The Coffee Tasting Diaries

Having children around meant the inevitable...loads of coffee beans scattered liberally across the kitchin floor...add one 3 month old Brittany Spaniel and what do you get???

O.k, the dog is mad and will eat anything that falls on the floor, as fast as possible, before it gets removed from her mouth. Therefore some coffee beans were quickly snaffled and I have watched the effect of the caffeine on her ever since.
Quite a hard study, because she is a spaniel and therefore generally loopy, however, she has not sat still since and this happened about 5 hours ago now. She is buzzing!!!!!

Is drinking coffee bad for you???

No, no, no, no!

Latest research shows drinking coffee reduces the risk of Parkinson's Disease, cancer of the colon and Type Two Diabetes.

I won't bore you with too many figures, but drinking six cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of Diabetes by 54% in men and 30% in women, as opposed to those who don't drink it.

I'm off to boil the kettle!!!

One of the best coffees I have tasted for a long time is from Fazenda Camocim, which is a bio-dynamic farm in Brazil. I tried it last week and it really blew me away. The coffee is unusual in as much it is dry-pupled, without using water. Once dried it rests (reposo) for three months...much longer than the usual 20-30 days at other farms. This method leaves much of the sugary-fruit coating (mucilage) on the bean. Therefore this is a naturally sweet, simple coffee...maybe that is why I like it Lovely chocolaty coffee and I am drinking loads as it is so easy drinking. Will add it to the shop now!

O.K, here goes...
I am totally new to blogging and find the prospect of starting a blog terrifying..what do you write to introduce yourself and what if no one is interested in what you want to say?
There is only one way to find out...
For the past year I have been tasting as many different coffees as I can find. I don't mean coffee from supermarkets, I mean the real thing.
The first thing that struck me was that I didn't want to buy 250g bags of the different coffees on the Internet..what if I didn't like it? So, after some thought, I decided to start a coffee tasting club, so that other like minded people could come on the journey with me. And that, in a nutshell, is what I have been doing for the past year. Each month, we try four different single estate coffees. The coffees are sent out in smallish quantities with a newsleter I write, having found out as much as possible about the estates the coffees come from.
It has been truely amazing... we have tried coffees from over 23 countries...you can't get that in a supermarket! One of my favourites came from Nepal and I would never have realised coffee even grew in Nepal! Perhaps the most suprising thing about all of this is that until two years ago, I never drank coffee...didn't like it at all. I know why now...I was drinking such dross that I had never tasted coffee as it should be and that is what I want to share with people...proper, real, fresh and totally amazing coffee!!!!!!
Of course, coffee comes at a huge price to the people that pick it. I will write more about that another time, but I buy coffee from some fantastic micro roasters, who in turn buy their coffee from an ethical importer (more later). I also send a percentage of all profits to Coffee Kids, a hugely worthwhile Charity, that helps the families that are involved in the production of coffee in many different ways.
Anyway, I will add more soon, but will nervously wait and see if anyone has read this..as I said, I am a total novice. Thank you, if you have got this far.