It’s been a while.
Yeah, it’s been a while since I posted anything. I guess it gets a little discouraging when you feel like you’re talking to yourself. A lot has happened in the last few months. The biggest thing is pulling the plug on the mobile cafe at the train station. I’ve never worked so hard in my life for 30 bucks. I’d get up at 4:00 am and stay at the station until 9:00 am to sell maybe 15 cups of coffee. Out of about 180 cars, I’d say 65% of them showed up with their DD or Starbucks cups. I had some customers who I do have to thank for being there each morning. I felt really bad ditching them.
I did however learn it’s all about volume. If I was getting 20% of 200 people, then what I needed was 600+ . The Greenbush train has yet to catch on and who knows maybe in a year I’ll be back there. In the mean time I’m working on using the mobile cafe to promote local events.
On a more upbeat note I just returned from Costa Rica where I stayed at Hacienda La Minita in the Tarrazu region. It made me appreciate the La Minita brand coffee even more. The tedious effort that goes into producing that coffee is amazing. You hear and read about things in this business, but it really starts to make sense when you go to origin and see it first hand.
I was there with a couple of guys from Portland Roasting Company Keith and Heath (no kidding) and Dave Rier from Hammer and Thomas in Seattle. We ate like kings, and drank like fools at night playing a game called Sopas(?)
You get 6 heavy coins and receive points as you try and toss them into a metal frogs mouth. There is a whole tequila drinking equation to the game that really f#*!s you up. Thanks to Drew Zent for being such a great host. Keep an eye out for the movie I’m editing from the trip. Hopefully, it will show up on the website very soon. Later.
Dave said,
February 23, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
Bob,
Great picture! I always new your little coffee cherries were small - just didn’t guess that small
As to talking to yourself . . . well it’s about time you joined the rest of us! The way I see it is - any fantastic coffee roaster with that special gift of nurturing a humble coffee bean into a grand exploration of the senses that ultimately sings from your coffee cup must be a little wacky. Yes - the mobile cafe hit a small speedbump called the Greenbush - However that takes nothing away from your mad roasting skills and the sweet pleasure that you provide to all your South Shore coffee fans in Massachusetts! The Hingham Food Center - Milton Food Center - Whole Foods - keep on spreading the love.
PS — you should send this photo to the crew at Clover.
Dave
Bob said,
February 23, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Thanks for the encouraging words my friend. My cherries weren’t always that small.
Video of the La Minita coffee plantation… as seen by Bob at Redeyeroasters.com | Arabica Coffee Beans said,
March 7, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
[…] a bunch of video footage and compressed it in to a 10 minute video that’s included below (and blogged about here). The video is very well done and shows the complete life cycle of the coffee bean on the […]