Book Towns: Part II

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Abbie Lu

Here is the second part to an already awesome list of Book Towns. I hope you enjoy these ones as much as
Book Towns: Part I

Here are 6 more stunning little Book Towns:

St. Martins, New Brunswick
A beautiful Canadian village 40 km east of Saint John, it is situated on the Bay of Fundy. The village was founded by a Loyalists in 1783, and was originally known as Quaco. St. Martins has a population of approx. 304 (2006.) In 2007, the St. Martins Book town Initiative was formed.
Soon after that the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly officially proclaimed St. Martins as New Brunswick’s official Book town. There are now nearly a dozen booksellers located in the village.

Wigtown, Scotland
Wigtown was officially designated as Scotland’s National Book Town in 1998 and is now home to over 20 book-related businesses.

A book lovers haven; it has over a
quarter of a million books to choose from, old and new. It would be impossible to escape this town empty handed. Every year Wigtown book Festival offers more than 180 events for adults, children and young people; including literature, music, film, theatre, arts and crafts. The festival takes place for 10 days each autumn.

Fjærland, Norway
Fjærland has 300 inhabitants, and is part of Sogndal municipality. The centre in Fjærland is Mundal, about 3 km from the main road, down the fjord. Most people in Fjærland are engaged in farming and tourism.

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A simple and beautiful book town; with book shops situated in old cow sheds and pigpens, there are also book shops on the ferry quay, and
in the Hotel Mundal. An absolutely picturesque little village!

Clunes, Victoria (Australia)
The charming Goldfields village of Clunes is famous for its bookshops, set amidst a heritage rich landscape. From the collectibles to the bargains, from small shops to large shops stocking thousands of titles. Clunes is located 36 km north of Ballarat.
It is a member of the International Organisations of Book Towns.
This year Clunes celebrates it’s 10 year book town anniversary.
The idea of transforming Clunes into a European-style book town was first conceived and developed by Councillor Tim Hayes, Linda Newitt, Graeme Johnston, and Tess Brady. Clunes held its first ‘Booktown for a Day’ event on 20 May 2007.
Over 50 booksellers from around Australia set up shop for the day in the town’s heritage buildings.
Clunes has a population of 1656 (2011) and more than 60 booksellers. With millions of books and 15,000 visitors, it has impressively become the largest collection of books in any regional centre of Australia.

Sedbergh, Cumbria (England)
A lovely town laced with old world atmosphere. There are only about eight bookshops in Sedbergh, but one of these books shops is enormous. Westwood Books, is a family business that moved to Sedbergh from Hay‑on‑Wye in 2005. As a former cinema it holds about 70,000 titles.
The other smaller shops sell books in the town itself and at Farfield Mill Heritage Centre, a mile and a half away. Among these are some small‑scale specialists: Avril’s Books at Farfield Mill (craft, textiles and applied arts), Sleepy Elephant (vintage children’s books, local interest and guides), Sedbergh Information and Book Centre (18 different dealers represented, with specialisms including fine art, transport and sport).

Bredevoort, Netherlands
A small medieval town in the Netherlands with a population of approx. 1600. The town was designated a book town in 1993 because of its more than 20 secondhand and antiquarian bookshops.
Every third Saturday of the month, the town square hosts a book market, attracting book dealers from all over the country to sell English, German, and Dutch books. Bredevoort is one of the founding members of the International Organisation of Book Towns, and hosts many literary events to support the local book economy.

These are just some of the most popular and well known book towns, but there are many more. My heart is so warmed by these little treasures. I hope you enjoyed learning about them as much as I did.

Which one/s are your favorite?

Monday Meet n’ Greet

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Abbie Lu

Lets get to know each other:
Share about your love of books and/or coffee/tea! Source: Cafe Meet n’ Greet

Book Towns: Part I

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Abbie Lu

A Book Town is a trend that began in the 1960’s and refers to a town or village with a large number of used book or antiquarian book stores.
Along with their unique and plentiful bookstores they also host wonderful literary festivals

These book festivals attract book lovers and bibliophiles from all over the world. A number of towns are also members of the International Organisation of Book Towns.

Check out these first 6 awesome, yet quaint little book towns:

Montolieu, France
Sometimes referred to as the “Village of Books.” Montolieu was the town that first introduced me to the concept of “Book Towns.” With a population of roughly only 747 people Montolieu contains fifteen bookshops, mostly specializing in second-hand and
antiquarian books.
Every year the town offers many workshops such as: Used and antiquarian bookshops, Working craftspeople of books and art, The Arts and Crafts of the Book Museum, Bibliophilia stocks, Educational activities around the Book and its craft, and many more. These workshops attract approx. . 52 000 visitors each year.

Hay-on-Wye, Wales
The concept of book towns first came into being in the 1960s, when the fortunes of Hay-on-Wye, a small market town on the Welsh/English border, were transformed by the power of books. The opportunity to regenerate struggling villages and towns by opening up secondhand bookstores and welcoming literary events has since been embraced by many other locations around the world. The town of just under 2,000 also hosts an “honesty bookshop,” where you make your selection against a backdrop of some old ruins and leave your money in a box.

