Raw Coffee Beans

Today’s original plan involved taking in the Botanical Garden’s Best of Missouri festival and the adjoining Shaw Art Fair, but the weather today was cold, grey and blustery. We thought that we had dressed appropriately for the day, but it soon became apparent that we hadn’t. We were cycling past the Grand Basin, site of last night’s Forest Park Forever’s fundraising gala, where all sorts of neat new plans for enhancing the park had been announced, when I had an epiphany and suggested that we do something inside instead of out. So, we headed over to the Missouri History Museum to take in the opening today exhibit on coffee.

Step Aside, Seattle

This new exhibit originally hailed from Seattle’s Burke Museum and was sponsored by such Northwest notables as Microsoft, Boeing and of course Starbucks. It was originally called “The World in Your Cup”, but its title and really most of the show had morphed to become very Saint Louis centric. The show’s original title had been appended with, “… and Saint Louis in Your Cup.” Long known as a beer town, apparently Saint Louis has sported some real chops and was once known as this nation’s coffee capital. Who knew? With its French origin, almost from its founding, Saint Louis has been a center for coffee roasting, brewing and drinking. As the rather in your face magazine cover to the left implies, this exhibit and coffee in general is not and has never been the exclusive domain of the Northwest. Chief sponsor for this instance of the exhibit is the Dana Brown trust. After the museum, we headed back, with the hope of snagging some coffee and a wee bit of lunch at Kaldi’s, but it was not to be, because every table had been camped on by students who were studying, but not supporting the coffeehouse. We ended up at Katie’s Pizza, which was fine.

Burlap Coffee Bean Bags