Weekly Newsletter: Sustainable Mexican Terruno Nayarita

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Carolines Coffee, Carolines Coffee Roasters, Free Coffee, Mexican coffee, Sustainable Mexican Terruno Nayarita, Terruno Nayarita, Weekly Newsletter

Sustainable Mexican Terruno Nayarita

I’ve been camping with little Caroline’s first grade class for the last 24 hours or so.  What a fun time!  Yesterday the kids rotated through crafts and activities and then finished the evening with dinner, skits and smores.  Then this morning I brewed at least a half dozen French presses of coffee (I like to take this one camping), while the kids drank hot chocolate.  After more crafts and a bit of packing up, here I am back at work.  Well actually I went home and took a shower first.  Inevitably if I come to work in grubby clothes, thinking I can hide in the office, I get called out front multiple times.  Murphy’s law.  Thus the trip home to change.

Please forgive me if this newsletter is rambling.  I had a wonderful time, but I did not get much sleep.  Luckily this week’s coffee has lots of interesting characteristics to share.  First of all, it included on the bag a link to www.trackyourcoffee.com. I’ve never seen this website before, but it’s a great concept.  If you would like to track this Mexican, the code on the burlap is 016-2729–001-X-LAA-SS2.  I know it’s long, but if you cut and paste it, you can learn more about exactly where the coffee originated.

I’ve also got a great link for you to learn more about this Terruno Nayarita.  If you click here, you will learn that the word “terruno” means my land, or homestead.  This coffee comes from the state of Nayarit, on the western coast of Mexico.  Nayarit is just north of the popular resort destination of Puerta Vallarta, which some of you may have visited.  Coffee, however, is grown far inland, at a much higher elevation than the coastal playas.  This coffee was grown on the slopes of the now extinct Cerro San Juan volcano, an ashy soil that coffee plants love.

When Trace roasted this earlier in the week, we all commented on how warm and toasty the aroma smelled.  It seemed like a perfect fit for a cool fall morning, of the sort that we have been having around here.  I would definitely recommend it if you have any plans to go camping in the next month.  The taste is nutty like roasted hazelnuts, with a sweet, almost chocolate-y, finish.  The beans are labelled SHG, strictly high grown, which is evidenced in the consistency of the roast.  It’s a beautiful coffee.

Next week I will be gone for three days camping with my son’s class, and I will be bringing some of this Mexican along.  I might even sneak in a few chocolate bars from Cello Chocolates–it would be a perfect early morning match.  As the month of October begins, I hope that you are all enjoying good coffee on these cool mornings*.  That is our code for a free cup of this Mexican this week.  Enjoy!
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Sustainable Mexican Terruno Nayarita.  Code expires on 10.04.13.  Limit one free cup per customer please.  Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA.  Code/Offer has no cash value.

Weekly Newsletter: Hill Top Farm Cameroon Boyo

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Cameroon, Cameroon Boyo Coffee, Cameroon Coffee, Carolines Coffee, Carolines Coffee Roasters, coffee, Employees, Free Coffee, Hill Top Farm Cameroon Boyo, Weekly Newsletter

Hill Top Farm Cameroon Boyo

Many thanks to all of you who wished us well at our staff party.  We had a great time.  Ruth and Mariah even made tie-dyed t-shirts celebrating our “Spralter-Q,” in an effort to combine all the seasons into one.  Trace, on top of being our roaster, is a great cook, and he whipped up steaks, chicken, macaroni salad, soda jerk beans, tomatoes with burrata, and watermelon for all of us.  Doesn’t that sound delicious?  I think that my favorite were the tomatoes, picked out of the garden just an hour before.  You can check out a collage from the party on our blog here.

This week’s coffee comes from Cameroon, where our employee Kathleen spent a year recently.  I queried her about her experiences there, and she related her impressions of the country.  She said that it was a beautiful landscape, where everything was “green and huge.”  The rainy season lasts seven or eight months, from March to November, and the rest of the time it is dry.  She described a culture where the pace is “ten times slower than America,” and where “everything is about relationships.”  Even going to the market is about who you see, not about what you get, according to Kathleen.

That’s how we feel about our customers, so maybe it is not completely antithetical half a world away.  Our business is about the relationships, about all of you who come in and greet us and choose to buy our product.  We also love to explore the relationships between where a coffee is grown and processed and how it gets to us.  This Cameroon Boyo has a great website where you can see photos of the farmers growing the coffee, here.  These are small farms, which are passively organic, by virtue of pesticides not being used in the region.

There is a series of photos that I especially enjoyed, with a man roasting coffee in a pot over an open flame.  That’s this gallery, here, if you would like to see it.  It’s appropriately titled “SLOW ROASTING.”  This Cameroon Boyo coffee came in the artistically decorated burlap* bag pictured to the right.  The care that went into the growing of the coffee is evidenced in the detail on the sack.

Now to the crux of the description: what is this coffee like roasted?  Ours is not as dark as the one pictured being roasted on the Cameroon Boyo website.  Trace roasted this light, and we immediately brewed a pot for all of us to try.  Have you noticed how coffee flavors change as it cools?  At first sip, this coffee had nutty floral tones and finished with a bright acidity.  About three minutes later it was the citrus flavors that were at the forefront as we tasted.  As it cooled even further it became more mellow, and we paired it with milk chocolate for the creamy tones that matched so nicely.

If you enjoy African coffees, I’m sure that you will like this Cameroon Boyo.  You can have a cup on us by using the code decorated burlap.*  Try it at different temperatures, and tell us what you think.  You can leave a comment on our Facebook page here: I’d love to hear your description.  Have a great weekend!
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Hill Top Farm Cameroon Boyo.  Code expires on 9.26.13.  Limit one free cup per customer please.  Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA.  Code/Offer has no cash value.

