Jay and Anne Merrell, Noblesville, bought the longtime restaurant at 809 Conner St. Tuesday from former owner Gordon Breakey. The price was not disclosed, and the sale hasn't been recorded with Hamilton County yet.

Jay Merrell, who is executive vice president at IDI Composites International, plans to lease the cafe to a tenant who will cook and operate the restaurant. He hopes to announce the deal in about a month and have people eating breakfast and lunch there by mid-summer, saying the restaurant will have the same local flavor it traditionally has sported. "We're trying to help Noblesville stay Noblesville."

The McGlinch family owned the cafe for 29 years, at one time operating it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Breakey, who did not return messages for this story, bought it from them in 2003 and closed it in September 2007. It has remained closed to this day, although the sign has never come down and Christmas decorations were lit during the holiday season.

Joe Arrowood, Noblesville Main Street executive director, said the restaurant has long been a downtown landmark. The historic building is part of Main Street's series of miniature buildings, and it is the only one with an attached business sign. Just as on the restaurant at Eighth and Conner, an Uptown Cafe sign sticks out at the corner of the miniature of the restaurant.

The Lowther family built the building in 1883. It was Lowther's Shoe Store until 1932, when it became the Uptown Cafe.

"It'll be great to have it open again on the southside of the square," Arrowood said. "It will help the southside businesses."

Ethiopia has launched a campaign to brand and market its coffee after ending a long trademark dispute with US coffee giant Starbucks last year, an official statement said Thursday.

The Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office said a brand specialist has been commissioned to "create a distinctive and easy-to-use brand identity system for Ethiopian fine coffees."

Ethiopia, Africa's largest coffee producer, will trademark its most famous coffee names -- Sidamo, Harar and Yigacheffe.

Last year, Ethiopia and Seattle-based Starbucks reached an agreement to publicise Ethiopian varieties on its coffee labels and allow the east African state to pursue trademarks for its Harrar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe beans.

The trademark dispute dates to 2006, when the US Patent and Trademark Office ruled against Addis Ababa's trademark application and in favour of the National Coffee Association, which includes Starbucks.

"Licensees are required to feature Ethiopia's new brand identity in their marketing as part of their licensee agreements," the statement added.

Coffee accounts for 60 percent of the Horn of Africa nation's export revenues and is the largest source of foreign currencies, ahead of flowers and oil seeds.

Ethiopia is the world's sixth coffee producer and the second largest consumer after Brazil.

Most coffee campaigns focus on the product intrinsics - the taste, the aroma - how the product makes you feel, or the coffee consumption moment.

Then there is this truly beautiful ad for Moccona. Conceptualised by M&C Saatchi Sydney, it takes a completely different approach to coffee, using the unique shape of the glass coffee jar lid in a new take on the Cinderella story:  this time,  a man searches through a city for the woman who possesses the jar that fits his lid.

Filmed in Montevideo, Uruguay, the ad evokes appropriately European sophistication for a premium instant coffee product.* It’s lovely to watch, the music is beautiful, and most importantly of all, it is rooted in a real customer insight. While most of us will never get to play Cinderella or a prince, we do unscrew the lids off our coffee jars - and having seen this ad, who will not think of that unique Moccona lid every time they do so?

So the ad succeeds in presenting instant coffee in a completely different way - there is not a single shot of anyone actually drinking the product - while successfully reinforcing the uniqueness of the brand through a strong association with the packaging. A fine example of advertising at its best.

*It does remind me a little of the award-winning Ciro commercial developed by TBWA Hunt Lascaris in the late 1990s, where the Italian lothario forgets the name of the woman he has just bedded.

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

2 Tbs (30 ml) cornstarch (cornflour)
3/4 cup (180 ml) sugar
A pinch of salt
2 Tbs (30 ml) milk
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 cup strong black coffee or espresso
1+1/2 cups (375 ml) whipping cream
Additional whipped cream for topping
Ground cinnamon

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients except for the whipping cream in a saucepan and hold over another pot of simmering water. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon.
2. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours. Whip the cream until it is light but not stiff and fold into the coffee mixture.
3. Serve in parfait cups or stemmed wine glasses and top with additional whipped cream and a light dusting of cinnamon.

Australians are being encouraged to take a Fairtrade coffee break to help improve the lives of farmers in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Peppers Deli & Books owner Christi Muir said that changing over from traditional coffee to Fairtrade coffee was a simple thing to do.

"You are enabling small-scale farmers to provide the basics of life for their family," she said.

"Coffee farmers are really hurting and we want local people to have the opportunity to change that situation.

"Just think how much more enjoyable your coffee will be when you know it's helping lift coffee farmers out of poverty."

Fair Trade is an alternative approach to conventional international trade, which aims to share the benefits of trade more equitably between consumers, producers and the environment.

Fair Trade Fortnight events will be held across Australia until May 18, giving consumers the opportunity to learn and support the organisation.

