An international espresso war. A $487 million investment in coffee plants. A free Italian scooter. There's a lot going on in the world of coffee news! Read all about it here:

An International Espresso War

An Italian master barista from illy ruffled the feathers of the American coffee community with a scathing critique of America's emerging third wave coffee / espresso scene on Salon.com. Some American baristas and coffee drinkers refuted his claims (pointing out, amongst other things, the master barista's low rank at the World Barista Championships and illy's custom of using no fewer than nine varieties of bean per blend), while others agreed with him, citing specific cafes and the American habit of adding milk, sugar and other ingredients to coffee to cover up otherwise the "undrinkable swill" we call espresso. Read more on the international espresso war.

Nestle Invests $487 Million to Increase Coffee Quality & Quantity

The world's largest coffee company (which you may know by the names Nescafé and Nespresso) is investing millions in replanting coffee in areas where plants are showing diminished returns. The investment has the potential to improve the lives of farmers (who are not locked into contracts by the replanting) and the profit margins of Nestle (which would soon face rapidly rising commodity coffee prices if not for the investment). Read more about Nestle's coffee replanting investment.

Starbucks Plans to Launch a Line of Single Origin Coffee

In a move echoing the overall trend of third-wave coffee (in which coffee shops like Intelligentsia and Stumptown focus on single-origin coffees roasted to match the flavors of the beans rather than to specific roast levels), Starbucks has decided to offer a line of single-origin coffees. Will Starbucks also lay off of its usual habit of over-roasting coffee when it comes to this line? We shall see... Read more on Starbucks' new line of single-origin coffees.

Peet's Coffee & Tea Introduces Alta de Dota Single Origin Special Roast

OK, so it's not an entire line... and it's only available for a limited time... from limited locations... but Alta de Dota Single Origin Special Roast does sound like a pretty tasty Costa Rican single origin coffee. Read more on Alta de Dota Single Origin Special Roast.

Win a Scooter From Forza Coffee

Talk about vroom, vroom! Forza Coffee is giving one lucky Washington state resident an Italian scooter. Enter by September 15th for a chance to win.

Former Bus Shelter to Open as Coffee Kiosk in Portland, Oregon

Cool, right? However, as a resident of Portland, Oregon, I really must say that this is par for the course as far as street food and coffee go here. (I don't mean to brag. It's just that Portland really does have a great street food scene and a great coffee scene!) Read more about Portland's new coffee kiosk.

Cold-Brewed Coffee Makes a Stir in Beantown

Cold-brewed coffee may not be new in cities like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, but it is currently making a big splash in Boston. Read more on cold-brewed coffee in Boston.

Starbucks Announces New Flavored Instant Coffees

Starbucks will soon expand its VIA instant coffee line to include flavored instant coffees. The new VIA varieties will be available in Vanilla, Mocha, Caramel and Cinnamon Spice. I'll be reviewing them on About soon, but for now you can read the press release on flavored VIA varieties here.

Green Mountain Coffee is Fortune Magazine's Second-Fastest Growing Company

Green Mountain Coffee (whose K-cups I've reviewed here and here) was named the second-fastest growing company by Fortune Magazine. Read Fortune's list of fastest-growing companies.

Kuma Coffee Fosters Direct Trade With Transparency

Adding to the movement away from Fair Trade certification and toward transparent operations surrounding direct trade, Seattle's Kuma Coffee has issued a transparency statement about how much it paid (per pound) for each of the coffees it carries. Read more about Kuma Coffee and direct trade vs. Fair Trade coffee.

Kroger to Distribute Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea

Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea products will soon be offered at King Soopers and City Market supermarkets in Colorado. Read more about Vail Mountain Coffee & Tea's distribution deal.

Image (c) Lindsey Goodwin
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With all the recent news about bottled tea's lack of antioxidants, it might be tempting to throw in the towel on a nascent tea habit. However, there are lots of other easy and delicious ways you can enjoy teas besides low-antioxidant bottled teas, including drinking antioxidant-rich fresh-brewed tea and eating foods made with powdered tea (which is extra-high in antioxidants).

I find newer tea drinkers and sweet tea drinkers tend to love making and drinking tea smoothies, which can be prepared quickly and easily with powdered teas or brewed-and-frozen tea "ice" cubes. With that in mind, I created a new list of the top tea smoothie recipes on About.com. The list includes a range of fruit and tea flavor profiles, such as Elin Headrick's Fruity Green Tea Smoothie Recipe, a Tropical Date-Black Tea Smoothie and a Peach Rooibos Smoothie (pictured here).

Do you have a favorite tea smoothie recipe? Share it with other About.com readers in the comments below!

Photo (c) Lindsey Goodwin
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Many bottled teas have been touted as healthy, convenient alternatives to fresh-brewed teas. However, it appears that quite a few bottled teas have very few antioxidants and may not be much better for you than sugar water. Here's some of the recent news coverage of the dearth of antioxidants in bottled teas:

• NPR talks bottled tea and suggests an alternative
• Live Science on watered-down bottled teas
• Natural News on bottled teas that contain "virtually no" antioxidants

It's not the first time people have noted low antioxidant levels in bottled teas. In fact, About.com's Chinese Food Guide talked about low antioxidant levels in bottled teas years ago. However, this recent study on antioxidants in bottled teas shows the levels in many "RTD teas" or "ready-to-drink teas" to be shockingly low.

What can you do about it? Brew your own tea or buy fresh-brewed tea. Visit a local coffee shop or tea house and buy freshly steeped tea there. Explore tea recipes (or cold tea recipes) for ideas on creating your own tea drinks. You can even sneak more antioxidants into your diet by cooking with tea.

Do you have tips for replacing bottled tea with fresh-brewed tea? Share them with other About readers in the comments!

Photo (c) Marko Goodwin
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Lately, I've been on a granita kick.

In case you aren't familiar with granitas, they are icy foods that are usually (but not always) sweet. They use all kinds of ingredients for flavor and texture, including pureed fruit, fruit juice, coffee and milk / cream. In Italy (where granitas originated), coffee granitas are very popular as an afternoon snack or dessert during warm weather.

After playing around with a few coffee granita recipes, I got to thinking that if coffee granitas and fruity granitas are so delicious, and tea is also delicious with fruit, then it might also be delicious to combine tea with fruit and make it into a granita.

First, I tried making apple cider and black tea into an apple tea granita. Simple, tasty... so far, so good. Then, I tried pureeing strawberries and mixing them with white tea for a strawberry white tea granita (pictured above). The result was fresh and wonderfully summery. It was so summery, in fact, that it got me thinking about taking tea granitas in the opposite direction.

I decided to make a spicy, creamy granita, more akin to traditional coffee granitas than to the tea granitas I had made so far. In the interest og keeping it simple, I used some of Rishi's Masala Chai Tea Concentrate that I had left over from taste testing for the review. The result was this easy masala chai granita recipe, which I liked so much that I decided to make a chcolate chai coffee granita, too.

As you can probably tell by now, I had a lot of fun creating these recipes! You can check out the whole collection of coffee and tea granitas (including recipes from other guides on the site) in this list of top ten coffee and tea granitas. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Photo (c) Marko Goodwin
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