Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Coffee by Bike...
It was a beautiful (and breezy) day... so I decided to make my delivery of an outgoing coffee shipment by bike. Also of note in the Garage Coffee world... we have tweaked the way we are offering coffee... so check it out .
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Coffee Printer?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Neighborhood Meeting
Neighborhood Meeting
Originally uploaded by TreeBed
Garage Coffee had a little "community" meeting today. We set up thinking we might have someone specific stopping by for coffee, but after a few hours it looked like another day with nobody to make coffee for. However, right about the time we were ready to pack it in... we had a neighbor convergence. Two different neighbors arrived home at the same time, and both were ready for a cup of coffee. So, Josh made up some (coffee/farm to be inserted here soon), and we had a little pow-wow. We covered topics ranging from what businesses we would like to see happen in Vallejo, to the need for a neighborhood block party. Pretty cool... and a little lift to why we were out there in the first place.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Taquerias, Birds, and Temples...OH MY!!!
Garage Sale was the beginning, now it's moved out of the garage, it's called...enter loud screeching sound i.e..the brakes are on. So Micah and I decided it was, in theory, a good time to move Garage Sale forward into a larger experiment if you will and with that have been seeking a location to create a small retail version of Garage Sale. The idea is it would help us extend our reach further into Vallejo and allow us to actually start building a community here. We have for a some time now been entertaining the idea of going into an old taqueria a few blocks from our house and after many an unreturned call we finally landed an appointment to look at the spot. The predetermined time for meeting with our potentially new landlord was 9 a.m. Micah and I arrived a little early as to not keep Florencio waiting and come 9 o'clock, no Florencio. We waited around till 9:30 and decided he probably wasn't going to show so we walked home to prepare a consolatory breakfast.
After feeding our bodies and spirits we hit the road for a little coffee field trip. First on the agenda was the brand spanking new Bloom Coffee in Roseville (bloomcoffee.com). This is collaborative work of brothers Lucas and Jacob Elia. The space itself is a wonderful amalgamation(sorry we forgot to take pictures). They went into a location that used to be a tea shop and gave it a very needed face lift mostly paint and some repurposed materials. As far as the feel of the shop it somehow seems to lift your spirits while also calming you at the same time. As for the coffee; Verve is the roaster of choice. We were fortunate enough to share a french press with the two Elia bros. They also pulled us a single origin Ethiopian shot , the details escape me at the moment, which had areally enjoyable hoppy floral bitterness to it and a shot of Verve's Sermon espresso. One of my favorite things about Jake and Luke is their enthusiasm, not only that but they are constantly seeking feedback and take criticism like champs. They're truly eager for any feedback that will help them grow. We picked up a bag of Verve Costa Rican Tarrazu to brew at home and hit the road.
After Bloom we ventured over to Sacramento. After hunting down some pizza with some help for Nick at Temple we returned back to Temple to proceed with further caffeination. This I was excited for 1. because nick was working and he's one of the most down, no ego added guys in the industry and 2. they use Barefoot Coffee Roasters who never cease to satisfy. After talking for a few Nick asked Jessica to pull us some shots of Brasil Daterra Sweet Reserve. The shots were really creamy almost as though they had a bit of heavy cream in them both in taste and mouth feel. They also had a very nice butterscotch/ carmel covered apple thing going on. She also pulled us each a shot of The Boss which is a blend of Sumatra, Brasil, and Ethiopian if I'm not mistaken. My shot was slighty over extracted so I all really got to enjoy out of it was some chocolatyness. We finished it of with some macchiatos. I didn't catch which espresso it was
but it was a nice fruity cup, almost berries and cream. We decided to take home a bag of Edwin Martinez's Finca Vista Hermosa Edlyna Microlot roasted by Barefoot as Edwin is always a great producer and Barefoot always does justice to his coffees. From there we hit the road to head back to our lives in Vallejo.
More to come on the coffees we picked up for home.
After feeding our bodies and spirits we hit the road for a little coffee field trip. First on the agenda was the brand spanking new Bloom Coffee in Roseville (bloomcoffee.com). This is collaborative work of brothers Lucas and Jacob Elia. The space itself is a wonderful amalgamation(sorry we forgot to take pictures). They went into a location that used to be a tea shop and gave it a very needed face lift mostly paint and some repurposed materials. As far as the feel of the shop it somehow seems to lift your spirits while also calming you at the same time. As for the coffee; Verve is the roaster of choice. We were fortunate enough to share a french press with the two Elia bros. They also pulled us a single origin Ethiopian shot , the details escape me at the moment, which had areally enjoyable hoppy floral bitterness to it and a shot of Verve's Sermon espresso. One of my favorite things about Jake and Luke is their enthusiasm, not only that but they are constantly seeking feedback and take criticism like champs. They're truly eager for any feedback that will help them grow. We picked up a bag of Verve Costa Rican Tarrazu to brew at home and hit the road.
