we be anymore arrogant? Oatly, you’re not getting the message. This isn’t ‘starting a conversation about conservation’ that started before you were born. This is about your product, your investment decisions, & your marketing ethics. https://t.co/3V1WA2vMpC
The fact that in the minds of consumers the environmental comparison of these two (or any) food systems has been reduced to looking at CO2 emissions alone, is a triumph for “plant-based” Corporate Advertising and a disaster for the rest of us. pic.twitter.com/yS2rUSjfAq
Comparison of Oatly with milk from cows was biased, but then what to expect when the source is someone flogging fake milk.
We heard of transparency. No mention of acquisition of a share of Oatly by Vulture Capitalists responsible for forest destruction or by a Chinese state owned company to facilitate access to the Chinese market.
Oatly used to be a small company that made a profit. They are now a big company that made a loss of $35 million in 2019.
'When cattle are fed monocropped corn, their methane emissions far outweigh the carbon that is trapped in their manure. But when cattle are part of an intact ecosystem, they're grazing native grasses, they're manuring that field- over time, soil is built'https://t.co/SyJejtM3eD
The comparison was with industrial agriculture, the same industrial agriculture producing oats for Oatly, intensive agriculture.
Cows have an advantage, they are very efficient at converting to something edible what we cannot eat, converted to meat, milk and cheese, cheese produced by an age old natural method of fermentation.
Yes, cows produce methane, and yes methane 20 times more potent than CO2, but CO2 lasts decades in the atmosphere, whereas the methane produced by the cows short lived. We fill a field with cows, assuming we do not increase the stocking level, a small increase in atmospheric methane which will then remain constant, it will not increase, the grassy field will be a carbon sink.
Nutritional equivalence : whole dairy milk 12+% solids ~3.5 protein – Oatly lower solids 10.6% – But mostly carbs 6.6% – Protein is the real casualty at just 1% mostly insoluble – Whereas ~3.5% colloidally dispersed and soluble protein in dairy milk…
— Paul Hart of 'Ultra-Processed People' Ch1 (@Freewheal) February 17, 2021
No mention of nutritional deficiency
The only thing can be said in favour of Oatly, one of the better fake milks, nevertheless a cappuccino poured with Oatley looks and tastes disgusting.
Is that milk with your cappuccino or watered down porridge with enzymes added?
Milk needs fat for structure and flavour, essential for a cappuccino.
If do not wish for milk in a coffee, then ask for a V60 pour over.
The only fake milk maybe worth trying, and I confess I have yet to try, Rebel Kitchen, they at least have attempted to address the issue of fat.
He’s waging war on fat, quoting government so-called nutrition experts: count calories, up your physical fitness, avoid foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt. This advice is worse than useless. It got us into our current mess. Me @heraldscotlandhttps://t.co/kCZceqltL7
Plant-based has become the new low fat, a means of marketing the output of global food corporations.
We should be supporting grass-fed agriculture, agroforestry, not monoculture, rows of monoculture crops which require herbicides, fertiliser, pesticide, will enable runoff, loss of soil, no improvement of soil structure.
Climate Change is a result of a mindset, that is based on monoculture, fossil fuels, chemicals, corporate control. We do not address Climate Emergency by applying the same mindset that caused the problem, global corporations trying to control what we eat and drink, destruction of local culture and diversity, is not the answer.
Excellent environmental issues being raised and discussed, but please do not greenwash on behalf of Oatly.
Adventures in Coffee a collaboration between Caffeine Magazine, Jools Walker and Filter Stories. Presented by Jools Walker and Scott Bentley.
Passing through Lincoln Central Market I learnt of a zero waste shop uphill, ‘competition’. As I was en route to the Lincoln Christmas farmers market on Castle Hill, I decided to try and find it and check it out.
Lincoln Eco Pantry in Bailgate opposite Redhill farm shop, not difficult to find. A queue outside, though everywhere had a queue outside.
Lincoln Eco Pantry a long time in opening. There was rumour of opening in the town at least two years ago, but a bad location, then at St Marks, another bad location. The current location, should have opened early November, finally opened on Friday.
Letting agents Banks and Co which means will be paying high rent or a surprise if not, Bailgate location would also be high rent, though in current dire circumstances maybe rents are starting to fall,
The location, apart from the high rent, excellent as compliments butcher, baker and greengrocer. All we now need is a specialty coffee shop, currently lacking in Bailgate.
Sympathetic restoration of an old building. How it has been fitted out creates a pleasant environment.
Ground floor, bulk refill for shampoo and laundry liquid. No names I recognised. For shampoo, Faith in Nature from the health food shop opposite Mary le Wigford Church just off the High Street, laundry liquid the zero waste shop in the Central Market.
The point was made, choose suppliers to compliment not compete with what already exists in Lincoln.
All the more baffling therefore a large amount of prime shelf space by the counter which encounter as enter the shop devoted to poor quality chocolate laced with additives, chocolate that can buy in any Oxfam shop and in most supermarkets, with not very environmentally friendly package. A definite negative.
Helpful young lady manning the till fed me nonsense additives were because vegan chocolate. Er no, emulsifiers substitute for cocoa butter because the emulsifiers are cheaper. Dark chocolate cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, occasionally vanilla, nothing else. Only milk chocolate and white chocolate are not vegan due to addition of milk.
