Normally I like to designate each blog post per one topic, however we’ve got so many things happening right now, it only makes sense to compose a smorgasbord of a post to cover all in one. With that being said, Jason and Rob are doing their light summer traveling in the next couple of weeks, while I just returned from Florida for a visit with friends and family. Between catching up with everyone and trying not to melt, I found a little time to drive up to Gainesville to visit Anthony Rue and the staff at Volta Coffee, Tea & Chocolate, where I formerly worked as a barista. In the bar, a customer installed an impressive collection of vintage and antique coffee cans which I believe nearly span the entire 20th century.

Volta has the coolest cupping corner.

We have been running through green coffee faster than ever. In fact, it was only a couple of weeks ago that our bag stacks were at eye level. With this, comes new coffees as well as an entirely different espresso blend. We can’t predict a time line, though samples have been arriving. On the topic of green coffee, we are working on our first efforts involving Relationship Coffee (most call this direct trade). You can certainly expect to read much more about this as developments pan out.

Currently, our newest coffee comes from Finca Puerta Verde within the Antigua region of Guatemala. This is an assertive cup with pleasant raw sugar and nectar notes (I’ve actually heard someone say ‘pink Pez’). Also, this coffee was shipped in Grain Pro bags which makes us very happy!

Over the last few days we’ve been lucky enough to have received several bags of coffee from our roaster, barista and production friends at Ritual Coffee Roasters, Sightglass Coffee, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Market Lane Coffee and Four Barrel coffee. Thanks everyone, we’ve been drinking these daily!

And last, but certainly not least- This!

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Shark