No (Coffee) Bullying

"Go somewhere where they are nice to you and have great coffee."

This was the closing line of a recent interview on an Esquire Magazine blog post.

Go somewhere where they are nice to you and have great coffee.  This perfectly expresses our philosophy. We want customers to feel welcome and appreciated. We don't want them to feel intimidated by fancy coffee jargon or looked down upon by the extreme geekery that is rampant in today's cafe culture (AKA Third Wave). What I really like about the interviewer in the Esquire post is that he confronts the coffee snobbery head-on. He may have just started a coffee anti-bullying movement.

Good coffee is accessible, doesn't require a PhD to enjoy, and you should drink it the way you like it. That means cream and sugar won't hurt our feelings. Neither will a half-caf almond soy latte with extra foam. If that's how you like it, we are happy to serve it to you. We are not worried about the coffee's flavor being muffled by milk, syrups or other additives because we are confident in our product and its ability to adapt to your taste preference. So, make up a drink! No need to stick to the menu.

Better yet, take home some beans and experiment with different brew methods. There are great ways to brew at home that don't cost an arm and a leg, such as French press, moka pot and cold brew. We'd love to hear about your favorite techniques! Read more about our coffee philosophy and check out our excellent selection of fresh roasts here, at paramourcoffee.com.

Vacation!

We went on vacation for 10 days, and not only is the place still standing, it thrived in our absence! We're pretty sure we have the best help ever. And although it is great to know we can leave, this vacation accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do: gear us up mentally for a long march through the fall and holiday season with little time off until Christmas.

Every day there seem to be more tasks on the to-do list: Website tweaks and ongoing development; working with the SEO guys; packaging for the Wizard's Blend (soon to be available at our local Oz Museum); tracking down some good beans and stocking up; planning holiday merchandise; figuring out cold brew equipment/technique; designing labels, ads and package inserts; and numerous random but time-consuming projects. All this on top of my day job, and with Jim already putting in 12-hour days. Who wants to clean our house? We sure don't!

For our vacation, we rented a lakefront house with friends, ate good food, drank good wine, and saw some sights. Imagine our bemusement with the options on the coffeemaker in the rental: 

Delay brew or brew now. Strong or regular. Pure silliness! On top of that, they had Maxwell House in the freezer. Or was it Folgers? I must have blocked it out.