Daily Coffee Tip::Re-Use

There can potentially be a lot of waste surrounding coffee. There are coffee bags, cups, lids, creamer packaging filters and even used coffee itself. Its sort of staggering to think how much trash we create just to brew our morning coffee. Luckily, with a very little bit of effort, we can drastically reduce the amount of coffee waste that goes in the garbage can--it can even save us some cash!

• The coffee bag is one of the worst culprits of the waste problem. Think about it, you're probably trashing upwards of 50 or more bags per year, that is a lot! Usually there is nothing wrong with the bag when you throw it away so why not keep it and re-use? Most stores sell bulk coffee now so you can take your old bag and refill. Some shops like TaZa Coffee and Creams even offer you a discount on your purchase when you bring your own bag!
• When the earth dies, it will probably have choked on Starbucks cups; just take a look at how many paper cups they contribute to landfills every day! Go out to Target and pick up a few fun thermal mugs and refuse to use paper cups. You will often get a discount at your favorite cafe and you will have the comfort of knowing there is one less cup in the dump.
• Gardens love coffee! Never throw your spent coffee grounds in the trash--you don't even need a compost heap to reap the benefits of spent coffee--just sprinkle it in the flower bed with your acid loving plants. If you don't have plants then start a little container full of grinds on your porch and offer it to that crazy neighbor with the jungle on the patio; you might make a new friend!
• Getting spent coffee out of that wet paper filter is a messy hassle right? make sure to buy compostable filters such as hemp filters. There isn't a drastic price increase and you'll have better tasting coffee (most white paper filters are bleached and bleach is not very tasty).
• Condiments are tricky, they always come in some sort of plastic container so the best thing to do is buy bulk containers when possible. Stay away from individual serving sugars or creamers to reduce the number of things you toss in the trash.

We could keep coffee to almost a zero-waste product but for the most part, we're lazy. The best way to fight laziness is to offer financial incentive. If you follow all the steps above you will save $50 to $60 per year on your coffee expenditures. Sure, that isn't a staggering amount of cash, but I guarantee if someone gave you a $50 bill you wouldn't turn it down; so go out there, save the environment and dream of what you'll do with all those extra dollars!

Daily Coffee Tip::Don't Stock Up

As you probably know, at Blanchard's Coffee Co. we believe that fresh coffee is the best coffee. We use all the resources at our disposal to ensure you get the freshest coffee possible when you buy a bag of Blanchard's and then it is in your hands. One of the ways you can be sure you're drinking fresh, delicious coffee is to buy your beans in small quantities.
Unless you live in some remote wilderness cabin only accessible by snowmobile or pack dogs, there is no real reason to bulk-buy your coffee--sure, I know you don't want to run out and be left coffee-less on a Wednesday morning so a little simple planning is in order. Lets be honest, chances are you're visiting your coffee shop or grocery store at least twice a week so it isn't out of your way to pick up a small amount of coffee at least twice a week.
Buying small quantities of your favorite beans means you will likely use them before air, moisture and light  begin to destroy the oils that give your coffee flavor. The longer your coffee sits waiting to be brewed the less it will taste like the fresh roasted bean you purchased, and no one wants flat, boring coffee right?
So the next time you find yourself holding five pounds of Dark as Dark in the line at Ellwood Thompson Market, take pause; try going with one pound, or maybe even a half pound. When you're back in a couple days to pick up some kombucha or Legend Barleywine, pick up another bag; I think you'll see an improvement in the flavor of each cup. Besides, we really like seeing you around more often!

Daily Coffee Tip::Try It Naked

Wait!
Stop right there!
Go ahead and pull your mind out of the gutter and button that shirt-button back up; I am in no way advocating the production or consumption of your morning coffee in the nude (unless you are a seasoned nudist that is, then you're on your own). More appropriately, I am challenging everyone who doctors up their coffee to taste their brew "naked" before adding the Splenda and hazelnut-fat-free-cream-substitute-product. I know you like your coffee that way and I'm not really suggesting you make any major changes, yet. On the contrary, I'd like you to alter the way you think about tasting coffee, just for a moment.

Lets go crazy and pretend that instead of a hot cup of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, you're face to face with a couple ounces of nice Bordeaux. Now, even if you weren't a wine drinker and you were just tasting it to find out what its all about you certainly wouldn't pour Sprite in the glass to make it taste closer to the Boone's Farm you're used to (ok, maybe that was harsh, I apologize). You would give this classy glass of fine wine a good sniff, swish and swallow and at least humor the idea that you might find interesting fruit flavors, acidic undertones and fascinating palate textures. You still might not care for the wine enough to drudge through a whole glass without the Sprite, but you'd give it the fair shake it is due.

Coffee deserves the exact same tasting love as a fine wine. Many of the characteristics that can be pulled by an expertly roasted quality coffee bean are identical to those of a fine wine. Coffee and wine both share acids, sugars, oils, tannins and other dissolved solids; the only true differences are coffee is hot and wine is alcohol. Even the method of tasting is the same (sniff, swirl, sip, slurp, swish, swallow & savor). So I encourage you to take a chance tasting your coffee "naked" before you spruce it up. You may be surprised to find that different coffees have totally different characteristics without cream and sugar. You'll also find that some coffees blend with the cream and sugar in totally different ways. Who knows, you may discover that there are a few coffees out there that you like better without all the fixin's!

A Perfect Match

As you probably know, Blanchard's Coffee Co. is a certified organic coffee roaster. This means that not only are many of our coffees certified as organic at the farm level, but we, as a roaster, have a certified organic production. We feel this is important in demonstrating our commitment to natural and sustainable production of great, fresh coffee.

