Brew for You
  • Home
  • About
  • Our Products
  • Blog
  • Contact

Ruminations

Featured Roast: Christmas Campfire

12/2/2016

Comments

 
Just like that autumn slips into Christmastide. And while the calendar still says "fall", the plunging mercury and cozy darkness are making way for the coming winter.

In light of this change, we're busy employing (totally ethical) elf labor to get cracking on Christmas orders to fill your stockings. This holiday season, we're featuring an utterly spellbinding blend that we can't wait to share with you: Christmas Campfire.

Christmas Campfire is a complex dark blend that highlights flavors from Ethiopia, Timor, and Sumatra. These growing regions offer green beans that roast up with complex flavors, and can really take the heat when we take them to the dark side (har har).

I was inspired to create Christmas Campfire after sipping a mug of smokey coffee and admiring the slight jasmine and tobacco notes that lended themselves to the smokey flavor. Christmas Campfire brings the smoke in a bold way, but takes on more of a spicy flavor, rather than a vegetal one - just like you'd expect from a proper winter brew.

We're offering Christmas Campfire as a December exclusive, so get it while it's fresh! If you order before December 15, we can guarantee Christmas delivery. Just note "Christmas Campfire" when you fill out an order form and we'll do the rest.

Need to fill a bunch of stockings or gift baskets with this (or any other) blend? Drop us a note to see whether your order qualifies for a bulk discount!

Merry Coffee-mas!

Picture
Comments

Fall Coffee Hacks

11/5/2016

Comments

 
Fall seems to be the best time of year for delicious contemplative flavors. From pumpkin to cranberries, and all of the marvelous pairings of those flavors, both sweet and savory dishes prepare us for settling in to the rhythms of seasonal life. We prepare for winter's rest and slower pace as we cuddle under warm blankets and wait out the plummeting mercury.

This fall, we've been tinkering with coffee concoctions for the season. With a new baby around, we've been relying a little heavily on our daily cups of joy (aka coffee) and have worked to spice them up a bit to celebrate the season. Here are our top three fall coffee hacks:
Picture
Pumpkin Spice

Yes, we went there. In all fairness, doesn't everyone go there? We promise ours is better than the one with a green siren on the front, if that's any consolation.

Our pumpkin spice latte starts with two tablespoons of freshly roasted pureed pumpkin (or you can use canned, if you're into that), a hefty dose of 100% maple syrup, heavy cream (we love ours straight from the farm), and a liberal sprinkle of pumpkin pie spices on top. We could drink this all day!

Homemade Coffee Creamer

Technically you can make and enjoy homemade coffee creamer any time of the year, but we just now discovered it and it's fall, so it made the cut (judge if you will). This concoction is a simple blend of one can of sweetened condensed milk, one(ish) cups of whole milk, and a healthy dash of vanilla extract. You can, of course, use any type of milk and flavor combination that you prefer. To make it extra fall-like, add some pumpkin pie spice or a cinnamon stick. Either way, one batch of this creamer will last you until the milk's expiration date (usually about a week) in a mason jar in the refrigerator. Shake well, add to coffee, stir, and enjoy!
Coconut Butter Coffee

We recently discovered something new (to us) and absolutely divine: coconut butter. It may or may not have flown from the shelf in Wegman's to the cart and "accidentally" end up on the conveyor in the checkout line. We also may or may not need to keep it behind lock and key to keep from eating the whole jar with a spoon.

Inspired by a concept from Keto diets, which advocate the addition of all sorts of weird fats to coffee in place of the traditional cream, we decided to add coconut butter to a mug of coffee just to see what it was like. The creaminess was very good and developed almost a latte-like foam on top however, the texture was also slightly grainy. We'd recommend melting the coconut butter fully before adding it to coffee or sending the entire mixture into the blender for a few seconds before consuming for best results.
We hope you're inspired to try one of these fall twists on your favorite coffee and find a new favorite. Have another recipe you'd like us to try? Let us know in a comment below.

Happy brewing!
Picture
Comments

The Coffee Corner: Our Favorites

8/24/2016

Comments

 
Great coffee relies on the alignment of several factors: start with amazing beans, add a trusted brewing method, a solid grind, some great water, and the right drinking vessel, and you're on your way to the perfect cup. In the Brew for You home, we're constantly looking for ways to improve our coffee game beyond the roast. Obviously, we're obsessed with our beans and the roasting process, but we're equally obsessed with the other factors that play into our morning (or afternoon) cups.

