Home from Coffee Fest

Brenda and I returned from Coffee Fest in Chicago this evening.  The weekend was wonderful.  The Coffee Fest hotel, The W on Lakeshore was awesome as always.  We enjoyed excellent food.  We attended an incredible concert at the Chicago Symphony Saturday evening.  We even worked in a bit of shopping, which was fun.  The drive in and back was safe and uneventful.  As we reviewed our time spent, the only part of the weekend that wasn’t A+ was Coffee Fest itself.  We went to the show eager to see new products, talk to vendors, suppliers, and learn new things about the coffee industry.  I think we were disappointed.  We didn’t really see anything new this year, and some of the “new” products seemed silly — tea formed into little heart shapes that you put into a cup and added water, foil wrapped coffee cubes that you put in a cup and added water.  The show lacked luster.  There were lots of espresso machines, shiny and new, and they all made espresso and each of them made it better that all of the others.   Maybe if I was more dissatisfied with the way things work at Roasters, I might have been more open to some of the vendors and the products they offered.  But I think I decided that we’re doing quite well.   You, our customers, usually seem pretty happy with us.  On the ride home, I decided that there are really only three things we need to be concerned with.

1.  We’ll provide you with quality products.

2.  We’ll provide you with value for your money.

3.  We’ll provide you with the best service we can muster.

I promise you that I will do whatever I can to make sure we deliver those three.  The rest of it doesn’t really matter so much.

Thanks for listening.  David

The Big Question Mark

Occasionally when you visit Roasters, you’ll see a pot of coffee with a Big Question Mark on it.  That usually means one of two or three things:  I’m playing with the roast of a familiar or a new bean, I’m playing with a new blend, or I don’t really know the beans that are in the blend, their ratio, but they taste good and I’m sharing the unknown with you.  I have found in the past that when I’m working on the ideal roast, it’s helpful to have customer input.  Sometimes your palates tell me things I’ve missed.  However, when I identify the bean’s origin, it’s part of our desire to categorize that tells us things that may or may not be true of the particular coffee we’re tasting.  I really appreciate the fact that you are willing to taste and tell.  I enjoy having you as part of the search for awesomeness in coffee.  Keep up the good work.

Coffee Research

Doing coffee research in Avon, Colorado, is a tough job, but one I accept as part of the dues I must pay.  Sigh!

Storage

Customers are always asking about good ways to store coffee beans.  Frequently I respond with negatives.  DON’T put coffee in the freezer.  The cold doesn’t make the fresh taste last any longer and the really negative side effect is that the below freezing temperature of the beans causes humidity in the air to condense on the beans when they are removed from the freezer and that condensation causes a loss of flavor.  DON’T store coffee in the refrigerator.  Coffee is a porous substance and it absorbs all the other odors and flavors in the refrigerator.  The humid air also deteriorates the flavor.  DO store coffee in an airtight container in a kitchen cupboard.  There are a variety of containers that will do the job, and some of them even have a pump that removes the air from the container, prolonging the fresh taste.  Ideally, only buy the amount of coffee that you think you can use within a couple of weeks.