Final Day for the September Easter Egg Drawing.

Only 4 people have found the easter egg on the landing page of anchorbayroasts.com.  You could get your name added to the drawing by visiting and finding it too.  When you do, you have a chance at winning FREE coffee too!


Good Luck.

Happy Belated National Coffee Day!

I had never heard of such a thing but then a friend of mine told me about it, then I saw that another friend and his wife got "their free cup" at a popular doughnut shop.  I guess I should have jumped on the bandwagon huh? Well, it's not yet too late.


For everyone who submits an original poem about their love of coffee at the Anchor Bay Roasts website between now 11:59pm tomorrow night - I will put into a drawing for a 2.5oz package of my new Sumatra -  Iskandar Premium.  This Sumatran will not only make your vocal chords reflexively say "YUM" but I am betting that the lucky winner will become a coffee snob for life because all other coffee will pale in comparison. So let me hear the depth of your coffee love.  (Sorry, no international shipments or Alaska & Hawaii.)

Sumatra - Iskandar Premium

When the farmers (all women) pick the Iskandar berries they immediately remove the beans from the pulp and hand wash them in order to remove any excess pulp.  Then it is sent to the processor where it is sun dried and cured being raked and turned many times.  After the beans have dried they are hand inspected for quality and then only the best beans are allowed entrance into the Premium bag.  


It would take an economist to figure out how many man hours goes into each bean and then how many beans goes into each cup!


First off I noticed that the aroma shouts the character of this cup.  It rolls along with a rich earthy scent that begs you to come back for more.  My wife wondered if I was drinking her cup as I brought it to her but I merely had my nose buried in and smelling the wonderful promise.


I sat with my cup and blew and smelled for a while.  Then when I took a sip it was a perfect temperature.  I was delighted with a deep-earthy flavor that was pregnant with botanicals - but not flowery.  The body was creamy and rich setting heavy on the tongue and not at all watered down.  It was one of those coffee that illicited an audible "YUM" from me.


When I start my monthly coffee klatch roasting club (something that is begging to be begun) I think I will certainly be presenting this Sumatran.

New Service for Birthdays...

A friend asked me to make 5lbs. of coffee for her husband's birthday gift.  I declined.  Do I need the business - yes.  So why did I give up the opportunity?  Because 5lbs. will sit in someone's cupboard, fridge or freezer for quite a while.  Since coffee goes stale in just 2 weeks I don't want people making my coffee and thinking to themselves that it tastes just like the rest of the stale coffee that they drink.  So, I created The Coffee Gift and made it one of the services that I provide at Anchor Bay Roasts.  Check it out and get your co-worker, friend, or loved one one of the best gifts that you could ever get them.

A New Experience

Please do not worry, I am now and will always be a coffee drinker, but I need to discover a fun experience for my non-coffee drinking clients.  Today, I made a pot of tea with something called a "flowering" tea.  This is a hand-stitched bunch of teas that are sewn into a ball and when boiling water is added it slowly absorbed the water and blooms into a beautiful flower. After 4-5 minutes the tea is ready to be drank.

This was a fun experience for the whole family because the kids liked watching it bloom as well as tasting the result.  The tea seems to me to be what tea should be but the experience made it something that I would have loved to have done on a first-date. ;-)

On another note.  There is still time to visit www.anchorbayroasts.com (the landing page) and find the easter egg to be put in the drawing for the free coffee.  Good luck!

Which is True?

When I was a kid I always used to see my grandma with her coffee cup.  As I grew I learned that she did indeed drink coffee in the mornings but in the evenings it was actually Pabst Blue Ribbon in her cup.


I once went to a hoity-toity wine tasting in Lansing, MI and as I was standing behind a lady to get some wine I watched her get a glass of Merlot and ask the server for "a couple of packets of sugar" to put in her glass.  I was not actually appalled but I did find it amusing that she had not even tasted the wine and she was asking for an additive.  You know, good wine does not need sugar and if wine does it is not actually good wine.


