A big happy birthday to Powell's Dot Com.  Funny that they are having the birthday and you can get the gift.  Check out the link on how to get a free $5 gift card on their home page.  Then you can get your book and go to the World Cup Coffee shop in the Coffee Room to people watch, read, sit & think, watch the cars & peds outside....all with an amazing cuppa coffee from our talented staff.
 
D

I don't go on many origin trips these days as I take care of three wonderful girls...most of the time wonderful that is.  But recently my wife and I decided to celebrate our 10th anniversary where we honeymooned at Kauai, Hawaii.  If you have been to Hawaii and not been to Kauai then you haven't been to Hawaii that I love.  Still yet fully developed but not some primative jungle that you are fighting off bugs, snakes and other critters.  The beauty of it all sets in easily as the Portland weather is reported on to be 30 degrees lower than what we enjoyed.

One thing that happens when you are a coffee guy on vacation is you hunt for good coffee.  Be it retail or in this case as we were in the tropics we visited the Kauai Coffee Plantation.  Far from harvest time the trees were showing their wear and tare of what a well planned and operated farm goes thorugh to create their coffees.  Its expensive to grow, care for and harvest coffee in the states.  The Kauai Plantation uses mechanized harvesters.  You can see how this equipment is driven down the row of trees pruned to the proper height.  The arms in the body of the beast twirl like a car wash and beat the hell out of the tree and the ripe cherries fall to the ground.  Not so good for the tree.  The coffee is harvested in Hawaii mostly from September through December.  Our visit was in mid-March and the trees were in poor looking condition as you can see.  You wouldn't even see any daylight as the leaves would remain on a hand picked tree that didn't use the "strip pick" method.  However, it is interesting to see all the coffee left on the tree.  You can still see nodes of coffee bundled still on the trees!  This was in their walking tour area so this may have something to do with that as they would want the public to see it but still a lot of waste.

I enjoyed the tour being the coffee geek that I am but wouldn't consider buying their coffee unless it was a contract roast.  It was a good cup and the tasting room is filled with brewed coffee for you to cup and lots of Kauai schwag in the visitors center.  I'd really like to see more of it in harvest when the equipment is up and running.  Or maybe during flowering for that sight and smell.  As always its a family friendly tour so take the young uns.  Lots of room to run on an unused drying patio!

For more info go to www.kauaicoffee.com  or http://www.hawaiicoffeeassoc.org/state.htm for more information on coffee in Hawaii.

Coffee market continues to rise.  Not a fun time to buy on spot and luckily we have booked pretty decently for the coffees we like.  Our prices have increased along with the rest of the industry.  We chose to tighten our belts and reduce our normal margin but things are still good at The Cup.
 
Also at Glisan we had a great industry party.  Sponsored by Roast Magazine and the Northwest Roasters Group we were honored to host a delegation from Burundi.  As East Africa continues to impress with the assitance of USAID look for coffees from Burundi on shelves soon from many of your favorite roasters.  Great coffee and Great people.  We love the coffee industry and it was great to meet old friends within the industry and some new ones.
 
Dan

After many weeks of work our new shopping cart is up.  Not much of a change really but reflective of the quality of coffee that Jill is sourcing and roasting.  Also, the price increase is reflective of today's elevated market (as noted in an earlier post).  Our customers have to put in a new password, and we did jump the gun on the start with a few admin issues but we are flying now.
 
Some good ideas have come lately and we'll be working on better shipping packaging and rates as well as programs for regular delivery.  We hope you find this site more user friendly than the last.  It was a necessary clean up.  See you at Coffee Fest Seattle...
 
Dan