Thursday, December 22, 2022

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The B.R.E.W. (Blogs, Recipes, Entertainment, Weekly News)

Do you already know what hot coffee or tea will you be making this Christmas day? Share your holiday with your favorite Waka.

If you're still searching for the perfect gift, consider giving the gift of choice with a Waka Gift Card. Our electronic gift card allows your loved ones to choose from a wide selection of premium instant coffee and teas. Make it even more special by sending a personalized video message along with the gift card.

Your loved ones will be more than thankful!

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Blogs and Recipes

The Benefits of Instant Coffee

Instant coffee is a popular choice for many coffee drinkers due to its convenience and versatility. It's quick and easy to prepare...

Napa Valley Loaded Tea

Named after the famous Napa wine county in Northern California, this loaded tea is delicious and refreshing but...

Entertainment

The #WednesdayDance is already iconic ? (via @Con Todo)

Have You Watched One Of Netflix's Latest Hits Called "Wednesday"?

It's a TV Show featuring the one and only Addams family, but the main character, this time, is their daughter, Wednesday. And if you've been following TikTok trends lately, then you must have come across her epic dance that became absolutely VIRAL!

Did you know that the actress Jenna Ortega choreographed the dance herself? She took inspiration from the original Wednesday Addams from 1964.

'I watched videos of Siouxsie and the Banshees… I found archival footage of Goth kids dancing in clubs in the 80s… just anything that I could get my hands on. And then on the day, I thought, "Alright, well, I'm just gonna do it," said Jenna.

And when told that her dance went viral on TikTok, she couldn't believe it! If you haven't checked out the TV Show yet, we definitely recommend that you give it a go. The music, the storyline, and the aesthetics are just perfect!

Our verdict is: 10/10!

Weekly News

More Than 100 New Designs Discovered In Peru's Ancient Nazca Plain

More than 100 new designs discovered in and around Peru's ancient Nazca plain and surrounding areas could bring new information to light about the mysterious pre-Columbian artworks that have intrigued scientists and visitors for decades...

Messi's World Cup Post Beats Egg To Become Most-liked On Instagram

Lionel Messi set yet another record on Tuesday after his Instagram post celebrating Argentina's World Cup win became the most-liked on the platform, breaking a nearly four-year-old record held by a photo of an egg...

Us Woman Wins $175,000 Lottery Jackpot In Office Gift Exchange

After being given a lottery scratch-off as a gift, a Kentucky woman left the company's holiday party $175,000 richer, according to New York Post...

Shop Waka

Gourmet coffee beans or pumpkin spice latte? 🤔

Hey coffee lover,

Buying & brewing gourmet coffee at home takes a bit of effort.

It's certainly not as easy as getting a pumpkin spice latte from a coffee shop.

Which we've all done at some point.

But if you don't want to step out or trying to avoid overspending on coffee, home brewing is the way to go.

So forget the coffee shop and order some gourmet beans to your home...

While paying the same as you'd for a venti pumpkin spice latte.

We've partnered with the Bean Box coffee subscription company to make this possible for you:

Get Bean Box's 2-coffee tasting box for $5

These award-winning artisan (coffees from some of the best roasters in Seattle & Portland) will be shipped to you within 48 hours of being roasted.

Happy brewing,

Julia

PS: With some pumpkine puree & the right spice mix, you can even make pumpkin spice latte at home.

And Bean Box's gourmet coffees will ensure it tastes better than the coffee shop's PSL.

SBF’s ex pleads guilty

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December 22, 2022

Hello, Insiders. Do you send out holiday cards? Every couple years my wife and I will — but maybe we should start sending them regularly! Because they seem like a really great opportunity to overshare and embarrass the hell out of our nearest and dearest.

That's what Laura Kinney's mom did to her. Laura got divorced this year. You might think all the details of the split should be kept private — but Laura's mom does not agree. Instead, the mom wrote a very long holiday letter with all the nitty-gritty details of the divorce and sent it to basically everyone she knows.

Good for Laura, though — she's being a good sport. "I am not thrilled," she writes, "However, if I were to be the recipient of a letter like this, that would be the best thing that I had ever received. I would frame it."

