Flickr/scottfeldstein

How about a cup o' joe?

Three of the Bay Area's most recognized coffee roasters are joining the Commonwealth Club in the City to discuss the ABCs (acidity, brewing, and current crops) of the coffee revolution that we're all so high on, as well as many other topics under the proverbial java umbrella.

James Freeman of Blue Bottle Coffee, Eileen Hassi of Ritual Coffee Roasters, and Jeremy Tooker of Four Barrel Coffee -- all three owners of their respective brands, will be present -- and Marcia Gagliardi of Tablehopper will moderate the discourse.

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Molly Gore

Phillip Ma pours a taste of the geisha.

Ma'velous, that glimmering trove of coffees and gorgeous gizmos by Civic Center, is bringing in an extra special bounty to its already very special menu. But if you blink, you'll miss it. The goods? Granja La Esperanza Geisha, a lot of a rare and celebrated varietal roasted by Caitlin McCarthy-Garcia of Equator Coffees, and the beans that garnered her first prize at the 2013 Roasters Choice competition -- essentially the World Series of coffee roasting. At this moment, this just might be, in the roaster's words, "the best coffee in the country." And, at Ma'velous, it's $18 a cup.

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Cooperative Cafe Serves Best Coffee in South Berkeley

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Here's a fun "music video" featuring a bunch of jumpsuit-clad warehouse workers (?) making sweet sounds as they assemble a shiny red espresso machine. The video was made by espresso machine manufacturer Sanremo UK in conjunction with The Media Workshop, a digital production company, and screened originally at the London Coffee Festival + UK Barista Championship before making the rounds on the Internet. Take a look.

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Molly Gore

South Berkeley's stretch of Adeline Street is not the most promising drag. Peppered with empty storefronts and neglected lots, it's a string of blocks I used to forego walking on most days, until recently, when I spotted Alchemy -- a tiny, glimmering sign of neighborhood revival that happens to be the best coffee on this side of Berkeley.

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Grace Hightower De Niro in Rwanda.

Brace yourselves, the Taxi Driver's wife is breaking into the limelight with a brand new coffee company: Grace Hightower and Coffees of Rwanda. Grace Hightower De Niro is the most recent celebrity to lend her name to a social justice-flavored mission in coffee, and it tastes pretty good.

The project came into being during a trip to Rwanda last spring, where Hightower was exposed to communities who had successfully rebuilt themselves, through coffee, after the 1984 1994 genocide. Apparently the experience was inspiring enough to coax action from Hightower, who sought out some experienced players in the coffee industry to help set up relationships with coffee cooperatives and aid in quality control as she set up an outlet, stamped with her name, through which to sell Rwandan coffee in the States.

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Kevin Bohlin

Kevin Bohlin drinks coffee made from beans produced in Honduras by his friend and farmer Sebastian Benitez.

The past two years have proven San Francisco to be fairly fertile ground for craft coffee. Armfuls of small roasters and "Third Wave" cafés are popping open monthly, and their missions are clear: to teach us to love coffee as we love wine -- to care about where it comes from and the prolific subtleties of its taste. The whole thing is quite suited to San Francisco's Slow Food-themed mantra that urges us to source food as locally as our rooftop, to find and pet the cow that produced our milk, to sit down with the person that coaxed it to cheese, to be mindful about its preparation.

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Molly Gore

If you've been part of the daily midday mass exodus to the Curry Up Now truck in the FiDi, you've probably passed a mysterious and jazzy storefront on Bush Street with the name "Coffee Cultures" stamped across the front window.

The upcoming café is a new venture from Jason Paul, former co-owner of Coffee Bar who split with the company in 2012. The name of the new spot plays on two ideas behind the business: Counter Culture Coffee and frozen yogurt. While we do love brands that lend themselves to wordplay, coffee and yogurt seem odd bedfellows. We're keen to see how they'll partner. It's not the only unexpected alliance the place has planned -- the Coffee Cultures press release is rife with romantic teasers, promising a place where "investment bankers sit alongside bike messengers." What a dream it would be.

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It was only a matter of time: A U.K.-based company has created what may be the world's first pedal-powered espresso machine, set to take the world by storm this summer. The "innovative coffee vending trike" has no motor or electricity, and most of the energy required to heat the water and brew the coffee comes from the cyclist-barista's pedaling.

That's right. They're calling them "cyclist-baristas," a term that seems tailor-made for San Francisco's bicycling, pour-over-drinking elite.

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Molly Gore

Josey Baker's whole wheat with butter and almond butter.

After seven months as a tent in front of its brick-and-mortar space on Divisadero, The Mill officially opened its doors this morning. By its second hour the line was stacked deep and looking antsy. The new spot from Josey Baker and Jeremy Tooker (Four Barrel) is a combination bakery/cafe, a welcome marriage of Four Barrel's reliably delicious coffee and Baker's well-loved repertoire of baked goods.

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Flickr/Randy Read

On paper, the concept of the modern coffee pod machine isn't a bad one: quick, convenient, and supposedly delicious coffee delivered at the simple press of a button. And if any of this were true, coffee pods might have earned their immense popularity. Unfortunately though, pod coffee is a hoax, an illusion of simplicity and taste foisted upon an unknowing populace by the puppeteers of Corporate Coffee America.

Is it really all that bad? Yes, yes it is. Here are few reasons why pod coffee is a chromatically cased devil eating away at our coffee culture:

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