Peppers Deli & Books will donate $1 from every coffee sold on Thursday to Oxfam Australia.

We have some amazing technology developing here in Canada. Homegrown high-tech whiz-bang -- Nobel Prize material, really.

This system is too good to be true: it can provide fuel, or be easily processed into one of our most versatile building materials; it can sequester CO2 to slow global warming; be harvested for food; increase ecosystem health and biodiversity by providing habitat for animals, birds, plants and insects; slow damaging storm-water runoff; purify water; and help remediate contaminated soils. The feedstock is free and abundant, and maintenance on the system is negligible.

Or, we can destroy trees for pulp to make paper coffee cups, which, after 15 minutes of use, we throw in the garbage can. Then, we pick the cups up with pollution-belching trucks and throw them in a dump, where they rot and create more greenhouse gases. To say this is not an elegant solution to beverage transportation is quite an understatement -- but what could we replace it with?

I have never really understood the delight with which coffee companies brand their paper cups. After all, we usually throw stuff in the garbage because it is low quality or broken. Take a walk down any inner-city alley and you will quickly get a picture of which mattresses sag too soon and which televisions are prone to burning out. A look in the garbage cans will tell you which coffee shops are serious about the environment, and which ones are causing serious environmental damage.

Disposable taste buds?

There are lots of problems with disposable cups. Up to 90 per cent of flavor comes from the aroma you inhale, so the non-recyclable styrene lids make your morning jolt about one-tenth as delicious. Paper cups are all lined with plastic to prevent sogginess and, if you want to keep your reproductive organs functioning, plastic is seldom considered a good marriage with hot or acidic liquids.

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Chimps don't like coffee. (Perhaps it's an evolved taste?) But they're the happy beneficiaries of a new line of single origin coffees championed by Dr. Jane Goodall, who has been living among the chimps of Tanzania's Gombe Reserve for almost 50 years.

Concerned about how continued deforestation was threatening the chimps' habitat, Goodall formed a partnership with Green Mountain Coffee of Waterbury, Vt., to give farmers an incentive to grow coffee, a crop that thrives in the shade of the tropical tree canopy. The more trees they let stand, the better the coffee crop, the greater their income.

"This is win, win, win, win I lose track of the number of wins," Goodall said Friday, speaking at the Speciality Coffee Association of America's international convention. More than 7,000 coffee growers, marketers, shop owners and baristas are expected at the convention, which continues through Monday at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

INGREDIENTS
8 cups hot brewed coffee
8 fluid ounces coffee flavored liqueur
8 fluid ounces brandy
4 fluid ounces creme de cacao
2 cups whipped cream, garnish
2 tablespoons chocolate sprinkles

DIRECTIONS
In the bottom of 8 coffee mugs, pour 1 ounce each coffee liqueur and brandy. Pour in 1/2 ounce each creme de cacao. Fill each cup with hot coffee and garnish with a dollop of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

TO INDUCE the wired, jittery, nervous condition described as "caffeinism" requires a dose of 700mg of caffeine, which is around nine or ten cups of coffee.

A similar state can be induced in the owners of independent cafés by a single announcement ADVERTISEMENTfrom Costa. The small businessman who earns his living from a well-brewed cup of joe will have reacted with horror at the news that Britain's largest chain of coffee houses is about to become even bigger, with the announcement of plans to open a further 1,000 stores both at home and abroad.

If 1000mg of caffeine can be lethal, the small businessman will surely feel that the same can be said for the seemingly unstoppable rise of the coffee giants.

While Starbucks previously had the most coffee outlets in Britain with almost 650, Costa Coffee, owned by Whitbread, the leisure conglomerate, has recently stolen their crown, opening its 700th café last week in London.

Britain's capital is the front line for the pair's battle for supremacy Starbucks plans to open a new coffee shop in London every fortnight for the next ten years, while Costa, which already has 53 outlets in Scotland, is opening four a week across the UK.

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Prep time: 10 minutes, plus 1 hour to marinate

Cook time: 15-18 minutes

1 1/2 cups cold coffee

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 cup peanut butter

3 tablespoons honey

1/2-inch chunk fresh ginger

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Four 8-ounce bottom sirloin steaks (or other tender, broiler-friendly cut)

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

In a blender or food processor, combine the coffee, pepper flakes, peanut butter, honey and ginger. Puree until smooth, then taste and season with salt and pepper.

Pour half of the marinade in a baking dish. Set the steaks in the baking dish, then pour the remaining marinade over them. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

When ready to cook, preheat the broiler. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil.

In a large, deep skillet, heat the oil over medium-high. Add the steak, in batches if necessary, and sear until lightly browned, about 3 to 4 minutes per side.

Transfer the steaks to the prepared baking sheet. For medium-rare, broil for 7 to 8 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted at the thickest part of the steak reads 135 F.

Let the steaks rest for 10 minutes before serving.