Desired features:

• Good coffee.
• Good people watching.
• Not a Starbucks or other chain, please.
• A place that says “I’m a local New York coffee shop.”
• Not literally though.
• Talking buildings freak me out.

Please post a comment if you have any suggestions, thanks!

My post basically says, “Instant coffee bad, home roasted coffee beans good.”  I don’t think anyone searching for “instant coffee” really cares about that.  They probably want to research or buy instant coffee.  Other search.live.com results are equally lame.  Not 100% lame, a lot of the search results are good, but come on, my drivel shouldn’t be in the top 50.

Google’s results are more what I would expect – a bunch of instant coffee reviews and purchase information.  My post doesn’t show up in Google’s top 500, or Yahoo’s top 500 either.

Microsoft gives me no reason to even try their search engine again.  The Yellow Pages would probably be more helpful.

My caffeine habit won’t let me go without, so after scrounging around the kitchen I found some Folger’s instant. “Eh, how bad could it be?” I figured. Bad. Very Bad. Even heavily doctored Bad. After brushing my teeth twice I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth Bad.

Fortunately I have a home coffee roaster, aka an air popcorn popper, and some green coffee beans. 5 minutes of roasting later I have some incredibly fresh roasted coffee beans and a front porch full of chaff. (Chaff is the light, airy shell of the green coffee bean that comes off the bean while roasting and floats everywhere. It’s also one of the reasons that air popper roasting should be done outside.)

I learned about roasting your own coffee beans from a friend, who recommended Sweet Maria’s web site. They have a ton of good info about home roasting. It’s cheaper and better than a trip to Starbucks, and also a lot more fun!