Send us your mould

September 4, 2003 12:58 PM

PSA: BBC News is having a moldy coffee cup contest. Closing date for photos of your hairy cup-o-joe is Sept. 10. Got Culture?
posted by titboy (8 comments total)

Damn, damn, DAMN! I JUST washed mine. It had been growing in a neglected corner of my cube for WEEKS. Rats.
posted by ubi at 1:10 PM on September 4, 2003

I've tried to grow some coffee culture, but the cleaning crew that maintains the office keeps putting the dirty cups in the dishwasher. I may have to resort to hiding them in drawers.
posted by jazon at 1:21 PM on September 4, 2003

No. No. Nononononononononooooooooooooooooooooo.

By the by, if you culture coffee that's had some Hazelnut CoffeeMate added, after about 48 hours the result is amazingly custard-like in consistency. Looks almost good enough to eat.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:22 PM on September 4, 2003

I had three metal Starbucks cups in my office that I had forgotten about since 1999. Flash forward to the aughts and my subsequent layoff in 2003. As I cleaned out my space, I discovered that all three of these cups had mold in them. A nasty, other-worldly mold that seemed offended at my upsetting their space. God I wish I had taken pics.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 1:25 PM on September 4, 2003

oh boy i've seen some bad ones! you know you work for a laid back company when you get back from vacation and your mug, with what used to be an inch of coffee left, is still on your desk, untouched.
posted by carfilhiot at 2:03 PM on September 4, 2003

i have one around here somewhere...sometimes it moves itself closer to the window, i think its working on photosynthesis.
posted by th3ph17 at 3:48 PM on September 4, 2003

Like so many others, I had a great specimen years ago that I nurtured over the course of many months. It developed an interesting color/pattern that almost looked like wood grain, and then it got fuzzy.

My hypochondriac co-worker finally disposed of it when I was on vacation, claiming I was going to give the entire office asthma from the spores.
posted by Oriole Adams at 6:46 PM on September 4, 2003

You have to be careful though... it needs food. If you don't look after it it'll turn into a hard sheet of dead mould.

Actually... what happens to dead mould? If can't go mouldy, can it?
posted by twine42 at 12:38 AM on September 5, 2003