Jinbōchō, Tokyo
Known as Tokyo’s center of used-book stores and publishing houses, and as a popular antique and curio shopping area. In 1913, a large fire destroyed most of the area. In the wake of the fire, a university professor named Shigeo Iwanami opened a bookstore in Jinbōchō which eventually grew into today’s Iwanami Shoten publishing house. Over time, the area became popular with university students and intellectuals, and many small bookstores and cafes opened there.

Hobart, New York
Hobart is a historical village in Delaware County, New York, United States. This beautiful agricultural community has a population of approx. 441 (at the 2010 census.) The village has 5 bookstores, as well as 20 other book sellers within a 20 mile radius. In 1999 the town was a ghost town but by 2005 Don Dales (a local entrepreneur) and musician saved the town by establishing the first book town east of the Mississippi.
For a detailed story about this town’s amazing
journey check out the article in this link:

Urueña, Spain
In the medieval town of Urueña, in Valladolid, you will find the first “Villa del Libro” in Spain. In the streets of this town you will find 12 bookshops selling old or out of print books, or wher e interesting activities take place: El Rincón Escrito, Alejandría Bookshop, “Wine Museum” Cellar Bookshop (specialising in science and fiction literature about wine), Alcuino Caligrafía (organises
courses on calligraphy of other cultures, for all levels), El 7 Bookshop (specialising in the world of bullfighting), Samuel Bookshop, Alvacal, Boutique del Cuento, Almadí Bookshop, La Punta del Iceberg, Alcaraván Bookshop and the Artisan Book Binding Workshop of Urueña.
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167995

Redu, Belgium
In the beautiful Ardennes region of Belgium, Redu is a lovely little village with a population of 500. Local villager Noel Anselot returned from a trip to Hay-on-Wye In 1979, and was so inspired that he decided to regenerate his own tiny village by attracting booksellers. He wrote to many book-dealers across the region, inviting them to set up shop in some of the original village buildings (such as barns, houses, and sheds) to keep the look of the village intact. The project was a success. Now 17 bookshops specializing in secondhand books and comics are based in the village. Redu holds a number of book-related exhibitions and events every year, including a book night when the bookshops stay open all night long. The town was officially declared a book town in 1984 after holding its first book festival.

I cannot get over how beautiful these towns are.
It would be a dream to visit any one of them. However, I think I need to save up so I can plan an around the book world in 80 days trip!

Have you been to any of these book towns? Which would you love to visit?

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow evening! Now Available: Pt: II

Sunday Funnies!

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Top 10 Most Expensive Coffees

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Abbie Lu

These coffee’s are rare and unique and come from all over the world. There is an interesting variety of flavors to keep any coffee connoisseur interested. However not all of these are readily available, some are bought by auction, some are sold in small batches to select people, and some are only sold in far off places.

Starting with the least expensive here are
the top 10 most expensive coffees:

Black Blood of the Earth $40/750ml
or $95 for Blue Mountain!
Philip Broughton, the man who invented this coffee, says most of the coffee beans come from the rift valleys of Ethiopia and Africa where the beans are loaded with oil.
Flavor Notes: The acid is lost during intense processing, so what you get in your cup is a strong flavored brew that is rich in caffeine, but lacks acid.
Fun Fact: Black Blood of Earth is prepared using cold vacuum extraction. During the processing stage, most of the bean oil is extracted, and this makes the coffee abundantly rich in caffeine. The caffeine content is about 20 to 40 times more than that of regular coffee.

Los Planes Coffee (Citala, El Salvador) $40/lb
Flavor Notes: A delicate balance of sweet chocolate citrus and a fruity acidity, with a mild body and a clean and transparent cup
Fun Fact: This remarkable coffee, has helped catapult this “no name” region of El Salvador into a star in the coffee-growing world.

Hawaiian Kona Coffee $45-$65/lb
Flavor Notes: Smooth, delicate, and full-bodied, and with a bright, clear flavor and rich aroma. It is also described as robust, and usually with medium acidity.
Fun Fact: The sunny mornings, cloud or rain in the afternoon, little wind, and mild nights combined with porous, mineral-rich volcanic soil create favorable coffee growing conditions.

Fazenda Santa Ines (Minas Gerais, Brazil) aprx. $50/lbFlavor Notes: Toasted hazelnuts, berry, and cocoa with low acidity and medium body
Fun Fact: This family operated business uses traditional methods in all stages of coffee production

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee $50/lb
Flavor Notes: The coffee has blue green color, good acidity, intense aroma, fairly good body, clean.
Fun Fact: A balance of floral aroma, acidity and full body.

Guatemala Finca El Injerto Pacamara (Huehuetenango) $60/lb
Flavor Notes: Tangerine, Cranberry & Dark Chocolate
Fun Fact: In an online auction held in 2012, Finca El Injerto coffee beans were sold for a record-breaking price of $500.50 per pound. Since then, the coffee has gained a celebrity status worldwide. It is one of the rarest coffees from Yemen.