The same is to be said about coffee - it actually has a good-tasting God-designed flavor that can be experienced in each cup.  If it does not then you either have bad coffee or you do not really like coffee to begin with.


What's in your cup?


anchorbayroasts.com

Do You Have a Poem in Your Soul?

Besides being a great warrior, King David was a man of great passion.  His Psalms are the music of the souls of men - and have been for thousands of years.  Like King David, many of us have deep emotions that spill from us like rains from the Michigan sky in the forms of the words that we write.  Do you have a passion for coffee?  Would you share it with the class?  We would be much obliged.

http://www.anchorbayroasts.com/poetry.html

You Charge How Much?!?!?

Well crap!  I had to increase the cost of the coffee that I produce or I was not going to be producing it for very long.  It is still less expensive by a 1/3 than most of the brick-and-mortar producers but it is not as silly inexpensive as I had first quoted.

Please click here to read about it.

My House Does Not Smell Like Fish...

The other night our family had baked tilapia and the house smelled of fish for a while.  This morning it smells like dark roasted coffee. ;-)  (See the last post to learn why).


Also, this morning I received my 2nd email alerting me that the easter-egg on the Anchor Bay Roasts homepage has been found.  That means there are now 2 people in the drawing to win FREE coffee.  Visit the website to find the easter-egg and you could be the third.

3.5 Pounds of Coffee...

Today I worked on roasting a couple of orders for Fresh Roasted Single Origin coffee.  In all I had to roast 3.5 lbs. of ground coffee which means that I had to begin with 4.3 lbs. of green coffee beans. (Yes, coffee does lose 20% of its weight when it cooks.)  I really need to work on some things if I am going to proceed.


First, I need to work on becoming efficient in the process.  It took me 4.5 hours to roast, grind, & bag the order.  I seriously underestimated the labor when I determined the price.  I think I priced the labor at $4.00 per pound - go me, I was paid a whopping $14.00 for today's performance. ;-)


Second, I need to work on getting better ventilation in my kitchen.  At one point the house was so thick from smoke that you would have thought it was a VFW hall at Happy Hour.  Having all the windows open in the winter is not going to cut it so I need to figure something out.


Third, I need to learn to train my children and then trust them to help.  They want to be a part of this but I keep seeing images of coffee grounds getting spilled on the ground and the shrinkage of my product increasing.  Yes, I know that I am a control-freak and I need to get over it.  I think I need some therapy.


On another note.  Someone found the easter-egg on www.anchorbayroasts.com today.  This is the first and only person this month who has found it so unless someone else does the drawing for the FREE coffee will be easy.  If you want to look its somewhere on the very first page.

And It Begins...

I have been contracted to supply VOX Church with Fresh Roasted coffee each week.  This means that the people who come to church this Sunday (and each Sunday going forward) will be enjoying the (dare I say it?) the very most awesome best coffee available in the whole Anchor Bay area.


This week I will be roasting up a Yemen Mocca - Sanani and a Peru Organic Royal Select Decaf.  The Mocca is an excellent coffee which sports a faint chocolate flavoring that becomes more dominant as the brew cools.  The smell is like the smell of a warm chocolate pudding that grandma used to make on the stove when I was a kid.  


The Peruvian has a fantastic flavoring which when roasted dark makes the taste-buds do a little dance.  This decaf has been water treated which is the mildest and most natural way to remove caffeine from coffee beans.  So if you do not have plans this Sunday join us at VOX Church and experience freshest cup of coffee in town.


And oh yeah, in case you are wondering.  When coffee is this good, you'll find that worshiping our creator takes on a whole new relevance in your soul.

Rwanda - Bugisu

I have had this coffee before and my opinion HAS changed - I am really unimpressed with this coffee.  I am a purist and I don't like coffee additives but this roast begs character - even character that comes from cream, sugar, and other flavorings.  I realize that coffee tasting is purely subjective so I will refrain from any further bashing of this bean, but for my tastes, I would prefer some Maxwell House.


