Better coffee through chemistry

On Sunday, I used the last of the beans in my apartment. On Monday, I made due with a cola. On Tuesday, I usually skip my coffee fix altogether, so I had forgotten to include beans in my day's errands. On Wednesday, today, right now! I am without coffee beans. Oh, the madness. Gives me a good excuse to walk the mile to the store before Seattle does yet another rendition of Miami with its too-hot-for-the-natives weather. Although, yes, I am not a native of Seattle, I do come from a 'colder' place, so I can play the trump card here, okay?! So, get off my back. I haven't had my coffee yet!

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil has announced the creation of a coffee DNA data bank, which will help the country improve the quality and size of its coffee crop.

The announcement was made Tuesday by Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues during a ceremony at Embrapa, country's agricultural research agency.

Over the past two years and at a cost of 6 million reals ($2 million), Embrapa and the Sao Paulo State Research Foundation worked on the Coffee Genome Project, which mapped 200,000 coffee DNA sequences, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site.

CNN

Well, thank gawd for that. Amongst the thirty beans or so that I use for my French press, there is always one or two beans that simply do not get with the program. Yay! No more hand sifting.

Oh, sure, I'll have to wait a few years and those coffee suppliers will still have to do a better job of keeping the medium roast beans far, far away from my dark roast, but I'll wait. But I need some -- rgxxxkckxsggrrrz -- coffee of the Mr. Hyde or Dr. Jekyll variety, I don't care, right freaking now!