The Canister on Osborne

While not really a review, I wanted to make a quick post about The Canister, a coffee, tea, and associated paraphernalia store located in Osborne Village.

I've walked by The Canister many times, but made a point to stop in a couple of weeks ago. They have a large selection of coffee and tea cups and associated gear, and what seemed to be a great deal of tea as well. I didn't look at their coffee too closely, but they seemed to have a reasonably large selection of coffee, though it was hard to tell where it was from (and thus how fresh it was). I didn't ask. Interestingly, there were a couple of varieties of green beans for those who might want to roast at home (again there might be better/fresher sources depending on what you're looking for — do your research).

What caught my eye was The Canister's selection of manual coffee grinders. I've been thinking about getting a manual conical burr mill for my press pot, and had heard that Zassenhaus mills were amongst the best on the market. However, I never expected to find one in Winnipeg. Lo and behold — there they were on the shelf, box mills and Turkish mills of various kinds. The (presumably) owner and I got to talking about how he managed to obtain these mills given the lack of a Zassenhaus distributor in North America.

So, if you're looking for a high quality manual coffee mill, The Canister is worth a look. They might be worth a look for coffee as well — just ask where the coffee comes from and how fresh it is.