When we were putting together the shrub project in the beginning, we had a lot of discussions about packaging, as this would be one thing that made our services useful and unique. Not just the amounts, but the quality of the packaging and its role in protecting the coffee. Over time, we moved away from vac-packing and towards GrainPro. We started offering larger amounts to adapt as our customers grew, while still remaining useful and accessible to smaller customers.
We had the opportunity to cup some phenomenal coffees last week while I was visiting Oakland. It was a blast to all get together to look at some new coffees from Ethiopia that will be arriving shortly as well as cupping through some great coffees from Burundi deciding on which lot to get up on shrub. If you haven't peeped it out yet, take a glance at the Burundi Karinzi Maruri Hill page: http://coffeeshrub.com/shrub/coffee/burundi-karinzi-maruri-hill
Been working on getting the planets (or some of them at least) aligned, and it looks like we're getting pretty close with Jupitar, Venus, Mercury, and Mars all getting into the fun. What does all this mean for Coffee Shrub? For starters it means that Aleco is just getting back from his first Shrub mission to Ethiopia and Kenya, and word is that there are some stunning offerings lined up. It also means that there will be a Schooley trek out to Oakland in about two weeks.
January is slipping through our fingers. But we have some busy, busy like Grant Green, fingers. There are some stellar new offerings from Rwanda, Kenya, and Colombia just launched on shrub in the last week or so. I've also been gearing up to host the Roasters Guild Executive Council annual January meeting here at shrub mountain headquarters in Fort Collins, CO. It will be a blast having all these folks in town, and on the night of Thursday the 26th there's going to be a coffee rodeo at the very super Cranknstein Coffee Roaster, Bike Shop, Tap Room.
I'm off early tomorrow (actually my ride will be here in about 45 mins) on my way to West Virginia to start setting up the Roasters Guild Retreat. Really looking forward to this year's retreat, we've been working very hard on delivering a challenging and engaging program. I'm most looking forward to seeing everybody who's coming out though. If you are coming out for the retreat and we haven't met, please be sure to introduce yourself.
Hey Germs, I will be tumbling down shrub mountain to visit Seattle this week for roasters guild meetings, and then will be in Tacoma for the NW Barista Rodeo Hoedown. I know that some of you will be around as well and competing even. Let me know so that I may prepare my pennants, but for the reals it will be great to see you.
Hey shrubland, welcome to the future. We're pretty certain that this is going to be a year. Shrub is back full force (hence the lack of half steppin') after a lovely holiday stretch and we'll have some new offerings up soon as well as the return of the Quest, and the plan is that a good portion of our new releases will be 3 dimensional. Hope everybody is ready.
Hope everyone has been having a lovely/busy/stress-free/care-free/coal-free/troll-free holiday time zone. Coffee Shrub will be closed starting tomorrow Dec. 30th to observe the birth of l'il baby twent-y-leven, and will re-open to fill orders on Monday Jan. 3. Looking forward to the promise of a new year of fun and games.
Happy Holidays to all. Hope everyone is having a lovely old time. We will be closed until next Monday. The shopping cart will remain open over this stretch, but orders will not go out until Monday, just so's you know's. Enjoy the times.
So we have some new offerings coming very soon, at least one before the Friday. I'm cupping a small (14 screen) El Salvador right at this moment, and there is perhaps some new Kenya and Ethiopia offerings along with the return of the Sulawesi Toarco AA which, if you don't remember or didn't get a chance to try it before, is crazy delicious. In the meantime, here is another Quest video. I can't say enough how much fun I'm having with this little roaster, really truly impressed and excited about the possibilities. I'll post some Quest experiments here soon.
