Coffee Oddities from Abroad

As you know, we're purists when it comes to coffee; at Blanchard's we want our coffee fresh and delicious, and that pretty much sums it up.

With that said, its always fun to stumble across oddities of the vast and diverse coffee world--even if they don't meet our simple criteria for good coffee.

Our good friends Carly and Melissa, owners of The Empress on Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia recently closed down their restaurant for a much deserved summer vacation to Italy.




We were flattered when we heard they had gotten us a tiny gift--a fascinating coffee oddity from the espresso capital of the world--Pocket Espresso!

Thats right, this is a plastic cup with a foil lid similar to what holds your chicken nugget dipping sauce. Yes, that is a target dot that says "pierce here" as in with a straw--a very tiny straw that is included with the cup!




Carly and Melissa told us these little guys were everywhere and though the urge was strong to hold on to such a strange product, curiosity won us over.

Last night while out with several friends (some coffee lovers some not) we decided to taste test the Pocket Espresso.

The espresso juice-box was assembled and we were ready to taste--some one called it a ketchup tub.

First sip? Lets go with intense...

Whatever concoction is held in that little cup tastes like sucking Hersey's Syrup with the faintest hint of coffee through a straw.

Everyone had the same reaction, that of wide eyed startle!


I'm not sure I'd call Pocket Espresso "coffee"      per se, but it certainly was a great conversation starter, an interesting product and a thoughtful gift from great friends; so if you look at it that way, its just as good as any coffee.

Road Trip

We're taking Blanchard's on the road!
Step one has been finding some out-of-towners who were willing to give Blanchard's Coffee a shot. We've found some great folks like Para Coffee in Charlottesville, VA, The Java Shack in Arlington, VA, and Waveriders in Nags Head, NC to start representing our brand and now, we're heading to the Shenandoah Valley for a huge presentation in front of hundreds of folks eager to learn about Blanchard's.

We put together this little video to go along with part of our talk and thought it'd be nice to share it with al of you. Enjoy!

Espresso Works at Para Coffee in Charlottesville, Virginia

We're really happy to be able to roast some coffees for Para Coffee in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Para is a beautiful, successful shop on The Corner near UVA and they've made a name for themselves as a proper espresso bar serving up real, professional drinks in a great environment.

We try to spend a day or so each week at the shop working on coffee offerings, giving tastings and working with the custom espresso Para and Blanchard's designed together.

Here is a little footage from our Tuesday session; enjoy!

Coffee Tip::Getting Green

At Blanchard's Coffee Co. we pride ourselves in being fairly kind to the environment even though our daily roasting does crank out some smoke on to Forest Hill Avenue. Is that causing harm? Likely a little bit but we work hard to make up for that in other ways. People say the movement towards greening businesses is a toothless fad that doesn't hold a lot of true meaning or value; this may be true for oil giants and manufacturing companies but in small business a little bit of effort can go a long way. We're already doing a lot but we can do a lot more.

Current Efforts
We recycle everything we can. As much as we'd love to be a paperless business, we end up having to print out orders to keep everything straight, so we make sure those print-outs get to a recycling facility.

We are huge proponents of the re-use strategy; here are some things we currently re-use until they're completely destroyed: boxes, coffee bags, cups, java jackets and containers of all sorts.

We also love to repurpose a lot of our waste. Burlap bags that are used to ship green coffee, make excellent display material for many of our clients who creatively merchandise our products. We also end up with a lot of bio-mass from roasting and brewing coffee which we offer for free to home gardeners and farmers.

Plans to do Better
Our first order of business is to switch all of our disposable paper products to Green Duck Compostables so our paper footprint isn't as extensive.
One of our biggest initiatives this year is the idea of bringing together local businesses, crafts-people and community members to promote and support local happenings and causes. This is sort of a far reaching project that includes a ton of different avenues. For example, we will be sponsoring and hosting events such as our upcoming Community Night in the Roastery that brings folks into the Blanchard's roastery for a fun evening with coffee, other beverages, food and a silent auction featuring local crafts-people benefiting a local organization. We are also ramping up for a great 2011 RVA Barista Jam season beginning with our first event on 23 February 2011 at Ellwood's Cafe from 6:00-8:00pm. This year we're kicking up the event with raffle prizes and a slightly different format but it still promises to be great coffee-social fun!
We're also working on creative ways to bring the coffee community of Richmond together to support more sustainable business practices. Collectively, all of the coffee businesses in town put a lot of coffee related bio-mass in the garbage. At the same time, many local farmers are paying for similar bio-mass to aerate their soil or feed their composts. We aim to organize as many coffee houses and roasters in town as possible to set their bio-waste aside to be picked up and donated to local farmers. Heck, if we're lucky we might even get a few vegetables out of the deal!

We're probably just at the tip of the iceberg of what we could do to make our operation more sustainable and green, so our ears and eyes are always open to ideas and suggestions to make our community and our world a little better.