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‘The Journey of a Brazilian Coffee Bean’

While you watch the leaves shimmer and enjoy your morning cup of Brazilian Yellow Bourbon Coffee think about the journey that Brazilian coffee bean embarked upon to bring you such a simple moment of splendor. As the perfect amount of natural froth collects around the edges of your favorite coffee mug close your eyes and enjoy the history and the vibrant story for a while. Oh well, close them after you read this anyway.

Brazilian Yellow Bourbon coffee is grown by the Carvalho Dias and the Ottoni families deep within the Mogiana region of Brazil. On many occasions they have received the prestigious Cup of Excellence award for this very brew you are mulling over. For four generations these infamous coffee growers have strived to maintain an integral balance between the land, people and the bean. You might just say that excellence has been their tradition.

Speaking of the land, the beaches in North Brazil are dreamy and the rain forests are lush and green. There are rainy seasons in the mountains and spring starts in August for any of you adventurous travelers out there. Their workdays are full of chatter, coffee, coffee, and more coffee and pride is taken in doing a task well.

The Mogiana coffee region was named for the Companhia Mogiana Estrada de Ferro train line that ran through this area. In the beginning the train line and the coffee industry were vital to each other. The train line was established to expand the coffee plantations up into the Northeast. Even though the train line never fully recovered after the depression the excellence of the coffee in this region has stood the test of time.

The Brazilian Yellow Bourbon coffee remains one of JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters consistent favorites. The coffee is laid out on drying beds to sun dry with the cherry still attached creating a rich, dry, fruit flavor onto the bean.  You can read the full description here and maybe grab a bag or three for yourself.

I can hear the train rolling through the Brazilian hillside. Here’s to the journey of the Brazilian Coffee Bean from high altitudes to the perfect roast at JumpinGoat Coffee to your table. Enjoy your perfect bean and your frothy morning mix as we are off once again to roast the perfect bean.

JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters continues to make its mark on the coffee world.  Already a successful enterprise by implementing an efficient and productive coffee shop business plan, JumpinGoat reaches new levels as they introduce the SmartCup XPress Lid into their operations.  This ingenious apparatus has given new meaning to the French press and JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters is pleased to be one of the first locations to carry this item. 

For the serious coffee guru, it is a well-known fact that the perfect cup of coffee begins with the roasting process and how the coffee is brewed undoubtedly affects the end taste.   The French press is the preferred method by most to achieve the outcome of a perfect cup, complete with the natural oils and flavor of the coffee bean.  The problem with the French press is that until now no one has ever developed a dispensable press for “on the go” coffee drinkers.  Jeff Baccetti, inventor of the XPress Lid, was inspired to create a recyclable, disposable French press after watching his wife painstakingly transfer her traditionally pressed coffee into a paper cup to carry on the road with her.  The concept was born and within a few weeks the first designs were complete.  Hence, the SmartCup XPress Lid has arrived.   

Hours are spent commuting on the road and for the coffee enthusiast who has discovered the richness of a French press, this means sacrificing quality for something quick and easy.  The XPress Lid offers a convenient and disposable means of producing a superior cup of French press coffee on the go.  With fully recyclable components, the contraption fits easily over existing 16 and 20 ounce paper cups and functions as well as the traditional French press for an aroma and taste that are incomparable.   All you need is great coffee and clean water.  Best of all, the coffee or tea – yes, even tea – of your choice can be prepared easily with conventional press techniques to its maximum flavor potential using the XPress Lid and then discarded with no clean up hassle. 

CEO of JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters, Forrest Graves, is continually searching for ways to improve his coffee service and promote quality coffee products.  Discovering this novel device and young and progressive company, Graves and SmartCup have joined for a business venture advocating superior coffee and innovative means to produce quality coffee.  The product’s fully recyclable design was an attractive quality which caught Graves’ attention.  Having been tested with consumers, JumpinGoat determined that individuals preferred the XPress Lid, noting that people appreciated the ease of use and “no clean up” disposable and recyclable attributes the XPress Lid provides.  Recognizing the appeal of the XPress Lid, JumpinGoat offers and is currently analyzing the success of the XPress Lid with US troops in Iraq. 

