Current Coffee...

Faithful readers will know about my slight obsession with coffee. I get whole beans from Stumptown (Which I like, although a recent date told me that they can't hold a candle to Intelligentsia out of Chicago. She orders pounds of beans and has them shipped out. When you add the cost of shipping, the negative environmental impact, and the reduction in freshness to what appears (at least to me) to be exorbitant prices, I just don't get it. For an example of their prices, on the coffee below, Stumptown's price is $25 per pound, Intelligentsia's price is $32.99 per HALF POUND. Which makes makes it more than 2.6 times the price, and that's before factoring in the shipping, etc. What gives?) .

And, speaking of other cities' coffees, a friend mentioned, out of the blue with no prompting whatsoever, Blue Bottle out of San Francisco last night over drinks at the old Mississippi Avenue Social Club (which I will continue to call it because their new name is so stupid). Blue Bottle is some seriously good coffee...

OK, sorry... Back on topic...

My current coffee is Fazenda Pedra Preta (COE) from Brazil. Not only is this a cup of excellence coffee, it was also awarded a gold special award, and was the #3 coffee in Brazil in 2006...

This from Stumptown...

Guilherme Dias De Castro's family first introduced the Yellow Bourbon variety to the Sul de Minas region over 100 years ago. Fazenda Pedra Preta produces coffee between 1150 to 1250 meters above sea level on 30 Hectares of this 70 Hectare farm. Care is taken to preserve the native forests and water sources. The coffee is pulped natural processed making for an extraordinarily sweet and heavy bodied cup. The beans are carefully tended by employees who live on the farm. The beans are turned each day, and covered at night for about ten days. Once they reach 11.5% humidity, the beans are bagged and kept in brick bins to develop the complete flavor profile. Melon, orange blossom, lemon, vanilla, and cranberry inhabit this subtle yet multidimensional cup.

Images from the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association web site...
They also have a small profile on the farm here...