We want to share with you our current favorite roasts and coffee paraphernalia, as well as a few items we're crushing on and wish to soon add to the collection:

What We're Roasting

Sure, we're open to roast anything and everything for our clients, but what are we roasting for our own collection? Right now we're swooning over Papua New Guinea single origin and blended roasts. These beans can be a bit on the unpredictable side, which makes roasting and blending a lot of fun. We've been taking it pretty dark, which makes us smile, and you'd better believe that these scrumptious beans can take the heat. Whether on its own or mixed with another variety or two, Papua New Guinea is almost certain to make an appearance in our morning cups!
Picture
Map of Papua New Guinea

What We're Using

Most mornings we're pretty chill with our cups and prefer to use the French press. We grind fresh before each brew, using our Hario Skerton, which is an absolute game changer (seriously, try it out!).

What We're Crushing On

Turkish Coffee - The allure of an hours-long coffee-centric evening repartee that is characteristic of the traditional Turkish coffee experience has got us swooning! We're looking into purchasing a set of Turkish coffee pots (cezve) and trying our hand at this exotic brewing style. Give us a shout out if you've tried Turkish coffee before and have any brewing tips for us!
Picture
Hand Thrown Ceramic Mugs - We're always looking to expand our mug collection and have fallen hard for the delightfully unique look of hand thrown ceramics. We *may* have tried once to throw a mug of our own and it was... well, let's just say we're leaving that to the pros from now on! Etsy has a great collection from a variety of talented artists and we're sure to be placing an order any day now.
Picture
Travel mug obsession. Credit: Goblinpottery/Etsy
Comments

Never Ground: Our Treatise

8/18/2016

Comments

 

Ground Coffee

We do not offer ground coffee options for our Brew for You blends. While we realize that pre-ground coffee is a more convenient option than whole bean, we simply cannot stand behind a product we don’t believe in.

Why Don't We Believe in Pre-Ground Coffee?

Simply, a bag of ground coffee is a bag of stale coffee. Grinding fresh beans and sticking them into a package - no matter how airtight, waterproof, and opaque - drastically accelerates the staling process so by the time the coffee reaches your coffee maker, it’s beyond its peak flavor potential.
We work very hard to source, roast, and pack each and every one of our custom roasts, whether single origin or blended. We dream of you opening that package, taking a deep whiff of the loveliness inside, fondling a bean or two, and grinding it seconds before it enters your preferred coffee making device. You’re getting a fresh cup and we’re getting the satisfaction of giving that to you.

Stumped on Purchasing Your Own Grinder?

Coffee grinders are small, simple appliances, which are easy to operate and take up little space on the counter or in the cabinet. A burr grinder is the best choice for achieving uniform grounds, without diminishing the quality of the coffee beans. Both automatic and manual versions are easily available. An automatic burr grinder is more expensive, but will always provide the perfect grind, while a manual is roughly one-tenth of the price and lets you squeeze in a tiny arm workout before brewing up your cup. Our favorite is the Hario Skerton - simple, beautiful, and deliciously consistent over hundreds of cups.
A traditional blade grinder is also an option, as blade grinders are cheap, easy to access, and very easy to store. While we don’t recommend blade grinders, as they do much harm to the bean and do not provide uniform grinding (uneven grind = bitter coffee), they do work in a pinch. If you’re particularly short on space or budget room for a new appliance, the blade grinder will probably suit your needs.
In most cases, for $20-$40 bucks, you can totally transform your home coffee setup. Having a grinder not only allows you the opportunity to enjoy cup after cup of delicious Brew for You blends, but also unlocks the potential of every bean that crosses your counter. Different brewing methods require different grinds, so it would be impossible for us to read your mind and give you the perfect grind in the package that we send. For your drinking enjoyment, here is a basic breakdown of some of the most popular brewing methods and their respective grinds, from coarse to fine:
Picture
Comments
    Picture

    From the Dredges

    Like that delightfully weird puddle of grounds that a freshly empty French Press cup leaves behind, here is where we share some of our ideas about coffee. 
    ​
    Brewing tips? Check.
    Coffee lore? You got it!
    Phenomenal trivia? Um, yes!

    Poke around and let us know if you see something that you fancy and leave a comment on anything you find particularly helpful.

    Archives

    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Picture

We can't wait to roast with you!


  • Home
  • About
  • Our Products
  • Blog
  • Contact