A True Home-Schooled Family...

My wife has said for years that we are not really a home-schooling family until we have a home business that the whole family participates in.  Well today we have officially become a home-schooling family because more than half of the family was participating in the coffee roasting process.

I finally got over my control freakishness and asked my lovely wife and daughter to help with the grinding, weighing, and bagging process.  There they are smiling for the camera as they work together weighing and bagging some Colombian 58.  Then they are grinding some Indian Monsooned Malabar in the photo to the right.  It was more than nice to be left free to work on some of the packaging while they managed the shop.

I've been asked what the secret to my success has been and I usually reply "I will tell you when I am successful".  Today, as I look at these pictures I think I have an answer to that question.

Flame-Roasted Artisan Coffee...

I am happy to present a new product that I call Flame-Roasted Artisan coffee.  This is a single-origin bean but it is roasted by hand-and-flame only.  There is nothing electrically driven or heated in this roasting process - it is just me versus nature, in the age old way of cooking that our great-grandparents had mastered, attempting to roast a perfect coffee.


I roasted a test batch of the Indian Monsooned Malabar and sampled the product.  WOW!  This roasting method produces a raw and rich coffee as many of the beans roast to perfection while others are less roasted retaining the intrinsic flavor of the bean.  This coffee is certainly roasted just as as our elders used to know, love, and enjoy.


I presently (12/27/2011) have 9-6C packages prepared as samples for people who want to try the brew.  These packages are FREE while they last for anyone who wants to come and pick one up.  The only string is that I want you to tell me your opinion of the product after you have tried it.  These are available to people on a first-come-first-serve basis.  Please shoot me an email if I may expect you.  

And the Winner IS?

Click for Larger

It was a great time as I prepared and served the coffee to about 25 guests at a birthday party last night.  The winner of the night was certainly the syphon pots.  Not only was the coffee served a very rare Indian Monsooned Malabar but the guests saw and smelled the beans as they roasted and ground for the brewing pots.  Their eyebrows shot up a half-inch as when they tasted the goodness of God in their cups.


There was one lady in particular who was not necessarily fond of coffee but her husband was.  As I explained the intricacies of the Monsooned bean, how it was seasoned in a particular monsoon season, and how he will never again taste that particular coffee again because the season is passed and so is the crop - she immediately reached over to taste what was certainly a once in a life time experience.  Needless to say she got inked as a result.

Click for Larger

She got inked?  Yes, everyone who became a snob last night got inked.  Tattooed that is.  As every membership has a ritual so does becoming a coffee snob.  So everyone left with a great memory and experience but also with a new tattoo. Don't worry, it was a temp tattoo because I am a coward where needles come into play. ;-)


If you are ever in the need for a once in a lifetime experience for your guests, please be sure to remember that I will provide you with a coffee roasting demonstration.


---
Also, if you have not yet seen our press releases - be sure to check them out below.

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.

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)