i All,
Gosh, sorry for the radio silence, folks – it has been a long two weeks on the road.
I am back roasting this weekend on Sunday, (November 8), and I’ll deliver and ship on Monday. Please check the website (www.freeportcoffee.com) for the coffees we’ll have available this week.
So, the holidays are coming up – and following are a few highlights of the coffees and special offers we will have available this year:
> If you order by December 1, any five pounds of the same coffee will be just $10/pound. For locals, we’ll deliver to you, and for those from away, shipping will be $4.99 for these orders. Since I can’t figure out how to do this on our website, please email me if you would like to do this, and I can process the order with you that way and arrange payment.
> We won’t do half pounds this year, but I can offer 12-ounce bags for orders of ten or more of the same coffee at a good price. Email me and tell me what coffee you are interested in and I’ll get right back to you with some specifics on pricing.
We’ll have available most of the coffees we have now, and in a few weeks, some great additions:
> A Guatemala from the Huehuetenango region grown in cooperation with Slow Food International by a Presidium (small collective) of 170 small growers from the villages of San Pedro Necta, La Libertad, and Todos Santos Cuchumatán.
> A sweet malty estate coffee from the Tjen Plateau in eastern part of Java.
> Our holiday special for this year, a traditional medium-dark Mokka-Java blend. This is one of the oldest blending recipes in all of coffee, and we’ve been waiting until we had just the right combination of origins to make this available to you. This one comes to you in our holiday packaging, so its perfect for giving. (Last year’s holiday blend was retired for a funny reason that I can’t print here – ask me next time I see you and I will explain.)
For your planning purposes, I would like to get your coffees to you as close to the holidays as possible so they are fresh. I will roast December 12-13 (good if you are mailing your coffee), and December 19-20 (and each week before then).
This was an interesting set of road trips – capped by a 700-mile blitz of college visits in California with one of my sons. I took advantage of the jet lag to do some exploring of the coffee scenes in the towns we visited . . .
> Fresh off the plane, I walked the entire length of the Ojai Valley in near darkness, watching the exquisite desert sunrise and coming upon the only-imagined Ojai Valley Coffee Roasting Company, where I hung with some great locals, enjoyed some shots from their La Marzocco and had a nice cup of Costa Rica.
> Onward to Pismo Beach – perhaps the low point of the trip from a coffee standpoint. The Wild West Cinnamon Roll café had very pedestrian coffee, the Java Shack, though possessed of a nice ambiance, sent me screaming off into the misty coastal morning by offering me a delicious cup of Toasted Marshmallow (coffee), and out of desperation, I ended up at the Targetstorelike vibe of the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for an over-roasted cup from Brazil.
> In Monterey, I got some local recommendations to a nice spot called Plumes in the old wharf part of town and enjoyed several good cups from their pourover station. This place apparently has a lot of trouble keeping their staff – I was thankful for the great baristas at the Royal Bean.
> Next (shudder) we ended up in a motel next to the highway in picturesque Daly City – but the morning walk yielded a really nice experience at a Starbucks. Though I am not so crazy about their coffee, I have to say that they sure employ a lot of nice people.
> And then, a great morning walking the backstreets of Petaluma – and the sad circumstance of Petaluma Coffee and Tea (with two sweet Probat roasters) not opening until later and the Aqus Café being completely inaccessible because of a construction project. Out of sentiment for my upbringing in Berkeley, I hung out at Peets, drank some really dark roasted espresso and watched the chaos of their morning rush. Coming from the languid pace of Maine, its funny to watch the stresses brought on these people by a long morning commute.
And the Bay Bridge was closed most of the time we were there – on the way to the airport, we saw the mother of all traffic jams; at least three hours to go 25 miles.
It’s so nice to be home. I hope all of you are well as winter settles in (our first snow of the year is melting in the yard), and that this finds you well.
All the best,
Kent
