A Lost Twitter List, Beans From Kenya

Before I get to the latest installment of my endless coffee quest, I must mourn the end of my brief reign as a Twitter list maven. At the start of this week, I made the mistake of using the latest crashy build of Firefox while playing around on the Tlists site with my lists.

Because of a glitch, several of my lists, including the Linkers list, which had 1,940 followers and was among the top Twitter lists, briefly became "private" and shed all followers in the blink of an eye.

Alas, after some consultation, there seems to be nothing Tlists or Twitter can do. (But I am grateful that the Tlists folks are trying to help with a prominent placement of my list on their home page). So if you enjoyed that list, or if you would like to have 100 top linkers and retweeters (as selected by me) comb the Web looking for interesting stuff for you, then please follow it on Twitter. Given all that is going on in the world, this is not particularly important.

Only about 70 people have bothered to re-follow the list as of today, which makes me question the whole Twitter list concept anyway.

It was obviously not an essential part of the experience for those 1,940 people who signed up when Twitter lists were the hot, new thing. And that sounds about right. Some news organizations are using the lists for useful crowd-sourcing efforts around news events like earthquakes, but for most people a list is a personal matter. Still, I put a lot of work into that one over a period of months, and people say they like it. Others are more upset about this than I am. I credit my equanimity to years of sitting meditation and the soothing effects of high-quality coffee. Which reminds me...

Coffee Kenya Gatomboya

Roasted Feb. 21 by Stumptown Coffee.

Purchased: Feb. 24 at Stumptown in the Ace Hotel at 18 West 29th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.

Description "This classic Kenya profile moves seamlessly from a creamy apricot aroma to rhubarb pie, black cherry, fruit punch and a clean chocolate finish."

In the Cup Yes, it's back to Stumptown, where the prices are high, there are no chairs, business is cash-only and the coffee is delicious. I walked through a brisk snowy Manhattan landscape to get there, picking up this coffee and another that I'll write about later.

The Thumpology blog reports that the Gatomboya cooperative is made up of 700 small coffee growers at high altitudes in Kenya. You can read all the coffee-porn details at the link.

I don't know that I caught much in the way of apricot, rhubarb or cherry and fruit tastes in the many cups of this that I have consumed black in the last couple of weeks. But it is creamy, with a sweet finish, and this coffee goes down easy, letting you forget troubles, for a little while.

I'm sure that the people who worked hard to pick, wash, dry, roast and ship these beans have more serious things to worry about than the destruction of a Twitter list. And that reminds me, why the hell haven't I created a coffee list? I should get on that.