Muertos Coffee

I've served coffee a few times and secured the rest of August, so I have 5 more weekends of serving. I'm feel'n really good about it which has spurred some questions. Am I profitable? Am I on track for getting a new bean before I run out? Is this building my business?

I know I missed my blog post last week, I apologize for that. To be honest, I was in the throws of a panic attack. Seriously...my chest was all constricted, I couldn't sleep, felt like I couldn't breath at times...sucked a lot. Why was I freaking out, you ask? Because I was about to cross the threshold and put myself out there. May sound silly, but that is the fear that stops 99.9999999999999999999999999% of people from taking their life from one place, to a better place. Looking back on it, that fear helped prepare, but there was no need for a panic attack.

The time has finally come. Time for me to get of my cave and interact with people in real life. hopefully we stay away from those tricksy hobbitses, precious.

I subscribe to a company called Deathwish Coffee. I reviewed them a long time ago. The coffee was not to my style, but I like the company. I like what they have been able to achieve and how they approach it. I was reading through one of their emails and actually stopped to notice their blog is called "Fueled By Death." I was like, "well, crap." There goes my hashtag and all my ideas around "life fueled by Muertos." So, I needed to come up with a new line and I think I have a good one (if it's not, that sucks because I just put it on 500 business cards).

I have defined my life by events that have changed me. We all have experiences where we were one person before and different person after. Becoming a father was probably the biggest mark on my time line.

We got back from California this weekend, and I failed pretty hard on my coffee plans. I was going to hit all 3 of my favorite coffee shops and barely only made it to one. We got in much later then I expected and just got caught up in trying to do everything we planned that my coffee trips got pushed to the back and then fell off. I did stop at Better Buzz, though. I really like this shop. This was my first time getting a pour over here. They had awesome equipment, but I wasn't a big fan of their technique. I call it the fill and empty. The barista was doing 2 things at once, so she would fill the v60 then go do something else while it emptied, then repeat a couple of times. I'm not a fan of this. Also, for $4.30 for 12oz cup, I feel like I should get a little dedicated time. I'm super bummed I couldn't hit the other 2 shops. We hit a couple of other places. One was a little cafe for breakfast that literally offered over 10 different types of coffee in air pots....

We pretty much head to Encinitas every Memorial Day weekend. This is one of my favorite trips. One, because I love the beach. I could sit on the beach all day long. Two, the food in San Diego (and surrounding towns) is awesome. And three, my little beach town has 3 amazing coffee shops.

My wife and I were invited to a little party out in Downtown Gilbert. It was a crazy long drive, but well worth it. It is like a little piece of Radiator Springs right in the middle of Arizona, minus the talking cars. I love this little street. If it wasn't an hour drive, I would spend a lot of time there. We were sitting out on the patio of one restaurant and I was longing to be at the BBQ restaurant across the street. Then I realized there was a little coffee shop across the street. It was getting late so my wife googled when it closed...I had 4 minutes before it closed. I hesitated for a  moment, but the walk signal turned on the cross walk switch to go and I made a break for it.

Since cold brew coffee is all the craze these days, and I had a bunch of coffee left over from my test batches, I figured why not give it a try. Plus, living in Arizona, a cold coffee option is a must or sales will drop almost too low during the summer months.

This is going to be a bid of a short blog post, because I am working on a little video of my taste test. I think what I will focus on here is the biggest lesson I learned. That is regarding the Millard reaction.

I have arrived at the conclusion that I need some help to get this business up off the ground. I have a habit of getting stuck in my thinking and need someone to bring fresh ideas to the table. So I reached out to a buddy of mine. We go quite a ways back. We worked together back when I was doing indie-film. I picked a place called Tim Finnegan's...having just listened to the song Finnegan's Wake, how could I not go here.

I had someone laugh about my "black death" coffee a couple days ago and it confused me. I was like, "what are you talking about?" He said, "yeah, you have skulls and stuff." I knew what he meant and I knew I wasn't going to change his view of my logo right then and there. All I could do (and can do) is love those people and share with them. So, that's what I'm doing here.

I purchased my Behmor from Seattle Coffee Gear. It was kind of a no brainer (no this is not an endorsement). They didn't charge tax or shipping...AND they gave me a free 1 lb bag of green coffee beans. It was the best deal. Since I didn't have to pay for those green beans, I put them to good use in testing my new roaster.

Now that I have a new roaster, I'm doing research to understand it better. This of course will result in me blogging about what I have been learning. Please weigh in and add your thoughts to the comments section. The first aspect I have been learning about is the Turning Point.

I thought this would be a good time to give a few updates on how this year has started off. I would say, in the realm of microscopic sized companies like myself, it has started off pretty strong.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge fan of Fox Concepts. I think they just do everything right. When I heard that there was a Fox Concept restaurant that had a coffee shop incorporated, I had to go. I got a nice gift card from my manager for Christmas and I was only going to use on The Henry. My 7 year anniversary was at the end of February and my wife and I agreed we would just go have a nice dinner. I capitalized on this opportunity to try their coffee shop too.

It's been a while since I did a beer blog. For some reason, I just haven't really had any beer experiences worth blogging about. We had an opportunity recently, so we capitalized on it. It was my 7 year wedding anniversary this February and we decided we would hire a babysitter and go out. We hit The Henry (review to come) and then went to Sleepy Dog Brewery.

It was getting late in the year and so my family and I decided to make a last minute trip up to Flagstaff to play in some snow before it all melted. It had been raining for days, but the weather app on our phone said it would snow that day. Sadly, it did not. Instead, we got rain...lots of rain. Since we had to wait out the storm, I used that opportunity to check out a coffee shop I have been wanting to try for a while, Firecreek Coffee.

I know I'm not ready to start brewing coffee, but I do want to make it out to a farmer's market soon. When I do finally make it out there, I will need to have something to sell from. So, I took my cheapskate creative juices and put them to work.

It was a sad day when I tried to open the door and found them all locked. I could see through the windows and noticed the ladders and though it was just some re-modeling. That wouldn't bother me a bit. I could work right through some construction noise. But, it was a tear down only.