Staff Party Picture Collage

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Employees, Spralter-Q, staff barbeque

Yes indeed, we did have fun at our staff barbeque!  Going clockwise from the top left, 1. Mike and Ellen are enjoying chatting with Molly.  2. The girls with their “Spralter-Q” t-shirts (Spralter for spring, summer, fall and winter) that they made.  3. One of the tables of people eating their delicious food.  4. Karen our baker and her husband Tim.  5. Being goofy later in the evening. 6. The second table full of good conversation and good food.  7.  In the middle: Kathleen and Jack have fun on the trampoline.

Weekly Newsletter: Organic Island of Flores

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Carolines Coffee, Carolines Coffee Roasters, Flores, Flores coffee, Free Coffee, Indonesia, indonesian archipelago, Organic Island of Flores, Weekly Newsletter

Organic Island of Flores

Tomorrow night we’re having a staff summer barbeque.  The joke around here is whether or not it still qualifies as summer.  I think that mentally most of our employees have decided that it is autumn, whether or not the calendar agrees.  Around my house we’ve been enjoying the warm summer weather as the kids jump on their new-to-us trampoline.  It has occupied all of their free time this week!  Have you ever bounced on one of those big trampolines?  It’s quite a workout, at least for this mama.  I have a feeling that we’ll get some staff members on there tomorrow, so look for those pictures on our Facebook page, here.

Flores is a small Indonesian island.

This week’s coffee of the week is new to our store, and it is even new to me.  Have you heard of Flores?  I’m not sure that I had before we ordered this coffee.  In fact, the picture to the right is Trace showing us the location on our handy-dandy globe.  We usually use the globe to educate new employes on coffee-growing regions, but sometimes we need the education!

Flores is part of the west Indonesian archipelago.  A brief disclaimer: I got some of this information from the official tourism website of Flores, here, so if you would rather read it for yourself, follow the link.  It is a neighbor to Komodo, island of the famous Komodo dragon, and there are Komodo dragons to be found on West Flores.  The island is located to the east of Bali, and has the same kind of stunning beauty.

Specialty coffee is new to Flores.  For years the local farmers grew and processed their own coffee, selling it in mixed lots at a low price.  Only recently has the processing improved, and now there are seven farmer groups that are certified organic and wet-processing their coffee for export at a better quality and a better profit.

We roasted this Organic Island of Flores coffee yesterday, and immediately brewed up a french press to try it.  The first two adjectives that came to mind were “bold” and “nutty.”  I know that we use those words a lot in reference to Indonesian coffees, but it was true again.  It’s full-bodied and easy to drink as an afternoon pick-me-up, if your day has stretched long, as mine has.  I know that I like a coffee when I have another cup after my morning brew.

I hope that you all enjoy your weekend.  Come on in and try a cup of this Organic Flores on us by using the code Komodo dragon* this week.  If any of you have been to the Island of Flores, I’d love to hear about it.  Send me an e-mail or leave a note on our Facebook page.  I love learning about new regions.  Enjoy!
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Organic Island of Flores.  Code expires on 9.19.13.  Limit one free cup per customer please.  Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA.  Code/Offer has no cash value.

Weekly Newsletter: Kenya Peaberry

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Carolines Coffee, Carolines Coffee Roasters, coffee, Free Coffee, Kenya, Kenya Peaberry, peaberry, Weekly Newsletter

Kenya Peaberry

Today is the first day that I have worn boots since last spring.  I’m sure that it will be quite warm this afternoon, but it was so lovely and crisp this morning that I couldn’t help myself.  I dug in the back of the closet and found my black cowboy boots, paired it with a dress, and off I went.  Yesterday as my son and I walked to school, we found a red leaf.  Fall is coming.  Can you believe that we’re a week into September?  This is such an amazing place to live, where we get to celebrate and appreciate all four seasons.

The peaberry bean is on the right in both pictures.

This week’s coffee is from another direction entirely than our Celebes Toraja.  We’re virtually flying across the Java Sea, and then over 4000 miles of the Indian Ocean to the African country of Kenya.  I love how the coffees that we profile can teach you geography, at least between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.  That’s the coffee belt of the world: the higher elevations around the equator, especially those with volcanic soil.

This Kenyan Peaberry is higher in caffeine, by virtue of being a peaberry coffee.  A peaberry coffee occurs when only one bean grows inside the coffee fruit.  Normally there are two beans to each cherry, with a flat side where the two face each other.  When a peaberry occurs, it’s a smaller and rounder bean, as seen in the picture on the right.  These beans have to be sorted out by hand, so many times they are mixed in with a regular lot of coffee.

In this case, the Kenya Peaberry that we’re offering will get you going in the morning.  It’s high in caffeine with a bright and lemon-y flavor.  It practically leaps off your tongue as you sip.  If you are an African coffee lover, you are going to really enjoy this Kenyan.

We are offering our Kenya Peaberry on sale for a dollar off per pound this week.  You can try a cup for free by using the code in bold above (coffee belt*).  Even if you usually prefer an Indonesian bean, come try the Kenyan and tell us what you think here.  The difference between last week’s coffee and this week’s is quite remarkable–they are opposite ends of the coffee spectrum.  I’d love to hear what you think, and which you prefer, especially if you tried both.  Enjoy your weekend!
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Kenya Peaberry.  Code expires on 9.12.13.  Limit one free cup per customer please.  Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA.  Code/Offer has no cash value.