— Nicholas Carlson

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The latest

Caroline Ellison faces up to 110 years in prison after pleading guilty to seven charges in the FTX collapse. More here.

Zelenskyy delivered a historic speech to Congress. It was filled with symbolism you may have missed — like the sweater he wore, which is sold out everywhere.

Flight delays and cancellations will likely impact millions of travelers over the holidays. Here's what to do if you're one of them.

The big story

June Jiuxing Xie, Tyler

She says she was fired for retaliation. Hearst Magazines said she was insubordinate. How Delish's hit YouTube show "Budget Eats" came crashing down.

June Jiuxing Xie was a rising star at Hearst Magazines, where she charmed millions of viewers with her no-frills home kitchen YouTube show "Budget Eats," cooking eight dinners for two on just $15 or living off pantry staples for a week.

Produced by the Hearst-owned food brand Delish, "Budget Eats" was the kind of digital success story that traditional magazine giants crave. But on October 6, Xie was fired.

For some staffers, Xie was a hero, a union organizer whose star power gave her the internal clout to make noise. But for Hearst, a 135-year-old institution, Xie's behavior was a nuisance.

The implosion of "Budget Eats" is a modern digital media tragedy — one about a legacy publisher trying to expand a video hit into something larger, the simmering disputes between organized labor and management, the rise of a young woman of color inside a traditional behemoth, and a generational workplace clash.

READ ON INSIDER

Top reads

Beate Folesky / EyeEm/Getty, urfinguss/Getty, Peter Cade/Getty, stevecoleimages/Getty, Tyler Le/Insider

Fast fashion is a looming environmental disaster. Every year the industry produces more than 100 billion pieces of apparel — enough for every person on Earth to get 14 new pieces of clothing each year, and more than double the amount of clothing produced in 2000. What companies can do to reduce their impact.

A 35-year-old explains why he and his girlfriend sleep in separate rooms. One in four Americans — including Philadelphia-based John Deary — chooses to sleep separately from their partners, a concept that's now popular and polarizing enough to have a name: "sleep divorce." Experts explain how it can actually improve relationships.

Parental leave is the greatest benefit workers don't take. Despite more and more workers having access to family leave, financial pressures, career considerations, and workplace stigma make it difficult for many to take it — here's why.

"Code red" at Google. The increasing popularity of the AI chat bot ChatGPT has sparked serious concern at the tech giant, per The New York Times. CEO Sundar Pichai has directed multiple teams to address the threat posed to Google's search engine business, the report says. Get the full story here.

These symptoms of cancer are easy to miss. A headache, a spell of fatigue, or stomach pain can often be dismissed as no big deal — even by doctors. But Insider spoke with five women who were later diagnosed with stage 4 cancer after these signs were missed. Read their stories.

Watch this

The Supreme Court temporarily extended the Title 42 policy that keeps migrants out of the US just days before it was expected to expire. Thousands of migrants are left waiting at the southern border. Watch now.

Today's team

This edition was curated by Nicholas Carlson, and edited by Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan, Jordan Parker Erb, Shona Ghosh, and Nathan Rennolds. Get in touch: insidertoday@insider.com.

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The Espresso Milestone - Dec 22nd 2022

The Espresso Milestone

BH Unlimited Update, Dec 22nd 2022

This Christmas, we've prepared something a little more boxing-day focussed as a little treat for you all. This treat comes after all those presents have been unwrapped (hopefully Santa brings you a nice Kees Van Der Westen Speedster — or something similar this year), when it's time to chillax and reach for that gritty crime novel, or your new cosy cookbook. In this new Agatha Christie-meets-Simon Sharmer style history: our favourite 'baristorian', Sebastien Delprat, finally gets to the bottom of who invented the espresso machine. The weirdest part of this story is that it's all true.

From 1847 to 1880, these systems featured only one outlet of steam-pressured water.

After 1884, systems used two position outlets: one for steam-pressured water and another for steam.

