Just Irritating

I just got an e-mail from Dean over at Dean's Beans. For those of you who don't know Dean and his crew, this is the group we get our Fair Trade organic coffee beans from. You know, that incredibly fabulous blend of beans that all the ladies swoon over when they come for Tuesday Homeschool Meet-Up. A nicer bunch of folks you'll not often come across in the coffee world. They guarantee their growers get a fair price for their coffee, support sustainable organic agriculture, work on community projects in the villages where their growers live, and still manage to sell us coffee at a decent price. And, to top it all off, Dean himself played a drunken pirate in one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies. Can't get a higher recommendation than that.

So, Dean and his crew do good works. He was called by PBS Biography offering to do a show on him and his group and the good works they do. Sounds great! Being spotlighted for being a social entrepreneur, bringing attention to an important issue for growers and coffee drinkers alike. What could be better?

But, it would cost Dean $22,000. Really. He would have to foot the bill to get his bio done.

Read Dean's letter here, and tell me if that isn't the most rediculous and disheartening thing you've read...at least in the last 24 hours...

Roasting Coffee Beans

Papa Bear's newest project is roasting our own coffee beans. BooBoo Bear is his partner in the roasting project.

They start with a few handfulls of "green" coffee beans from Deans Beans.


The beans go into a slightly modified air popper with a thermometer hanging over the reservior for determining the appropriate temperature.

The chaff gets blown out into a container.

The roasted beans are poured out into a collander for cooling.

BooBoo has his own unique technique for cooling the beans.

And, there we have it. Freshly roasted coffee beans, ready to be ground and brewed.

I must admit, they make a nice cup of coffee...