The following is from a Facebook post that I put on a friend’s status. She had just rediscovered coffee after quite a while without. This was my attempt to explain a little bit about why she should try OUR coffee. The points were specific to her situation, but general enough that just about everyone can benefit from them. Hopefully this helps some of you that are “on-the-fence” about whether or not you should try CRCR coffee.
Let me know what you think!
“First thing that you need to know about our coffee (and all of the other GREAT coffees) is that you need to have a grinder. We only sell “whole-bean”, and to be truthful, grinding fresh coffee immediately before you make it will make a TON of difference in the taste. Coffee is a perishable food product. It will go bad. So getting the freshest product possible is vital to ensuring that you have a quality cup of coffee. All of our coffees are roasted soon AFTER they are ordered. We don’t keep a bunch of bags just lying around waiting for someone to hopefully buy them. It’s as fresh as we can make it. Each bag will have a roast date on it.
All of our coffees are a light to medium roast. You can taste the flavors that are naturally in the bean, instead of just getting a burnt, acidic aftertaste. Coffee beans are a lot like wine grapes. They take on the characteristics of the soil in which they are grown. So, a Guatemalan will have a considerably different flavor than an Ethiopian, and much different than a Sumatran. Our job, as roasters, is to bring out those natural flavors without turning it into a lump of charcoal.
A lot of people will say, “I like my coffee strong”…well, strength has to do with the dose. How much coffee is used and how much water? Unfortunately, people are starting to equate STRONG coffee with BURNT coffee. We are trying to show that each coffee naturally has a marvelous taste to it, without being cooked to a charred oily mess.
When you are using fresh-roasted coffee, the flavors are much more prevalent. As a result, you don’t need as much coffee to produce a great flavor. Take your dosing down by about 20 percent. If you normally use 5 scoops of another coffee for a full 12-cup pot, just use 4 scoops of ours, and you will still get a great cup of coffee, but you don’t need as much.
One last point: Don’t put your coffee in the freezer or refrigerator! Keep it in a cupboard or pantry, away from the direct sunlight and keep the bag closed so as to not let air into it. In the freezer or fridge it will accumulate a lot of moisture inside the bag, which will pull the oils from the coffee much more quickly than normal. This release of the oils (contrary to popular opinion) is not a good thing. That means that the bean is starting to degrade and will lose it’s flavor soon. People say that they get more flavor from their coffee after it has become oily….well that coffee has become rancid, and the acids are taking over. You’re getting more flavor, but is it GOOD flavor?!”