For quality chocolate visit Imperial Teas on Steep Hill. Excellent selection and knowledgeable about chocolate. The only place in Lincoln for quality chocolate.
Limits on numbers in the shop, limits on numbers on the first floor, a notice on the door, not that anyone took any notice of the notice on the door, nor was it enforced.
Upstairs on the first floor, loose nuts, cereals, dried fruits, tins of tea and coffee. All bagged and weighed by a helpful young lady.
But, this is not how to handle coffee beans, loose in the tins the beans will oxidise, they will already have oxidised in the plastic boxes shipped in, no information on the coffee beans, their provenance, where roasted when roasted roasted, their origin, country not sufficient.
I have recently been in discussion with a coffee shop and roastery, shipping of green beans, roasting, then supply to the coffee shop. I did consider supply in boxes, but dismissed, not good for the beans, they will oxidise.
DT Coffee Roastery supply roasted beans to Coffee Lab Academy and to The Square by Coffee Lab. The beans are supplied in bags even though located near each other in Winchester. Also true of coffee shops where the roastery is located within the coffee shop, the beans are bagged.
Beans popped in bags after roasted will outgas CO2 which creates a positive pressure in the bag, keeps out the air and stops the beans from oxidising. Roast, leave to rest for a week, then at their optimum for three weeks. Once the bags are opened, coffee beans go stale very quickly.
Coffee should have a wonderful aroma, a hint of things to come. I lifted the lid of the Brazil beans. Instead of a pleasant enticing aroma, I saw burnt over roasted beans with accompanying smell of burnt stale beans. Not pleasant.
And even if by happenchance bagged freshly roasted beans as they arrived in a brown paper bags, by the time arrived home, the beans would have oxidised, not unless arrived prepared with vacuum storage jars.
If wish for coffee beans, visit a reputable coffee shop where they care about coffee, Madame Waffle or Coffee Aroma, or try the zero waste shop in Lincoln Central Market.
Tea is fine in the tins, but for tea I would visit nearby Imperial Teas on Steep Hill.
Indy coffee shops and roasteries are always ahead of the game. Much work is being done on closing the loop with sustainable coffee bags. There are no easy answers, no quick fixes, packaging for shipping coffee beans keeping the beans fresh whilst at the same time reducing waste. [see Horsham Coffee Roaster – Recycling our coffee bags]
On sale reusable coffee cups during a coronavirus pandemic when coronavirus is out of control and a new strain is spreading like wildfire is an absolute no no. No responsible coffee shop will accept reusable cups for the simple reason it is to introduce an unnecessary disease vector. They care about staff and customers and do not wish to place them at risk of infection.
The only reusable cup worth considering is a glass KeepCup, but if dropped, smashed to smithereens or consider a huskee cup. But why use reusable cups, why takeaway coffee, reusable cups addresses a symptom, not the underlying problem, stop using grab and go takeaway coffee. During covid-19 crisis takeaway cups a necessary evil to reduce cross contamination.
Walk in Coffee Aroma, only one person at a time, strictly enforced a sign No Reusable Cups, and they will refuse to serve anyone who insists on using their reusable cup. Safety of staff and customers paramount.
Post-pandemic, relax and enjoy coffee in glass or ceramic served in an indy coffee shop.
In the natural world the concept of waste does not exist in space or time, the output of one process is the input to the next. Therefore we either use natural materials or we emulate a closed loop system with our manmade materials, as we do with glass, steel or aluminium.
In Athens it is the norm, loose nuts and dried fruits, loose bars of chocolate, shops, stalls outside Athens Central Market, no special name as this is the norm.
Cashew takes it to another level, loose nuts, dried fruits, bars of chocolate jars of honey and peanut butter combined with a coffee shop serving speciality coffee. Coffee beans on sale are in bags.
The big difference to UK, far wider choice far higher quality. For example, more than one grade of dried apricots, pistachio nuts, peanuts.
I picked up muesli and chocolate-coated coffee beans, bagged, weighed and down to the till downstairs to pay. I may have lingered longer and bought more but it became unsafe, too many people allowed in.
The muesli, soft muesli, more like a muesli base, could have done with added fruits, but nevertheless excellent with the raw unpasteurised milk off the Christmas farmers market. The chocolate-coated coffee beans reasonable but very poor quality when compared with chocolate-coated Brazil nuts from Athens or chocolate-coated coffee beans from Colombia.
The name Eco Pantry always wise to check if already in use. I found myself wondering why looked different to the shop I visited. I was looking at Eco Pantry in Sevenoaks.
Covid-19 biosecurity poor if not very poor. Ground floor door open thus ventilated, tiny crack window open first floor not sufficient ventilation, a girl on the first floor handled all the goods and bagged, but there were too many people in the store, this when we have a mutant highly infectious strain of covid-19 spreading like wildfire and Lincoln recording double the national average of new covid-19 cases. Sale of reusable cups highly irresponsible. No one should be taking reusable cups to a coffee shop and no coffee shop should accept. The lax covid-19 biosecurity so poor Lincoln Eco Pantry should close until further notice until they address these issues.
Keithpp's Blog 