ON ANOTHER NOTE:  If you have been to Anchor Bay Roasts and have not been able to find the easter-egg, I will give you a hint - it's on the landing page somewhere in the image.

Easter Egg & Email Sign-up

Did you know that there is a couple of ways to get FREE Coffee from Anchor Bay Roasts?

1.  There is an Easter Egg somewhere on the landing page - find it and get entered for the FREE Coffee.

2.  If you have not yet done so, simply sign-up with your email and you will be automatically entered for the September drawing.

Click over to www.anchorbayroasts.com and get registered for FREE Coffee now.

Funeral for a Friend

I'm just heart broken, I have been using this 3cup French Press for a couple of years now.  I have made many hundreds if not thousands of cups of coffee with it.  And last night while washing it I whacked it on the faucet and shattered it.  It's silly to be so fond of a dumb $10 Meijer item but trying to replace it seems to be problematic.


Just the other day I found and purchased a 3cup coffee maker on eBay because the dumb things are sort of rare - and thus expensive.  So it came in and it looked decent enough but I chose to just keep my old one and sell the new one as part of my business.  Low and behold not a week later I destroy this one but luckily I had the new one on hand so I broke it out and used it.  Yikes!  It is terrible.  The glass beaker is about 5mm larger in diameter and so it the screen.  This caused the screen to buckle in a spot rather than seal and thus I have grounds in my coffee.  I actually got it work with the parts from my old friend so I guess a part of it is still with me.


On the bright side.  It was good that I actually used the new one and learned that it is poorly engineered.  I was planning to buy 10 more and sell them at my demonstrations but now - no way!  I don't want to get into the customer service and returns business.

Email Sign-up & FREE Coffee

I just added an email sign-up at anchorbayroasts.com.  If you sign-up you will be put into a drawing for FREE coffee for the month of September.

Also, find the easter egg on the website and get FREE coffee.  If you sign up for email I will send you clues.

Coffee with Great-Grandma

Every Monday morning I pick my grandmother up and she accompanies me to work. For those who do not know it, I am a local missionary/minister and I conduct Christian worship services for people who live in nursing care facilities with The Sharing Org.  So anyway, I pick my grandma up on Mondays and she accompanies me to my first 2 morning services.  While I have never told her, I secretly wait for her feedback between the first and second services about how she liked (or disliked) the message. While grandma is not what I would consider a theological-giant or anything, for-better-or-for-worse she is my barometer for how effectively I communicated the Gospel.  Like a little boy I seem to need my G-ma's approval.


This morning my wife and eldest daughter went out of town which left me with my youngest 2 (ages 2.5 and 5.5).  So I decided that after me and the kids ran our errands we would head to their great-grandma's and make her some coffee in my new Syphon brewer.  The kids played with the dog (until the dog molested the 5.5 year old) while we made coffee and I told her all the interesting facts about the Indian Monsooned that I was preparing.


After about 15 minutes the coffee was done and G-ma took her first sip.  She immediately told me how good it was but not in a proud-grandma-let's-not-hurt-Johnny's-feelings sort of way but in a my-golly-my-eyebrows-almost-left-my-forehead-because-they-jacked-so-high-in-delight sort of way.  


You could tell that this cup of single-origin bean tasted incredible to her but what I think really made the difference was that for the first time in her life she was invited to not just drink the coffee but rather to experience it.  When she sipped it she was tasting the weather in India, the monsoon rains that drenched the beans and the monsoon winds that blew the green out of them and left them a bleached-light-tan color.  She tasted the mountain mist of the Malabar territory on the Western shore of India and the nutty taste produced by the earth in which the beans grew.  She recognized that the particular cup of coffee she was drinking was a one-of-a-kind crop never to be repeated again.  As a crop, the Monsooned Malabar grew in a soil in a particular area of the globe, with a particular amount of sun, rain, and temperature.  Then as it was cured for a year it experienced a monsoon season that would not be repeated in the same way again.  The cup that she was drinking had a definite history with a story uniquely its own and all of it was communicated to her in the taste.


