While I was visiting a coffee-loving friend, he eagerly showed me some recently purchased whole bean coffee from Pennsylvania. He pulled the bag out of his refrigerator and ground up the beans in his small grinder. As he was grinding them up, his wife grabbed some fish out from the same fridge for lunch, and his kids served themselves strawberries and yogurt. While I commend their healthy eating habits, I couldn’t stop thinking about the aroma and taste of the coffee I was about to partake in, and hopefully enjoy. Freezing Coffee BeansA little known fact about coffee is that...

I never stop learning to appreciate the different ways of brewing coffee. As we prepared for this last session we delivered a week ago, we re-discovered the joy of brewing on the syphon. We've had this coffee maker for over 15 years now. We used it on special occasions and at one point I remember giving it to my dad as a present. A couple of years later, he returned as he was mainly using his mocha espresso pot more than anything else. You can watch this clip on the syphon that our head barista Alex T. made, Quite funny....

I was in Sao Paulo last week and while there, I adventured into various espresso shops to give Brazilian coffee a try. If you are going to try a country's coffee, you have to do it the espresso way. Brewed coffee simply wont work (topic to be discussed later). So while there I made some time to visit fancy espresso bars in the nearby mall walking distance from the hotel I was at, stand alone shops that sell small pastries and espresso based drinks, and even local fast food chains such as BC Express, that sell stuff from magazines, to...

When it comes to making cold brew coffee, I really don't see the need to reinvent the wheel. I have watched many people prepare it and even though we were never big fans of cold brew, this past summer we started using it at the coffee shop. Cold brew coffee is ideal for cold espresso drinks, where you need strong flavors and boldness to blend well with the additional water, ice, flavoring or milk. Think of cold brew as a coffee "concentrate" to mix with additional liquids. Alex T., our head barista uses it at home with hot water to...

We had a successful cupping last Saturday. Visitors learned about the method of cupping, and how to look for different aromas while the coffee was dry, after the grinding and after water was mixed with the coffee. We also covered information about the origin and the processes involved in coffee production and how all of these issues play out in the coffee profile.    We hope you can join us for the next coffee cupping session. We will announce it soon. In the meantime stop by anytime to learn more about our single origin coffee.

Its been a long process of getting the coffee warehouse in Springfield ready. Build out, repairs, painting, long hours at night and during the day. In the process we've had numerous friends help out. From the electrical, the paint, to the awesome tasting table, all your words of encouragement, and getting the roaster in from Turkey and installed. So we finally opened the doors on July 20th. We had a great turnout of people coming to see the warehouse and taste some of our roasted beans.   Come on by and learn more about the coffee you drink and where...

Its been a long process of getting the coffee warehouse in Springfield ready. Build out, repairs, painting, long hours at night and during the day. In the process we've had numerous friends help out. From the electrical to the paint to the awesome tasting table.  Getting the roaster in and installed. Another few weeks. We now have all our permits and are now planning our opening. Stay tuned for our grand opening and our pre opening events. Thanks to all of you who have been part of this great journey.... We're almost there... and we could have not done it...

Besides being a pretty decent (awesome I should say) goal keeper, my good friend Brent Toney is also a coffee fanatic. He brought me some pretty amazing green coffee from his last trip to Yemen, and we finally got around to roast it this past weekend, For those of you unfamiliar with the country, Yemen is south of Saudi Arabia and very close to Ethiopia on the Eastern side of Africa. Since we have limited samples, we roasted a first batch in the Behmor. We tried two different roasts, and both came out with a distinct herbal aroma. The beans...