Wake up, wake up! The coffee's almost ready!

(photo by yours truly)

Wake up, wake up! The coffee's almost ready! 

Birdsongs (click the link to listen!)

The birds are ... well, it's not singing. We have some black birds here that just holler. That's all I can call it. It's like, the lead says "They're not up yet. Try again." The bass says "Yeah, I don't think they're up yet, either. I'll get closer to their window." And, their baritone says "Hey, let's all try together. Maybe they'll come out and we can poop some more on their cars."

(photo by yours truly, taken with a trusty iPhone!)

Aha, now I hear Mr Cardinal. I swear, his song sounds like a car alarm. Good thing I'm already up!

(photo from Tree City Coffee's website)

We had our farmer's market here yesterday. I had a brilliant time. There's a new coffee roaster in town called Tree City Coffee. I met the crew and I hadn't had a cup of coffee yet. They had those upright containers filled with coffee that you pump to get a cup. I started talking with one of the owners, Nadav.  That's him with his wife Dara and baby, Zo above.  I haven't figured out where Nadav is from yet. We didn't get to that. To me, that's half the joy of conversing with people. "Culture, not politics". That's my motto. But, he let me try their Peru Cajamarca which tasted fresh and good.

They've done up their website well, in my opinion. It covers all the bases and has the right tone of voice. They also have knocked on a bunch, if not all, doors in Gainesville and got some decent customers.

(photo from 8th Ave Bikes and Coffee's website. That's co-owner Musa Blount grinnin' and wavin' in front of their Celeste green store)

My favorite bike shop, 8th Ave Bikes and Coffee, uses one of Tree City Coffee's local competitors, Sweetwater Coffee. It's a tight market here in a town of around 100K. So, for Nadav and co. to get enough biz to make a living wage, they had to do it right. I bet that's both a reflection of and the reason for the big smiles in the photo.

When I first started Cambridge Web Design, I bought a book called "How to Start an Online Store". It was the greatest and still is. It tells you everything you need to know to make a website that is a virtual storefront. I can't find a link to it right now, but I'll send you one if you ask. Tree City's site hits every high point covered in "How to Start an Online Store".

Camp 4 Coffee is one of my favorite coffee shops. I love their unique site. It has a video on the home page with owner Al talking and snapping fingers in background. Camp 4 is in Crested Butte, CO at 10,000 feet. Camp 4 is the last camp you can stop at before the mountain ascent, I hear. Al was a corporate exec who decided to start a coffee business in a mountain town. Now, it's grown to more than one shop and employs lots of locals. It's incredibly nice to walk into his shop and be warm when it's all snowy and freezing outside. Plus, Al roasts the coffee in-house and ships it cheap. Sledgehammer is my fav. I buy it in bulk and the shipping is gratis. Al gave me a tour one day. I learned all about the fine art of coffee roasting. You know, the first crack, second crack...the beans make a cracking sound sort of like popcorn when you're roasting them.

Then, locally we have a gourmet coffee place called Volta. They have "cuppings" and have the most fancy equipment. Volta has coffee with all sorts of exquisite flavors.

(photo from Coava Coffee's website)

In Portland, OR there's Coava coffee. I can't tell you how many times I waited for a bus outside their open store front and didn't go in. They look like a pool hall. The doors are garage doors they pull up, and there are these flat, austere tables with stools to sit on and drink their excellent coffee. They have little pre-packed specially labelled with imprinted font paper chocolate that cost $5. That's a lot for a little chocolate bar.

The first article I wrote for Elephant Journal is about coffee.

I love coffee machines. I have one that's a little cult all crafted up in stainless steel. It's called a Bunn ES-1A. It's a rebranded Gaggia, which is a well known Italian company. But, still removed again, it's from Gaggia Espana. I found it on craigslist. The previous owner and his wife used it in the evenings to serve up coffee for corporate events. He said he'd run out to Costco and buy up a bunch of coffee beans and milk, because Costco has good, cheap beans. Then, he'd make a hundred or so espressos in an evening. That was good for a few hundred bucks profit. Plus, he said it was fun.

This is a Bunn ES-1A with some mods to the metal enclosure to make it look cool. It belongs to Tex, the guy who heads up an online club for Bunn ES-1A owners. If you're a real techy, you can PID your machine. Google PID and see how cool and math-like it is. I'm not sure what kind of difference it makes to have the temperature exactly right, but I hear it's noticeable. Plus, you get to wire up a fascinating digital PC board with LED display to your vintage espresso maker.

This is what mine looks like. See the bag next to it? That's from that Coava's coffee shop in Portland. They use an old fashioned printing press to emboss their bags. The bike's another story...

I love these things. I have another couple of friends with a bike shop (surprise) in Winter Park called Ace Metric (the shop, not my friends Michael and Joey ;-) Anyway, they have cards printed with one of these. They are embossed, so the letters are raised. I took the photo above at a party here in Gainesville. I guess rather than owning one, I could go over to this gal's house and use hers to make a new batch of business cards if I change my biz name to Veosoft, which I'm thinking of doing. Like it? Veo means "I see" in Spanish...but I digress...