Modus Operandi Elaine was able to procure for me a set of the Modus cups (pictured) and two boxes of the Zebra cups, which, as far as I know, are impossible to find in the US right now.

I had a visit Sunday evening from a machine vendor from Vancouver Island - they were in town on Sunday for a seminar. Afterwards, they stopped by my place for a visit, and we had a great chat.

It was the folks from Machines and Beans in Victoria. David and Elaina run the company.

I've got some great news for fellow Canadians who might be looking for a place to buy upscale machines, illy products and more. They sell them. :) They carry pretty much any Illy product you can imagine (yes, cups - I bought several boxes from them and will be buying a few more), including the formerly rare Illy spoons (around $40 for a dozen, but email them to confirm), a wide variety of Illy art cups (avg price is $161 Cdn, which is much cheaper than the prices I saw at ECM in Burnaby), and the illy logo cups. Finally, a source for these in Canada!

They also carry the Unic line (re Illy), Mazzer grinders including the Mazzer Mini for $680 listed price, (fairly good deal, considering the duties and shipping you pay on a $400 USD one) and other products. If you want several items, give them a shout, I'm sure they'll make the purchase worth your while.

Really nice folks too. Elaina's on a mission of sorts, to bring better coffee to Victoria and environs, and she's really serious about it (though we slightly differ on our pods philosophy). David is the guy who gets into the guts of the machines, and he really seems to know his stuff.

I was able to buy two boxes of the Illy Zebra cups from them as well as the Modus Operandi cups, which are almost impossible to find in the US right now. I do have first dibs on a couple of other older boxes, but if you're in the market for Illy cups, they are a good source.

In fact, once I get them photographed, eventually I will be changing my Illy cup picture on the front of this website. In fact I plan on switching that cup every month or two, featuring some of the 120 different varieties of espresso cups I currently own.

Yeah, I'm obsessed.