St. Helena Island Coffee Company $89/lb
Flavor Notes: Delicate Acidity, Great Balance, and Full Bodied.
Fun Fact: In 1815, the British government selected Saint Helena as the place of detention of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was taken to the island in October 1815. Napoleon stayed at the Briars pavilion on the grounds of the Balcombe family’s home until his permanent residence,Longwood House, was completed in December 1815. Napoleon died there on 5 May 1821.

Hacienda la Esmeralda Coffee aprx. $350/lb
Bought by auction only 2014 auction price was $350 a pound.
Flavor Notes: Extremely complex aromatics and flavors, including jasmine and stone fruit . Brilliant and clear acidity. Bergamot notes in the cup. Try it for $35/ cup.
Fun Fact: Geisha Esmeralda is grown on the fertile farmlands of Hacienda Esmeralda, which is nestled on Mount Baru in the Jamarillo region in western Panama.

Kopi Luwak Coffee (Indonesia) $100 to $600
Just saw on amazon for aprx. $374/lb
Trung Nguyen Legendee Gold Coffee Enxym simulated (no animals used) aprx. $50/lb
Flavor Notes: Diminished acidity and flavor and added smoothness to the body
Fun Fact: It is produced from the coffee cherries having been digested by a certain Indonesian cat-like animal called then palm civet or also civet cat. This is the reason kopi luwak is also called civet coffee. The feces of the cat are collected, finished, and sold as kopi luwak. In the coffee industry, kopi luwak is widely regarded as a gimmick or novelty item.

Black Ivory Coffee (Thailand)
$66 +shipping for 35 grams! Transfer that into a pound and it’s $855/lb
Flavor Notes: Dark chocolate, a hint of grass, spice (particularly tobacco, leather and cinnamon depending on the water you use) and it will be very soft, almost tea-like without the burnt or bitter taste of espresso.
Fun Facts: Only 150 kg are produced a year. The limitations are due to the availability of high quality coffee cherries, the appetite of the elephants, the number of beans destroyed through chewing, and the ability of the mahouts and their wives to pick the beans by hand (8800 beans equal one kg of Black Ivory Coffee).

Have you tried any of these coffees? Which ones do you want to try?

Fun Coffee Facts

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Abbie Lu

Its Friday so here are some Fun Facts!

Just a few coffee tid-bits nothing too deep:

Arabs were the first to cultivate coffee and the first to make a beverage from the roasted beans around 1300 AD.
Coffee was originally used by monks and “prescribed” medicinally.
Today coffee is grown in more than 70 countries – all in subtropical regions – and more people drink coffee than any other beverage except water and perhaps tea.
The United States consumes more coffee – 300 million cups a day – than any other country as a whole, but other countries drink more per capita. The average citizens of Finland drinks about 2.64 cups of coffee a day, higher than any other nation.
Workers who drank coffee rather than napping were more alert and performed better on the job, studies show.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but considering I can’t nap, I’m going to choose to believe it. 😀
Most research shows that drinking coffee has a variety of health benefits and may be good for heart health.
It takes about 5000 pounds of coffee cherries to produce 1,000 pounds of green coffee beans; the beans lose another 20 percent of their weight in the roasting.
Coffee is a relative of the gardenia plant family and is thought to be indigenous to the African region which is now the country of Ethiopia.
The flower is also beautiful and smell similar to Jasmine!
Coffee beans have up to 800 flavor characteristics that our senses can detect. Red wine, by comparison, only has 400. Most coffee connoisseurs prefer mild roasts because the longer a coffee bean is roasted, more characteristics are burned off.
Espresso Coffee has just one third of the caffeine content of ordinary coffee.
This is why I always use medium roasted coffee for my lattes and cappuccinos. Okay the flavor is actually why, but hey, good to know right!
The process of roasting causes coffee beans to begin to release carbon dioxide. When you pour hot water over freshly roasted and ground coffee, as in a French press, you will get a foamy head like that from a dark beer.
A coffee tree lives for between 60 and 70 years.
Long live the coffee bean!!!

The Coffee plant is one INCREDIBLE edible,
fragrantly delicious creation!

Legend:
There are ancient accounts that attribute the discovery of coffee to Sheikh Omar. According to the ancient chronicle (preserved in the Abd-Al-Kadir manuscript), Omar, who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer, was once exiled from Mocha, Yemen to a desert cave near Ousab. Starving, Omar chewed berries from nearby shrubbery, but found them to be bitter. He tried roasting the seeds to improve the flavor, but they became hard. He then tried boiling them to soften the seed, which resulted in a fragrant brown liquid. Upon drinking the liquid Omar was revitalized and sustained for days. As stories of this “miracle drug” reached Mocha, Omar was asked to return and was made a saint. From Ethiopia, the coffee plant was introduced into the Arab World through Egypt and Yemen.