JumpinGoat is excited to introduce this phenomenal new tool and believes the XPress Lid disposable French press is the wave of the future in coffee commerce.  As we have come to expect with JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters, Forrest Graves wants to do more than just “sell” coffee; he strives to educate the consumer and the entrepreneur.  Cheers to JumpinGoat for offering the latest and greatest ways to yield the perfect cup of coffee. 

Rachel Rogers

Independent Business Writer

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JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters is on a mission.  Dedicated to providing the highest quality roasted coffee, exceptional service and the guidance of coffee business plans, JumpinGoat is traveling to Costa Rica to experience the origin of coffee, before it is roasted and even before it is picked.  JumpinGoat will explore a hands-on approach to the cultivation of the coffee cherry – walking, talking and working with the local farmers and even harvesting discussions and instruction, as the following trip in January will result in actually picking the berries from the trees.  Aspiring to expand knowledge on social and cultural sustainability with applications to coffee shop business plans,  JumpinGoat departs Friday, April 30th, destination The Common Cup Community Coffee House and Roastery, Monteverde, Costa Rica. 

Serving as host to this JumpinGoat adventure, Ken Lander, administrator of The Common Cup, offers the opportunity for coffee entrepreneurs/enthusiasts to participate in the full seed-to-cup process, learning not only a great deal about coffee, but also discovering the values that a non-profit community coffee house  can offer.  The Common Cup believes in social sustainability, giving 40% of proceeds of the retail sale back to the community for educational and beneficial social services.  JumpinGoat is interested in this value system, hoping to garner and amplify these concepts.  “JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters seeks to embody as many appreciable aspects of sustainability as possible in our coffee business plan,” stated Forrest Graves, owner of JumpinGoat, and continues, “We have a responsibility to our patrons and supporters to provide coffee that is manufactured with a conscience.”  As a motivated and ambitious business owner, Graves looks to introduce several pillars of sustainability, including social, economic, environmental and agricultural.  JumpinGoat believes in this mutually beneficial relationship and heads to Costa Rica to view the fruition of The Common Cup and its joint venture with local coffee producers firsthand.   

The excitement continues to build as JumpinGoat anticipates direct interaction with the local farmers, experiencing seed-to-cup personally – planting, harvesting, processing, milling, grading, sorting, exporting, cupping, roasting, grinding and brewing.   This trip is about “getting your hands dirty” and really understanding the life of the farmer and the method to which coffee is prepared and managed.  Face-to-face communication with the producers, navigating the slopes of the mountainside, studying the coffee plant in its natural habitat, observing the cherry in developmental stages and coffee farming at its roots – that’s what this adventure is. 

Looking forward to the experience of coffee farming one-on-one and studying the cooperative ideals, JumpinGoat predicts a successful and entertaining endeavor.   The wisdom gained from this venture will be abundant.  No doubt, the knowledge shared with up and coming coffee businesses and followers of JumpinGoat will be received well.  Mr. Graves advocates sharing his coffee business knowledge and promotes these efforts in his coffee roasting business plan training. 

JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters invites you to attend the January 2011 JumpinGoat Costa Rican Adventure Tour, as Forrest Graves travels back to Monteverde, leading the tour group along this coffee quest.  Explore the coffee world of Costa Rica and witness for yourself what this expedition holds.  JumpinGoat would like to extend this invitation to everyone, whether you have a lingering interest in coffee or have expert knowledge in coffee affairs.  Follow JumpinGoat Coffee Roasters throughout this adventure as we continue to update their progress and look for upcoming information regarding the January 2011 trip.  Travel arrangements for this Costa Rican tour can be made effortlessly with the help of VIP Travel in Cleveland, Georgia.   With lots of adventures foreseen, this is going to be one great trip. 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Common-Cup-Community-Coffee-House-and-Roastery/400967337008?ref=ts

http://www.vip.travel

Image by Food Thinkers via Flickr

Back to the daily grind, coffee grinding that is.  The number of people who understand the variations in coffee grinding is surprisingly low.  So here’s a crash course on the basics of coffee grinding and why the consistency of the grind is so important. 

