Spilling the Beans

An Australian study, published in the Dec. 14/28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, has concluded that tea and coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.  Researchers looked at 18 separate studies involving nearly 500,000 people, and revealed that people who drink three or four cups of coffee or tea a day cut their risk of developing the disorder by a fifth or more.  The same amount of decaffeinated coffee had an even bigger effect, lowering risk by a third.

Findings also show that people who drink three to four cups of tea each day lower their risk of diabetes by about one-fifth compared to those who don’t drink tea.

If the findings prove true, doctors may well start advising people to put the kettle on as well as take more exercise and watch their weight, say the researchers.

Lead researcher Dr Rachel Huxley, from the University of Sydney in Australia, said because of the finding with decaffeinated coffee, the link is unlikely to be solely related to caffeine. Instead, other compounds in coffee and tea – including magnesium and antioxidants – may be involved.

She said those components appear to have a beneficial effect on blood sugar regulation and insulin secretion, but that further research is necessary.

Other experts agree more research is needed.

Dr Victoria King, of Diabetes UK, said: “Without full information about what other factors may be influencing the type 2 diabetes risk of the studies’ participants – such as their physical activity levels and diet – as well as what the active ingredient in tea or coffee appears to be, we cannot be sure what, if anything, this observed effect is down to.”

As many will know I am studying for an MBA.  The course is hard but extremely regarding and not without its funny moments.

For instance, last week we were discussing efficiency.  Process efficiency, product efficiency and personal efficiency.  Having started with a “Knowlege Audit” aka what do you know abou the subject, the lecturer, who always tries to to bring the concepts alive with personal illustrations, asked  “Who works at 100% all the time” .  The answer of course was no one.  She went on to explore ways of improving efficiency and used the start of the work day to illustrate her point.  “Who arrives at work, wonders into their office and spends 15 minutes by the coffee machine”  Actually I do… sometimes more, much more and I get paid for it!

Wow, what a wonderful job!

Simon

Just a quick post.

Found this excellent article on Business Weeks website. It tells how a number of independent coffee shops have fought back against Starbucks.  It’s great reading even though they are all in USA.

Have a look here.

In the last post I listed 10 reasons to choose Pollards coffee.  Now I want to expand just a little.

1) We only sell coffee  that we have roasted ourselves.

By only selling coffee that we have roasted rather than branded coffees from other roasters, we can be sure exactly what goes into every single bag of coffee we sell and exactly how it was roasted.  So What?  well we know the beans we buy are always the best in their class; we choose them for their flavour and quality. And we roast then in our own distinct way (more of that later) so we can be sure that everything we sell is of the Pollards standard.

Further by roasting it to order and making sure it doesn’t stand around in boxes waiting for people to buy it, we can make sure that it leave our roastery for you within 72 hours of coming out of the roaster.  Now that’s fresh!

If you would like to lear a little more about coffee growing and processing have a look at our Coffee information section.

Well this was going to be one of those “welcome to our blog” type posts. You know the ones, boring and dull beyond belief!  That was until the other day when we fell foul of a bit of a dirty trick by one of our competitors.

In a nutshell, their sales manager telephoned, pretending to be a potential customer and asked for our price list and bullet points about why he should buy from us.  So we sent them to him (Jason, I hope you got it!) and then called him back on the mobile he had given us.  well, I nearly fell off my chair.  This is Jason from C**pers coffee, please leave a message and I will call you back”!

Well actually it got us thinking.  Not withstanding the dirty trick, maybe we should tell you 10 reasons to buy coffee from us and not a box shifter.  So here they are:-

1.)  We only sell our own, hand roasted coffee.

2.) All coffee is hand roasted by Artisans.

3.) Slow roasting in small batches.

4.) Air cooled after roasting not water quenched.

5.) Roast to order – not to stock.

6.) 130 years of practice makes perfect.

7.) 52 origins, 75 standard blends, 2.8 million potential blends.

8.) The right grind not the “nearly right” one.

9.) A wide range of coffee equipment.

10) Coffee with a conscience.

Over the next few posts I will expand on these and hopefully include some photos.  Now wasnt that more interesting than “Welcome to our blog”.

Speak soon

Simon