There are a lot more claimants to the 'inventor of the espresso machine' mantle than we anticipated. That is obvious when you look at the illustrations (above) where all the protagonists in this story are revealed; from Giraud in 1847, through Moriondo in 1884, and up to Bezzera in 1901 … and a whole lot of other folks besides. If you haven't checked out the first three instalments of The Espresso Vanishes, here they are (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). If you're up-to-date and ready to dive in, here's Part 4, titled … The Espresso Milestone.

The Coffee Buyer's Guide to Colombia

This week in our Buyer's Guide to Colombia, we begin a new chapter on the incredible range of coffee varieties grown in Colombia. Colombia is known for growing a wide range of varieties — and yet until the 1960s, Colombia produced almost exclusively Typica.

With the threat of leaf rust looming, Cenicafé began working on rust-resistant hybrids, racing against time to release a resistant variety before the disease could reach Colombia. The resulting varieties — Colombia, Castillo, and Tabi — are well-known worldwide.

What's less well known is that none of these are single varieties. Instead, each of them is made up of a mixture of different hybrids that can be shuffled in different combinations to suit different growing conditions. In this week's lessons, we explain why Cenicafé chose this approach and what that means for farmers.

Ripe Pink Bourbon fruits vary in colour from pink to peach. Yields are low and plants are susceptible to disease.

Along the way, we also take a look at the murky origins of Pink Bourbon, a uniquely Colombian variety that — naturally — seems to have little or no link with Bourbon. BH Unlimited subscribers have advanced access to each new lesson as the course progresses.

Roasting Science

Meanwhile in our Roasting Science course, we start by looking at the idea of 'momentum' in roasting. The term momentum is often used to describe the way that the roasting temperature seems to lag behind changes in the gas settings, almost as if the rate of rise had a momentum all of its own. In fact, this feeling of momentum is an illusion — it is simply the result of stored energy, especially in big, heavy drum roasters.

A high rate of rise at the beginning of first crack is sometimes said to give the roast 'momentum', but it is more accurate to think of it in terms of the amount of heat energy stored in the roaster.

Next, we explain how the temperature sensor in your roaster works. Thermocouples are responsive, accurate, sturdy, and inexpensive — perfect for a coffee roaster. They do have some quirks to be aware of, though, before you choose and install your next new probe. We explain the merits of grounded vs ungrounded, K-type vs J-type probes to help you make a smart choice.

Wet Weiss Really Works

You remember the Wet Weiss Distribution post from a couple of months back? In that post we ascertained that WWDT significantly increased extraction yields in the Tricolate. And we posed this question:

'We would encourage anyone to try Wet Weiss when developing a new Tricolate recipe. After finishing this experiment, of course we then started to wonder, if we should be doing Wet Weiss Distribution in our V-shaped pour-overs too? And the answer to that is yet to be determined…'

Well, safe to say it's a lot more determined now. The indefatigable Real Sprometheus has put together a great video where he gets wildly increased extraction yields from using WWDT in his V-60s.

Need a Last Minute Gift Card?

This Christmas, give your favourite coffee person everything they need to unlock all the learning materials of the BH Unlimited coffee education program.

There's a 12-month plan that secures you a 30% discount. This tier will be of particular interest for folks who are thinking about taking the plunge into the barista profession but haven't yet found the time or the opportunity to start out on some serious coffee education.

Each of these Gift Cards will grant learners unlimited access to our entire catalogue of certification courses, our huge video archive, all our apps, as well as our ever expanding collection of white papers. Every week we produce more content for our subscribers so a BH Gift Card is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Coffee Education — Without the Advertising

BH provides a level of detail about coffee production that platforms like Youtube are unable to obtain, because we are a subscription service — our members pay us to produce the best, most detailed information for them, rather than creating videos that get the most views for an advertiser.

At BH we never do ads for other company's products on our website. There's no product placement in any of our courses, newsletters or blog posts. Our only income comes from what you pay for your subscriptions.

When you see machinery or coffee gear mentioned in any of our educational material, or featured in our course videos, we have chosen to use that equipment because we like using it, because we think it's historically significant in the evolution of the espresso machine, or because it shows you something you need to see about modern coffee culture. It's as simple as that.