InterWined received a response from Matt Hart at EAT regarding our coffee tantrum last week.

As some of you may know, we at InterWined.com operate a policy of full disclosure…even at the expense of our own pride, at times.

Luckily this isn’t one of those moments, but rather a success story for which we feel oddly proud:

[Dear InterWined,]

Thanks for your email & feedback on the coffee issue.

I too find it odd that our baristas would supply the wrong product. It is also certainly not our policy to stop brewing coffee before we close for the day! We should have a full range of availability right up til we close our doors. I have reiterated this point to Marco to eliminate this problem.

I have also asked our drinks manager to visit the shop and particularly the barista to ensure their knowledge is sufficient and apply any retraining.

Thanks again for giving your feedback and please keep telling us how you think we can do things better — we love to hear from you.

Kind regards

Matt Hart
Customer Services Manager
EAT.

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Commercial venues are very aware of the effects that the environment — in this case, music — can have on in-store traffic flow, sales volumes, product choices, and consumer time spent in the immediate vicinity. A study of the effects of music levels on drinking in a bar setting has found that loud music leads to more drinking in less time.

Results will be published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“Previous research had shown that fast music can cause fast drinking, and that music versus no music can cause a person to spend more time in a bar,” said Nicolas Guéguen, a professor of behavioral sciences at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France, and corresponding author for the study. “This is the first time that an experimental approach in a real context found the effects of loud music on alcohol consumption.”

Researchers discretely visited two bars for three Saturday evenings in a medium-size city located in the west of France. The study subjects, 40 males 18 to 25 years of age, were unaware that they were being observed; only those who ordered a glass of draft beer (25 cl. or 8 oz.) were included. With permission from the bar owners, observers would randomly manipulate the sound levels (either 72 dB, considered normal, or 88 dB, considered high) of the music in the bar (Top 40 songs) before choosing a participant. After the observed participant left the bar, sound levels were again randomly selected and a new participant was chosen.

Results showed that high sound levels led to increased drinking, within a decreased amount of time.

Guéguen and his colleagues offered two hypotheses for why this may have occurred. “One, in agreement with previous research on music, food and drink, high sound levels may have caused higher arousal, which led the subjects to drink faster and to order more drinks,”" said Guéguen. “Two, loud music may have had a negative effect on social interaction in the bar, so that patrons drank more because they talked less.”

In France, observed Guéguen, more than 70,000 persons per year die because of chronic alcohol consumption, and alcohol is associated with the majority of fatal car accidents. “We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking,” he said. “We need to encourage bar owners to play music at more of a moderate level … and make consumers aware that loud music can influence their alcohol consumption.”

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Is it time to switch to tea?

InterWined is feeling pretty fed up with living in a non-coffee culture. In fact, one trip to the food mechant EAT (and immediately after the same thing happened in Pret), highlights the frustrations.

The incident inspired us to write to Matt Hart, a Customer Services Manager at EAT, who once sent £10 of vouchers to InterWined personally to get us to try the food:

Hi Matt, since you sent vouchers to me, I have frequented EAT.

Lately, I’ve been eating loads of soup with a basil and tomato baguette. Decadent, I know.

However, there is one issue that is weighing on my mind. It’s twice now that I’ve ordered a filter coffee in the afternoon, only to have the barrista attempt to serve me an Americano, which is basically an espresso with three parts hot water added.

I find it so odd that a barista would knowingly supply the incorrect product to a client.

The first time the barista brew a fresh ‘pot’ in order to deliver the product. Let me tell you, there is nothing better that a fresh cup of EAT coffee.

The reason supplied this afternoon, however, was that EAT was done brewing coffee for the day. That’s fair enough, but again why try to ‘trick’ me?

If I were to walk into a pub and ask for a lager and be served an ale, won’t that be strange? Both are ‘beers’ and both have very different taste profiles.

I will sit and drink a cup of coffee for more than an hour and it is something I feel very passionate about. An Americano retains that harsh espresso edge. A cup of coffee is much more mellow and enjoyable, in my opinion.

Nonetheless, the manager (the excellent Marco, BTW) refunded my money without pause or question.

The barista then said, “you may have the drink for free, sir,” which is sweet, but also highlights the confusion staff have on this issue.

I didn’t order an Americano, therefore I do not want one…

See my point?

IW

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Lucky for InterWined that we had a bottle of McGuigan Hand Made Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2006 when we went camping on the cliffs between Folkstone and Dover this weekend.

Lucky, because we forgot to bring just about everything else… and had to rely on others to provide the necessities for survival. And just when everyone thought we had mooched one biscuit too many, we pulled out the bottle, a personal gift from Brain McGuigan, pulled the cork and poured.

The wine went over so well, the donations continued unabated: tents, lie-lows, cereal and milk. Rides to the store. A boat for the water. A grill for the fish. You name it.

Sweet.

McGuigan Hand Made Langhorne Creek Shiraz is an attempt to pull the jamminess out of Shiraz and ‘replace’ it with plums. The sweetness of the wine makes it approachable to campers and the high alcohol means that, with eight half glasses to pour eight adults from one bottle, it’s just enough to ease the mood and get the evening started. There is a touch of oak and a nice clean finish. This is something different to the run of the mill Australian Shiraz, so it is likely to cost between £15 to £20 once available.

But that’s a small investment, considering the returns. 9.2 points.

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In a survey on showering habits of western Europeans, the British are the most water wasteful and care the least about any negative environmental effects from their shower gel, shampoos and soap usage.

And in particular, the women in Britain are especially guilty of wasting shower water and not caring about contaminants, says the report for the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The most glaring contrast in the survey shows that only 35% of British men give thought to contaminants compared nearly two-thirds of Spanish women who do care about them.

The French and Spanish emerge most commendably from the survey, demonstrating greater restraint in water conservation and concern about washing contaminants into the water system, when compared to British and German adults.

Also, adults in Western Europe are most likely to shower for between two and five minutes, indicates the report.

“It’s an embarrassment that the British appear to be a right shower when it comes to caring about water. We are an island surrounded by water and criss-crossed by rivers but also highly and densely populated,” said Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

“We must not wait until the 59th minute before we tackle impending environmental disasters. Are we so short-sighted that we act only when the consequences are already upon us?

“We have to take on board the critical message that water is a precious resource and in the years to come it is going to become increasingly scarce. We can save water massively by using less when washing, without compromising hygiene.

“One should be able to shower thoroughly in a couple of minutes; we hear stories of people staying in the shower for half an hour at a time, which is absurd and self-indulgent. They say that it helps them relax.

“Well, if we had a population of five million and not 60 million such self-indulgence might be tolerable.

“But today, with the world facing water shortages, that simply doesn’t wash.”

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