We pride ourselves in partnering with companies and organizations that share this commitment and vision as often as possible. With that in mind we are extremely excited to announce the beginning of what we hope will be a long and successful partnership with Farm to Family, an organization for which we've always had the utmost respect. If you are not familiar with what Farm to Family does I suggest you visit their website, though the scope of their work and influence might make for a long read so it is best to go out to their retail space in Mechanicsville or find them on one of their Farm to Family busses and strike up a conversation with owners Mark and Suzi Lilly.

The Farm to Family folks will be offering Blanchard's fresh roasted coffee for sale on the busses and at the retail location. Coffee will also soon be available as a part of the CSA program. We are also proud to share the coffee space with another local coffee roaster, Lamplighter Roasting Company, who are great friends and talented roasters.

Moving forward, we plan to work together on some fun cool projects like "Coffee Pop-Ups" where we will piggy-back on the Farm to Family bus and offer coffee tastings and short classes on tasting coffee and the agriculture behind the brew we love so much.
If you haven't had the pleasure to see what Farm to Family has to offer, consider this your invitation. Don't forget to let Mark and Suzi know we sent you!

Daily Coffee Tip::Love Your Mug

You have a favorite coffee mug right? Mine is a little worse for wear but it has the perfect handle with a thin lip and I swear the coffee tastes better in my mug than any other. What a lot of people don't realize is that your favorite mug might just be hurting your coffee without you even realizing it. To avoid this you have to understand how to love your mug so it returns the favor to you and your precious brew.

Here are a few tips for getting the best out of your favorite coffee mug:

• Shock Your Mug:  Most mugs are made from porcelain (at least they should be) which is an insulator. What people don't always remember is that insulators work the same way for cold as they do for heat so if your mug is sitting in the cool dark cabinet it is going to be a much lower temperature than your fresh hot coffee. When you pour the coffee in the porcelain will draw that heat away and your coffee will instantly drop in temperature--yuck! To avoid this catastrophe, simply turn on the hot water faucet and run piping hot water in the mug for a few seconds (enough time to fill it two or three times). Now your mug is shocked and ready to insulate your hot coffee and preserve its temperature longer.
• Smaller is Better:  A lot of people have giant mugs--I blame that coffee shop on Friends for this mess. Mammoth mugs are neat I guess but they certainly don't do anything for your coffee. First of all you can't really drink a huge mug of coffee before it cools down. In addition, the coffee cools down quicker because there is a larger surface to air ratio allowing more heat to escape. That same surface to air ratio also allows something far more sinister to happen: oxidation. Oxidation is the enemy to most things (coffee, wine, iron etc) so we try to avoid it at all costs. Cut down on the size of your mug and just refill more often giving you fresh, hot coffee to the bottom of every cup.
• No Dishwashers:  This one is going to seem crazy, but keep your mug out of the dishwasher. In fact, keep it out of the dish sink in general. Most dish soaps contain fairly harsh chemicals and fragrances. Even all natural dish soaps use citric acid which, like the chemical versions, get soaked into the porous surface of the mug. It is a subtle effect but these residues affect the taste of your coffee and I don't know about you, but I like my coffee to taste like, well, coffee. The best way to wash your coffee mug is with a simple hot water rinse right after you're done drinking. Every week or so you'll start to see some staining and at that point you might use some mild soap to scrub it out.

Follow these simple suggestions and you'll be drinking hot, delicious coffee like the pros, or at least like the eccentric coffee nuts here at Blanchard's Coffee Co. Feel free to share your coffee mug tips and we'll add them to the list!

Ride In Style with Blanchard's Cycling Kits!

Are you fueled by Blanchard's? Tell the world!

Three Sports is now carrying Blanchard's Coffee Co. cycling kits!

Stop by Three Sports to get a sweet looking kit along with a bag of coffee to keep you going (the bags support the SproFit program and its athletes!).  Need more incentive? You don't have to just bike in your kit. You can even roast coffee in it.

(No, okay, that was a lie. Tom didn't really roast in his kit.)

The bibs set you back $80 and the jerseys $65, right in range with the rest of them out there. Send us a photo of you in your kit and we'll send you a coupon for a bag of coffee from our online store! Just so long as you don't mind that you might wind up on our blog.

Three Sports is located at 6241 River Rd. RVA 23226 and is open from 10am-5pm on Saturdays, and 10am-7pm Monday-Friday.

If you're interested in a kit, but don't live in the area, let Tom know, and he'll either try to get one from Three Sports for you, or add you to a list for the next time we order!

Keep brewing, and ride safe!

The 2010 Holiday Season

Hello, Blanchophiles!

Truly, every year we can't believe it's Holiday season again. Sure enough, though, that time has come again!

Firstly, Page Hayes has done us a great new label this year, which we're proud to reveal:

But that's not all! Tom's also got the SproFit version (Silver & Gold Blend) ready to go: 

Both of these are now available in our online store, as well as the Blanchard's Gift Box for $25, (which includes the Holiday Blend, Dark as Dark, and Decaf) and the SproFit Box, for $30 (which includes Silver & Gold, Iron, and Aluminum Blends, and benefits the SproFit program and its sponsored athletes)!

We can even ship this out in time for Christmas, so you can start checking off names as early as...well, now!

In addition to these four options, we're also giving you the opportunity to add gift cards to our online store. 

If that weren't enough, we're giving away Twelve bags of Silver & Gold Blend during the holiday season for the 12 best stories of how fitness inspires you (or how you have used your own fitness to inspire others). These stories will be published on both this and the SproFit blog. Click here for more info. on that. 

So that's the long and short of it. Five ways for you to give coffee, and 12 folks with a good story to tell can receive some as well.

Happy Holidays, and keep brewing!