For starters, your “perfect cup” of coffee highly relies on how your coffee is brewed and correspondingly, your brewing method is interrelated to the fineness or coarseness of your coffee grind.  Brewing methods include your average “Mr. Coffee” auto drips, French presses and espresso machines among many.  The general grinding consistencies are coarse, medium and fine, although there are mid-level grinds, such as medium-fine and super-fine, etc.  Different brewing machines expose the ground coffee beans to heated water for varying amounts of time and you must therefore “match up” the brewing technique with the coarseness of your grind.  For example, a French press requires a coarse grind secondary to sediment and design, whereas the usual auto drip coffee machines work best with a medium to fine grind.  The more the coffee bean is ground (i.e., fineness) the more surface area is exposed to the hot water.  Keep this in mind, as this is just one of the elements in coffee grinding that dictates the consistency vs. brewing method relationship. 

The following is a short description of each grind which may help in your coffee grinding endeavors:  A coarse grind is chunky with obvious fragments, kind of like potting soil; a medium grind is similar to rough sand; a fine grind is smoother still and has a texture comparable to salt or sugar; a super-fine grind is very much like powdered sugar or flour with maybe a slight bit of grit still felt; a Turkish grind, one step past super-fine, is as near to a flour consistency as you can get. 

Coffee grinding methods include the usual blade grinding and burr grinding machines which you can purchase through multiple outlets.  If you want to try coffee grinding without these machines, you can try chopping, pounding and even roller grinding.  Some suggestions that have been thrown out there about how to “do-it-yourself” include crushing the coffee beans with a hammer, using a rolling pin and even mortar and pestle.  A simple blender goes a long way in coffee grinding as well, although you will not be able to achieve a fine or super-fine grind with most blenders. 

Given a little bit of time and experience (or should I say “experiments”) your coffee grinding knowledge will translate well into your coffee cup.  With the unending “do-it-yourself” tactics and/or coffee grinding machines, we’ll leave it up to you to decide exactly how you want to grind your coffee bean.  Here’s to each cup getting better and better!

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Every now and then you need something to break the monotony of your daily routine, something that is purely entertaining and lacks any definitive purpose.  And that is why we have Coffee Trivia! 

Let’s test your coffee knowledge, or better yet, let’s test your ability to match ‘famous people’ with their respective coffee related quotes.  Read through the quotes, select your answers from the list below, and then check the answer section (located at the bottom of the page).  No cheating! See how you rank on the coffee trivia scale!   

(A)  “The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.” 

(B) “Way too much coffee.  But if it weren’t for the coffee, I’d have no identifiable personality whatsoever.”  

(C) “Coffee, the finest organic suspension ever devised.” 

(D) “Coffee, which makes the politicians wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.” 

(E) “I never drink coffee at lunch.  I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.” 

(F) “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” 

(G) “Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle of water.” 

(H) “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

(I) “I never laugh until I’ve had my coffee.”

(J) “Tis pity wine should be so deleterious, for tea and coffee leave us much more serious.”

(K) “Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.”

Ronald Regan

Bill Cosby

T.S. Eliot

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Alexander Pope

The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, 1674

David Letterman

Lord Byron

Star Trek: Voyager

John D. Rockefeller

Clark Gable

COFFEE WHIZ RANK:  

• 9-11 Correct:   You’re a coffee trivia genius!  Coffee elitist for sure. 
• 6-8 Correct:     Not too shabby!  Definitely a social climber in the coffee world. 
• 3-5 Correct:     Keep trying!  You’re merely the average coffee drinker. 
• 1-2: Correct:    Hey, it’s better than zero.  Just the occasional cup of coffee for you.
• 0 Correct:         Hmm…not too much to say here.  Do you even drink coffee? 

Answers: (A)Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., “Over the Teacups” 1891  (B)David Letterman  (C)Star Trek: Voyager  (D)Alexander Pope  (E)Ronald Reagan  (F)T.S. Eliot  (G)The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, 1674  (H)John D. Rockefeller  (I)Clark Gable  (J)Lord Byron  (K)Bill Cosby 

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