So you’re tired of that crusty brown-stained white plastic Mr. Coffee Deluxe sitting on your kitchen counter doling out lukewarm cups of caffeinated dishwater each morning? Are you looking to upgrade your coffee maker to something more fitting of a man or woman in your position in life? Are you simply rich and stupid and like good coffee? Then why not gather up some of that spare change from under the couch cushions and go out and buy yourself an exorbitantly expensive coffee maker?

Here are a few to choose from…

Vroom, Vroom!

Lamborghini Coffee Maker - $1750 - Sure, you have the Lamborghini watch, the jacket, the coffee mug and the numerous posters with half naked women in European fashion swimsuits tacked up all over your apartment. They go well with your puffy black faux leather couches your halogen stand lamps and your framed Nagel posters. And even though you have plenty of refrigerator magnets, you somehow think your 12 square foot galley kitchen needs just a little more chrome to really impress the swarms of women (or mom and grandmom) when they visit. You need to blow your wad on the only coffeemaker that is known for making high-end Italian sports cars that are prominently featured in B-Movies from the 1980s. Featuring a gear-shift type handle, the Lamborghini logo (etched in shiny chromish steel…duh) and numerous other phallic pipes and tubes, this hand-built machine is perfect for the person who likes to make coffee while wearing driving gloves. Don’t blame me if the coffee ends up tasting like engine oil: it probably is.

Who cares if it makes good coffee? Having this sexy number on your counter almost assures you’ll get lucky with that cute Bohemian Starbucks chick.

Jura-Capresso Coffee Makers - $500-$3300 - For the discerning coffee nerd who doesn’t necessarily want to downshift his coffee maker each morning, the impressive-sounding Impressa line of Jura-Capresso coffee makers is… umm… impressive. The product descriptions includes big, impressive phrases such as “ThermoBlock system”, “two Frothing Systems”, “Claris Filter Burr Grinder Release Tool” and “Measuring Scoop Video.” Yes, some of these machines include a video on how to scoop coffee. You don’t have to be smart, you just have to be rich.

Clover - $11,000 - The Clover Coffee Maker was invented by three Stanford graduates and it allows you to control just about every aspect of making a cup of coffee from water temperature, dose amount and even extraction time. Everything is controlled with a computer and saved in a database so when you finally get that perfect cup of coffee you can save your preferences and come back again and again until the hard drive crashes or there’s some software update that doesn’t work or your Internet connection goes down or hackers break into your coffee maker and starting using it as a porn server or… well, you get the idea. If you want to see one in action, go check out some of the Clover videos on YouTube. Clover’s website actually has a little “Find A Clover” page if you find yourself getting all hot and bothered by the videos. Clover has recently been assimilated by Starbucks, so expect them to screw it up.

I’m think I’m turning Japanese…

Siphon Bar - $20,000 - Sure, lots of professional coffee houses have Clover coffee makers. How about something a bit pricier and more original? How about something that requires talent to use? How about something… Japanese? Why not check out the Siphon Bar, a rather pricey magical machine that requires months of physical training and mountains of mental prowess just to operate? Fire this halogen powered baby up and the lights dim for four city blocks in every direction. While the Clover is all computerized mechanics, the siphon bar is pure Coffee Ninja training requiring a Buddha’s mastery of patience and skill complete with a little bamboo paddle. It could only be more Japanese if it turned into a giant robotic wombat and fired plasma bolts from its belly.

Roasting Plant Javabot - $1,000,000(?) - Maybe crazy Japanese coffee makers aren’t your cup of…coffee. Maybe instead you need a cup o’ joe that was made by a crazy American coffee maker. Then you’ll want to visit New York City’s Roasting Plant and see their unique Javabot. It’s a robotic system that actually wraps around the entire store (so you’re enjoying your coffee inside the coffee maker) and it manages the entire coffee process, from green coffee bean to roasting to grinding to pouring and all the important steps in between. Just like the internet, the entire system is based off tubes that run all over the place. No word on whether or not creator Mike Caswell will be employing Oompa Loompas in the future or letting any more school groups go on factory tours.

There you have it, a list of the world’s most expensive coffee makers!

Of course wouldn’t want to spend all this money and then dump that Folgers crap into one of these machines. Instead you’d want an expensive coffee that’s actually worthy of these machines. You could go to Amazon and order up a 10 pound bag of Jamaica Blue Mountain: Mavis Bank Estate Coffee that hovers around $50 per pound, but then you’d be cheating yourself of one of life’s greatest coffee pleasures: drinking coffee made from poop.

My cat making coffee for you.

Yes, the world’s most expensive coffee is commonly known as Kopi Luwak and its tremendous value comes from fact that all of these coffee beans used for this coffee have been eaten and pooped out by the Asian Palm Civet, a small furry animal that is kind of like a large housecat. The coffee generally sells for anywhere between about $140 - $250 per pound.

This is, of course, completely ridiculous. I would gladly sell the coffee bean poop of my own cat for a mere $80 per pound. His name is Bailey.

When ordering please let me know if you’d like it with or without hairballs.

Technorati Tags: expensive coffee, siphon bar, clover coffee maker, kopi luwak, Lamborghini, giant robot wombat

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Hurry over to ebay to bid on the only bag of coffee that’s ever been sent into space!

Today’s world is filled with a lot of bad things like wars, famine, pestilence, Paris Hilton and Silver Surfers. That’s why I’m especially shocked that more people are not mobbing ebay for a chance to bid on the only bag of coffee that has been fired into space, exposed to cosmic rays, and then brought back down to earth in a marketing move meant to raise money for the JP Aerospace organization. I’ve written about this Space Coffee before and I told you about how JP Aerospace is poised to become bigger than NASA just as soon as NASA loses all the money, people, technology and bloated budget.

