Muertos Coffee

BIG NEWS! For all of my rabid readers...all 3 of you (I know who you are)...You have seen over the last few months that I have been working on re-branding. Well, the time has come.

To anyone who saw this post before it was ready, I apologize. I was trying to take notes on my phone and accidently hit "publish," then I couldn't figure out how to undo it. So, here it is officially. We planned a trip to Oceanside, CA with my brother and his family. We normally do parks like Seaworld and other trips, but they just wanted to chill. I get that, but we were expecting to be bored. The solution...go see as many coffee shops as possible! I created a list of 8 or 9 and we only got to 6. So here is a summery of my experience along with my ranking:

In the process of re-branding, we are working on starting a podcast (more to come later). I have been researching and wanted to touch base with someone who is running a podcast that sounds good. So, I reached out to the guys at Orange Cactus Coffee ( www.orangecactuscoffee.com ) here in Az. Jake got back to me and said that he was going to be in town the next day on a coffee crawl. One of the shops he was stopping at was Boss Coffee. I've been wanting to review this place for a while, so I caught up him there.

With my re-branding efforts, I'm working to develop my palate. I need to be able to better taste the products that I'm providing. As a coffee roaster, I need to be able to tell what effects any changes I make has on the bean. The only way to do that is to taste. The hard part is that it's very difficult to distinguish what we taste. Most of us think in cave man perspectives, "mmm, good," or, "me no like." So, with that in mind, I decided to do a cupping with one of the best roasters in town.

I recently had a revelation about my brand. I recently finished Gary Vee's book Crushing It!  and posed a question on how to interact with people and not sound spamy. The guys over at Orange Cactus Coffee replied and then did one a short podcast to better explain their approach. I listened to and the MC referenced El Cantante from Muertos Coffee and it caught me off gaurd. I had actually forgotten that I themed all my socail media.

I was meeting a friend of mine, as I do every so offten. We were only able to make the meeting happen during a time he had his kid, so we picked a place that was close to his house. He reccomended Urban Beans because they sold coffee and beer. Sweet! 2 reviews in one...kind of.

My oldest daughter started her first dance class which is in old town Peoria. The old town area is a neat little place with a park, a massive library and some really old shops. They have recently been working to make this place more of a "charming - old part of town" rather than a "hold you up at knife point and take your wallet - old part of town." One of the newest editions to this area is Driftwood Coffee, an excellent addition that really brings the whole area up.

I've officially decided to start the process of re-branding. What does that mean? Well, to me...that means I'm kind of starting over.

I like to try breweries, but I don't like spending a ton of money if the beer sucks. So, we look for good deals on Groupon, which is a great way to try new places. For Christmas, I got a Groupon for The Shop Beer Co. Not the best name I've ever heard, but the deal was really good. So, we held onto it along with another Christmas gift (a Fox Concepts gift card) and celebrated our 8 year anniversery with amazing food and a brewery sampling.

I've been thinking lately that that I just don't know what I'm doing. I'm kind of just doing what I think is good, then mess up and adjust. I know there is a better way to do it, but I'm not going to know it. I still have a long time left to find partners, but for now, I need some help with starting a business. There are 3 people that I know of and am considering approaching for help. They are:

I'm in a pretty good rhythm with my farmer's market. It's kind of like a 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off cycle that really allows me to have a life. It also allows me to time to think up what to do next. One of the biggest trends that I see right now is having some sort of signature drink.

This last farmer's market was a much better experience then last month. I learned a couple of key elements and have started thinking of things I need to start working on for upcoming months. Lastly, an update on the restaurants I've been trying to to get to sell my coffee.

I know I haven't written in a while, it's been pretty busy for me lately. My blogging is directly correlated to how busy my day job is. We just went through a "restructuring" so my manager is constantly pushing to do more with less. Pretty corporate, I know. There have been a few positive though. A co-worker took my coffee home with her to Tx and her family loved it so much they ordered 6 bags. Also, my website is up and running!

I served my first farmer's market on 1/6. There is a random little restaurant in the middle of our neighborhoods that hosts this market on the first Saturday of every month. It was a bit of a mixed experience.