Coffee Like Motorcycles - Improve Your Coffee Part 1...

Ratio is a key to good coffee.  


When I had a 4-wheeler with a 2-stroke engine I had to mix oil with the gas.  There was a certain percentage of oil that had to be added to the gas for the engine to run properly: Add too much oil and it smoked - Add too little and it seized.  Coffee is the same.  Add too much coffee to your water and it is too strong (I know, hard to do but follow me here will ya?) - add too little and you're lucky to get bad tasting tea.


What ratio of grind:water do you use to make coffee?  You have likely learned that you just throw so many scoops in and hit the button right?  Try weighing your coffee.  I know this is a pain but really, you will thank me.  


1. Find out how many ounces of water you use in a pot of coffee.  
- Cups of coffee are 5 ozs. each.  So if you have a 12-cup pot you have (12 * 5) 60 ozs. of water.  


2. Now multiply the ounces of water with .042 ...  This results in a number that indicates how much grind (by weight) to use for your pot.


- 12 C = 2.5 oz
- 10 C = 2.1 oz
- 8 C = 1.7 oz
- 6 C = 1.25 oz
- 4 C = .85 oz
- 3 C = .65 oz
- 2 C = .40 oz


As a disclaimer, coffee tastes are subjective so you may be used to just heaping the coffee grind into your maker as drinking strong coffee.  Using the lower ratio may indeed make you think that the coffee is too weak.  Actually, your coffee is fine it's just that your 2-stroke engine is not smoking as much.

How To Buy My FRESH Coffee...

I have had a few questions about how a person can buy the coffee that I roast.  So I thought that I had better explain.

First, I will not sell more coffee to you than what you actually think you will use in 14 days.  The reason for this is simple - fresh coffee is the goal.  If I were to sell you a month's worth of coffee, this would be good for my cash-flow as a budding business but selling bulk like that ensures that my coffee would be stale at some point when you consume it.  Coffee (as the Brits put it) "goes off" in just 14 days.  I believe that if you were to taste my coffee stale you would think to yourself, "Huh, this coffee does not taste any better than the stuff that I buy at the store."  So by limiting the quantity that I will sell to you at one time I hope that you will never have a stale cup of coffee from Anchor Bay Roasts.

Second, Anchor Bay Roasts is governed by what is called the Cottage Food Law of 2010.  The law states that I may not sell my coffee online or through a distributor of any kind.  The idea is that the end consumer of the coffee must have a direct line of contact to me in case there is ever any complaint.  I have written more about this on the website so please go there if you desire more info.

In the end, I may indeed be shooting myself in the foot by not selling large quantities of coffee to the people who request it but one of my core values is to make sure that every cup of coffee that you get from me is fresh.  Because really, if all you want is the standard stale cup of coffee you can just pick some up at your local grocery store and save yourself some time and money.

September Easter Egg Winner...

There were just four people who found the easter egg for the month of September, the winner is Denise from New Haven, MI. - Denise, you will be getting your FREE coffee ASAP and thanks for playing.  As for the 3 runners-up, I have a consolation prize for you but don't get too excited, it is cheesy and I am still waiting for it to arrive around the 18th of October.  When it comes I will mail it to you.


Now, there is also an easter egg on the website someplace for the month of October.  I plan to make this one easier because I actually want people to play.  People who find it will be entered into the October drawing for FREE coffee.  And if I failed to mention it earlier I should mention this disclaimer now, I will only ship the FREE coffee to the contiguous 48 states.


Good Luck!

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