From the press release:

The balloon was flown by JP Aerospace, an independent space program. In addition to the coffee, over 300 student

experiments were carried aloft. Lifting off shortly after dawn, the balloon climbed 800 feet per minute. As it headed

upward, the temperature dropped to 82 degrees below zero, and the sky slowly turned black. When it reached high

enough where the Earth’s horizon is curved, the balloon burst. The coffee and experiments fell together at over Mach

one back toward the desert floor. The parachute opened, and the package touched down ten miles from its starting point.

“This coffee has gone where I want to go,” says John Powell, President of JP Aerospace.

Essentially JP Aerospace sent up a special “Bean Me Up” coffee blend that was roasted by Vista Clara Coffee, a small coffee roaster run by Dave Stewart. JP Aerospace sent the coffee up into space on a giant balloon with a bunch of ping pong balls, waited for the balloon to pop and then everything fall back to the ground. They do this sort of thing on a regular basis, though I can’t say for sure if hallucinogenic drugs were involved in the project plan.

Jessica Alba has powers from cosmic rays which are the same as the rays from this coffee that was fired into space and… umm.. oh, just stare at the picture and drool.

Back to the cosmic rays. By sending things up into space JP Aerospace has been exposing them to “cosmic rays” which as you students of history will realize, are the same rays that turned the Fantasic Four from a group of nerdy good looking scientists into a group of good looking scientists with mostly lame superpowers. Except the Human Torch. That would be a cool power. And the Thing. That would be kind of cool. Jessica Alba and the stretchy guy? Lame! Well, okay, I could watch Jessica Alba sit around and pick her nose all day. So, really, the stretchy guy is just lame. I digress…

Their superpowers are better than YOUR non-existent superpowers. And since YOU aren’t going to be making into space anytime soon you should really consider instead buying some space coffee and then drinking it to see what kind of superpowers you might get.

If you visit Vista Clara Coffee’s website you’ll notice that firing beans off into space didn’t even make their “News” section which makes me wonder if JP Aerospace just stole the beans from the grocery store and then felt bad about it. In fact, there’s really not much to see at Vista Clara’s Coffee site, which is a little surprising considering that their coffee will give you superpowers. Sure, it lists the blends he has, but there is a startling lack of photos of the coffee, recent news about Vista Clara, and no mention of the supervillains he’s hoping to defeat with his cosmic ray coffee.

Heck, maybe Dave Stewart of Vista Clara Coffee can send his web designer up into space and bring him back down in hopes of getting some more for website content.

At any rate, I encourage you to visit ebay and bid this coffee that has been sent into space. I encourage you to drink grind it, drink it and then shun society as the magic of cosmic rays overtake your body. I encourage you to use your newfound superpowers for good and not evil. And I encourage you to remember who told you about this just in case you do decide to use your new coffee superpowers to take over the world.

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My Coffee Mug

I like coffee. A lot. In fact, I’ve noticed that my every waking moment, and I have a lot of waking moments, is consumed by coffee because I’m always consuming coffee.

Here’s a typical day for me:

6:15 - The timer on my bedside coffermaker goes off, waking me to the sound of sizzling water and smell of roasted beans. I sip half a cup in bed before I open my eyes.

6:25 - I stumble to the bathroom with mug in hand where I turn on my in-shower coffeemaker and use the hot water to brew a fresh cup while I’m washing my hair.

6:40 - I brush my teeth with natural toothpaste made from coffee beans. No minty flavor is going to kill my buzz.

7:15 - I shave, dress and put on a tie all without ever putting down my mug. No, I can’t explain it, either.

8:00 - I arrive at work and put on a pot of coffee.

8:15 - I take the pot to my desk and put on another pot for everyone else in my office.

9:45 - Needing a change, I grab a handful of used grounds and stuff them in my cheeks like chewing tobacco.

10:15 - Decide that really wasn’t a very good idea considering the coffee at work is Folgers.

10:25 - I spit out the coffee grounds and chew on the used filter. That’s better, but it’s still Folgers.

10:27 - I spit out the filter and chew on my shoe. I’m satisfied.

12:30 - Lunch time! I buy a cup of coffee from the snack shop and a coffee power bar.

1:05 - I go for walk around the office while munching on some gourmet coffee beans.

1:30 - Weekly staff meeting! During our Vice President’s presentation I grind some beans and pull out my French press. No one seems to mind.

2:35 - Back at my desk I hear a strange buzzing sound. I spend 30 minutes looking around before I realize it’s the beating of my own heart.

3:50 - I put on one last pot of coffee for the road.

5:00 - I drive home with said pot in hand.

5:20 - I finish my pot of java, but I still have a long commute through traffic. Needing a little “pick-me-up” on the way home I stop and pick up a cup of iced coffee from a local coffee shop.

6:03 - For dinner I have some Coffee Roasted Beef Chuck, with a side of some Sweet Sausage Coffee Ring and a little piece of coffee cake. I finish with a shot of coffee liqueur for fun.

7:20 - I’m in the mood for something sweet so I run down to the local ice cream parlor and pick up a Cappuccino flavored milkshake.

9:00 - I make one more bedtime mug of coffee and slowly slip it for the rest of the evening.

10:15 - I go to bed a little earlier than usual because I just haven’t been sleeping very well.

Maybe it’s time to get a new bed.

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