After Bloom we ventured over to Sacramento. After hunting down some pizza with some help for Nick at Temple we returned back to Temple to proceed with further caffeination. This I was excited for 1. because nick was working and he's one of the most down, no ego added guys in the industry and 2. they use Barefoot Coffee Roasters who never cease to satisfy. After talking for a few Nick asked Jessica to pull us some shots of Brasil Daterra Sweet Reserve. The shots were really creamy almost as though they had a bit of heavy cream in them both in taste and mouth feel. They also had a very nice butterscotch/ carmel covered apple thing going on. She also pulled us each a shot of The Boss which is a blend of Sumatra, Brasil, and Ethiopian if I'm not mistaken. My shot was slighty over extracted so I all really got to enjoy out of it was some chocolatyness. We finished it of with some macchiatos. I didn't catch which espresso it was
but it was a nice fruity cup, almost berries and cream. We decided to take home a bag of Edwin Martinez's Finca Vista Hermosa Edlyna Microlot roasted by Barefoot as Edwin is always a great producer and Barefoot always does justice to his coffees. From there we hit the road to head back to our lives in Vallejo.
More to come on the coffees we picked up for home.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
George & Bin Laden, Part 2
Where were we... oh yes, just getting the two of us out into the drive way ready to rock some coffee... and meet some neighbors. We managed to be out there on an unusually warm, and quiet Saturday in September. After a few hours of drinking our own coffee, and doing some yard work. We began to talk about throwing in the towel. Maybe this wasn't going work. Just as we were thinking about packing up our coffee supplies... two guys turned the corner down our street. One of the middle aged men was on a bike, and one on foot. My gut was feeling this was not going to go well (preconceived notions will get you every time). As they got closer I could see them trying to figure out what we were doing, but would they engage with us? As they crossed the driveway, Josh said hello. They acknowledged, and there was a brief pause... They wanted to ask what the heck we were doing, we wanted to offer a cup of coffee... but would either of us act?
The pause was just enough to open the door for Josh to blurt out, "you guys want a cup of coffee?" They responded, "How much?" When we told them it was free... The two men shrugged and said, "yeah, we'll try some coffee." Game on. We fumbled around making a new brew of a tasty Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. We explained what we were doing out there, and they thought that was pretty cool. Somehow the conversation turned to the word "organic". One of the men mentioned how he was watching a show the night before about organic growing practices, and how what we put into the ground when we grow our food, ends up in our bodies. We agreed and related that to our desire to have sustainable growing conditions for the coffee (hopefully yielding better coffee). We finally got around to introducing ourselves. "My name is George," the first man said, and then the other said a name that I couldn't quite catch, followed up by, "but people call me Bin Laden, its the beard". Of course our first success of bringing people together through coffee would be with, George and Bin Laden... by then the coffee was ready. They were baffled when we asked if they could smell the blueberry notes coming off the cup, and to their surprise they could, "I never had coffee that smelled like that!" were the words that jumped out. They grabbed their cups and set out on their way... half way down the street when they could finally get a sip of the hot brew, "Its good... like Tasters Choice and S*%t!" The two men waved and walked away. We were both fed by the interaction, we made a connection, coffee was enjoyed... our first taste of success for Garage Coffee.
The pause was just enough to open the door for Josh to blurt out, "you guys want a cup of coffee?" They responded, "How much?" When we told them it was free... The two men shrugged and said, "yeah, we'll try some coffee." Game on. We fumbled around making a new brew of a tasty Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. We explained what we were doing out there, and they thought that was pretty cool. Somehow the conversation turned to the word "organic". One of the men mentioned how he was watching a show the night before about organic growing practices, and how what we put into the ground when we grow our food, ends up in our bodies. We agreed and related that to our desire to have sustainable growing conditions for the coffee (hopefully yielding better coffee). We finally got around to introducing ourselves. "My name is George," the first man said, and then the other said a name that I couldn't quite catch, followed up by, "but people call me Bin Laden, its the beard". Of course our first success of bringing people together through coffee would be with, George and Bin Laden... by then the coffee was ready. They were baffled when we asked if they could smell the blueberry notes coming off the cup, and to their surprise they could, "I never had coffee that smelled like that!" were the words that jumped out. They grabbed their cups and set out on their way... half way down the street when they could finally get a sip of the hot brew, "Its good... like Tasters Choice and S*%t!" The two men waved and walked away. We were both fed by the interaction, we made a connection, coffee was enjoyed... our first taste of success for Garage Coffee.
Monday, December 8, 2008
George & Bin Laden, Part One
288
Originally uploaded by TreeBed
Well... this post is WAY late... but it needs to be written... so here it goes.
Josh and I were talking in the kitchen way back when (the kitchen in the Hammac Hostel is a breading ground for strange conversation), and somehow we got to kicking around the idea of making coffee in the garage... and giving it away. What? Yup, the idea was basically, share our love of great coffees, and spark some interaction in our neighborhood. Think of it like a grown up lemonade stand with a social experiment twist.
Why would we feel the need to do this? Vallejo suffers from a bit of a... shall we say... PR problem. You might have seen it on the news for going bankrupt, or heard about a crime happening here (or who knows what). However, that doesn't mean that people walking around the neighborhood aren't technically still neighbors. Why should we buy into the idea that everyone walking around who doesn't look like us is to be feared? And from a coffee standpoint... why should we buy into the idea that beautiful coffee is only for a certain demographic? So, we decided we would try a coffee/community experiment. Josh had to go it alone on a number of attempts, as I was all over the country doing whatever it is that I do when I am all over the country. There was not instant success. One, people don't walk around all that much anymore, and two... those who do are a little suspicious of a grown man sitting in his drive way giving ANYTHING away... much less coffee made on the spot. Our hope was that this Saturday when we both could open up the garage... we would finally serve up some coffee, and a little community interaction.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story...
Monday, September 8, 2008
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