As me and the kids left for home she expressed to me how much she enjoyed learning about the coffee that I made her and she looked forward to doing it again some time.  As I left I got that weird feeling inside because I had just gotten my G-Ma's approval.

MORE FREE COFFEE!

Congratulations to Pat for winning the drawing for FREE coffee!  She browsed through www.anchorbayroasts.com and made some observations, offered her suggestions, and her name was thrown into the hat along with the thousands of others (ok, I am just imagining that number) who responded.  I heard and I responded - I hope I got it right this time.  I'll be getting that FRESH ROASTED COFFEE shipped out to Pat as soon as I cook up another batch. (maybe this morning?)


With this new site I have created an Easter Egg for you to find.  When you find it you will get a code for the September drawing for more FREE coffee.  I hope that I did not make it too difficult to find - let me know.


Thanks,
John


www.anchorbayroasts.com

My New Love

Regina the Coffee Roaster

Please allow me to introduce to you the latest member of our family.  Her name is Regina and she is my knew coffee roaster.  My wife tells me that I had a smile from ear-to-ear when she was delivered. ;-)

I was scheduled to do a coffee roasting demonstration at church (VOX Church) on Sunday and by Saturday the new roaster had still not arrived.  But then, that afternoon (around 3pm) a package was hand delivered by the Fed-Ex guy - it was Regina.  So that evening I learned how to use and present her and I was in my glory because I was indeed ready for Sunday morning.

Indian Monsooned Malabar

I took a picture of Regina and the resultant beans - the beans were perfectly Full-City Roast and you wanted to cry they were so yummy.

www.anchorbayroast.com

FREE Coffee

Well the website for Anchor Bay Roasts is about complete and I need feedback.  So for anyone who participates I will place their name in the hat and pick someone to send a 2.5oz. (enough for one 12-cup pot of coffee) package of coffee.


I have just 3 questions...

1. What are your general impressions of the site?
2. What is/are the thing(s) that need to be made clear(er) on the site?
3. Please indicate 1 grammatical or punctual error.

That's it.  Please locate my email on the site and shoot me your answers and I will enter your name into the drawing.  I will select the lucky winner on Tuesday, September 13 and let everyone know then.

Thanks,

John

www.anchorbayroasts.com

I was a Beauty Queen Doing a Pee-Pee Dance!

I saw the UPS truck across the way and I think I was literally experiencing shortness of breath in anticipation.  I am waiting for my new coffee roaster to be delivered and I feel like a contender waiting to be crowned Miss America.  As I stood watching the UPS truck driving around I was rocking from foot to foot in a little anticipatory dance.  When it arrived it brought something else - not the roaster - but happy I was to get my new packaging stuff to make individual packets of coffee.

BTW.  Anchor Bay Roasts now has its own website - www.anchorbayroasts.com!  While it is still very much a work in progress (Dreamweaver is giving me some fits) I'll be adding more content as time goes on.  I also have a new email - john@ that domain name.

Coffee Roasting Demonstration

Since I am scheduled to begin supplying the fresh-roasted coffee at our church (VOX Church) I am going to be doing a coffee demonstration this Sunday and feature the Indian Monsooned Malabar.  I plan to roast and brew so that people may watch the process and sample the freshest coffee this side of the equator.  If you're not doing anything on Sunday come on out and taste the goodness.  (learn about VOX)

Getting Ready

Well, I am in the process of getting everything ready to make a real business out of the coffee roasting.  I don't have too many details to share at this time but I do hope to have things ready in the next couple of weeks.  But I do have one thing to share right now though - 100% of the profits will be used to support the ministry of The Sharing Org.

More to come later - stay tuned...