CoffeeNate and Ben Schmerler from @FairTradeUSA

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Join me and Ben Schmerler (Coffee Category Manager : Fair Trade USA) as we discuss coffee, fair trade, and how consumers can make a real difference in individual lives and communities across the globe.

Did you know that we drink more than 400,000,000 cups of coffee EVERY DAY in the USA?  Wow!  How often do we stop to think about the journey that those beans had to make in order to grace our mugs?  Do we ever wonder about where it is grown, or the lives of those who carefully cultivated it?  If you were like me a couple of years ago, the answer is no.  Why would you?  You go to the store, buy the coffee and drink it.  Well, now you will know [Read more…]

CoffeeNate #22 ::VIA™ vs. Starbucks® Brewed Coffee “Challenge”


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Well, it’s that time again.  Time for me to go undercover and investigate what I consider outrageous claims made by Starbucks® concerning their new instant coffee, VIA™.  They released the line of instant coffees, which are being promoted as being AS GOOD as regular brewed coffee.  They claim that their instant coffee is different because it contains ‘micro-ground’ coffee.  Um, ground coffee does not dissolve in water, no matter how ‘micro’ it may be.  Fine ground coffee, allowed to steep in water will always, always, always be bitter and offer many off notes in the flavor.   Pardon my [Read more…]

CoffeeNate #21: How Much Coffee Should I Use?


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Two posts in three days, yay!  Life is full, with three busy boys, a full time job, and numerous other commitments, it is difficult to churn out episodes at a quick pace.  Even just to get some quiet time to shoot a video is a challenge 🙂  I’m always thinking of new stuff to do, and I’m always looking for new topics.  It was suggested by a viewer that I should address some coffee basics.  It is so true that many coffee drinkers are misinformed on the basics, like [Read more…]

CoffeeNate #20: LIVE! … In the Trenches


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Howdy do my fellow coffee addicts?  This week I have two episodes back to back.  I’ll be posting another video this weekend 🙂  This is a video of my presentation at IgniteSault.  An ignite talk is where presenters give a 5 minute talk about a passion of theirs.  During this 5 minutes you have 20 slides that supposedly automatically change at 15 second intervals, so there is a lot of timing involved.  Well, I said ‘supposedly’ because, as Murphy’s Law, indicates whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and my slides advanced 2 at a time and then they were being manually adjusted by the presenter dude.  I programmed it correctly, it just got corrupted somehow when they converted to the other machine…oh well.  No biggie, just threw me off a bit and I missed some points.

This talk was “The 3 Keys” as I’ve spoken about before here.  There are three major factors that have such a significant influence on your coffee flavor that if you get one wrong, you get it ALL wrong!  I’ll talk about these individually on future episodes, but here is the ‘Reader’s Digest version’.  The three keys are… [Read more…]

CoffeeNate #19 :: How To Store Coffee


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Hello again, my dear and highly valued coffee friends! Today, I’m addressing a popular topic, they question that I receive most often. I figured that it deserved its own show… proper coffee storage. I continually get asked whether coffee should be stored in the fridge..in the freezer…ground…etc. The answer to all of those questions is a resounding “NO freaking way!”  Did you know that coffee in the grocery store is typically six months old…or older? Did you know that coffee is considered fresh up to 15 days after the roasting process? Uh…15 days…6 months? Hmmm. Sadly, the majority of us have been trained and accustomed to drinking stale coffee! In order to properly store coffee, you must first purchase fresh coffee in the first place.

So now you know all of the don’ts, here are the do’s.  [Read more…]