I'm hip like that

So I worked with a new friend today at Kopplin's, Jamin. Like Benjamin only drop the ben. Only now we call him "hot pants". Anyway, we were talking about being hip in the twenty first century and how all the cool cats are on myspace and how he had just opened up a myspace page. Oh but hot pants, I have one too. The cool cats now are blogging their lives away. So soon I think we'll be seeing Mr. Hot pants blogging the day lights out of me but until then...

You like this??

Today at work I've been trying my customer's drinks. Ok, not drinking from them and then giving it to them, but making the same drink again. It's interesting. I have a customer named Chris who gets a latte with cold milk. It's actually not that bad - if you have a good espresso. For a while he was calling it "the pain in the ass latte" or "the silly latte" and we all knew what he meant. I don't think any of us had ever tried it because we know how good a real latte is. The neat thing about steaming milk is that as it steams it becomes a little sweeter, naturally, until you scald it(hopefully you don't). So I wouldn't expect Chris's latte to be very sweet since it's cold. Well, it wasn't, but it did allow the espresso to shine a little more than usual. The milk wasn't bad though, how could it be? It's Cedar Summit - grass fed cows, non-homogenized, milked with love. Oh, the milk is so good anyway.
I also tried a ... bear with me now, a skim vanilla iced latte. Yeah... ok, keep in mind that I use organic vanilla and milk. I extracted Terroir's Ethiopia Yirg into a preheated cocktail shaker, added the vanilla, stirred and then added the skim and shook with ice, then poured over ice. I left a little for myself to check out. Wow, that was the best skim vanilla iced latte I've ever had. It might just be the ingredients, cause I don't think I'd like it other wise. Or maybe I'm just prejudice against those kinds of people that usually get it, or maybe it's the way Starbucks makes it. I don't know.
Lattes are an American drink anyway, I don't think Italy would own up to one any day. They don't make anything larger than a Cappuccino, I don't blame 'em.

So all you "fancy" "floosey" drinkers out there getting flavored sshhhhhtuff, stop it. Order up a double espresso and be done with it.

I hate my brain

So, I'm at number three, Migraines that is. I'm squinting at the screen with ear plugs in. This sucks. Why not just smack me up side the head with a bat, it'll be over quicker. Uh. ... Maybe beer helps? JK.

Violet

I got another plant, thanks Lori. It's called a sensitive plant, native to Brazil and has pink or purple little flowers. But thats not the coolest part. When you touch the leaves ... they close ... by themselves. OOoooooooooo.
It was brought into the coffee shop where Lori introduced it to a customer as a special plant, he replied: "can we smoke it?" No, but he was fascinated when she blew lightly on the leaves and they retracted. And again, OOOOoooooooooooo. It was fun. And now Teddy has a window partner.

10 Bags

We got a shipment of coffee today, 10 bags, from Ethiopia and Sumatra. I think it's the coolest thing to know these were actually shipped from Sumatra and from Ethiopia! I know that may sound silly because ofcourse thats where they came from. But think about it, someone took the time to hand pick ripe berries from a tree and put them in a bag. Then they let them dry and stripped the berrie's fruit from the seed - which is the green coffee. They dried a little more and then were bagged into large burlap sacks weighing 130 lbs each, loaded onto trucks and taken to a dock. Then these beans took a long voyage across the sea, about two and a half months till they reach the shores of the US. The Sumatra took about a two months to get to Oakland California (Ethiopia took about two and a half months) and then traveled straight to Paradise Roasters in Ramsey MN, where a small, Lord of the Ring dwarfish looking man jumped from the cab of his truck and said:" you paradise?" "yup." And we started to unload a half a ton of green coffee beans from the truck. I then move a half a ton of coffee by myself from one side of the warehouse to the other, while nursing a 400 degree coffee eating monster inbetween.
So sit back and drink the wonderful fruit notes of Blue Batak and the mystery that always surprises me of Lake Tawar and imagine the adventure jounery the coffee took to your cup.

Mood Music

I roast coffee about half the week, and today was a special day. One of our wholesale customers came by and decided to play music while I roasted coffee. That was so nice. I really appreciate that kind of love, only I didn't expect it to be in the form of a Didgeridoo. So that was interesting ...

And then he turned into Elmo and began to comment on the state of "Fair Trade" coffee. That was funny, because he's really not Elmo ... and he's holding a didgeridoo.

I ... will ... blog ... !!!

I make coffee. I try to go fishing when I get the chance. I have a plant named “teddy”. I mist him daily. He is next to my pillow so I can smell his soil. I also roast green coffee beans so they can be ground and steeped in water to make a delightful beverage. When I want to relax, I make myself a vanilla milk, commonly called a “steamer”, and I roll back into a dream of late day sun and strong dry wind weaving in and out of prairie grasses, cooling my skin.