New boxes, yes I am excited.

For any company, branding is important. Finally, after over a 16 months of shipping coffee in random boxes, we now have real ones. Whenever this arrives at your step, you know your getting coffee! Now, to update the image a tad!

http://theoldworldcafe.com/

Construction (1100+ bolts by hand and still going)

My what fun this was, this picture is a bit old (half of what is now done) but I wanted to share it so people could see the work being done for our new little test shop. Again this is not open to the public but it is still neat to see it go up and water and electric ran to it!

the old wwworld cafe

Happy One Year OWC!

What a long strange trip it has been! One year ago today marked the launch of www.theoldworldcafe.com and the arrival of our roaster! Though OWC's journey started long before that, it is nice to look back on the past 365 days and see what has been accomplished. I thank all of our customers for exploring single origin coffees and giving micro lots a chance, and a special thanks to the cafes who use our coffees and have found great success with them! Enjoy a look back at a few pics of ours over the last 18 months, including a bag concept image, where the roaster currently is, our old inventory, and Ash trying to get latte art out of a lever machine!

Check out the site for the Strike Gold! special, and stay tuned for more educational coffee videos!

Arrivederci!

www.theoldworldcafe.com

Tea Time!

Well, it's been a while now since I mentioned our tea sampling. Though I have kept up with sampling and rating the teas, I have not kept up with the blogging. Hopefully those of you interested will not be too upset and can enjoy this blog with all the teas I've had so far.

Since the beginning of this year, I have sampled 11 of our new teas. With the luck of the draw, I have managed to brew all types of tea except for white. So far I have enjoyed them very much and look forward to trying more =). To keep from overloading you all on this first blog of teas and tastes, I am going to cover the first 5 I sampled. Then I will cover 5 more in the upcoming weeks until I am caught up.

#1 Earl Gray - well this is quite a known tea and as many of you know it is a strong, smooth, slightly sweet cup. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

#2 Flavored Black Tea: Blueberry - this was actually one of my least favorites. Though I am a huge fan of blueberries, this cup fell short. It had very little sweetness and was light bodied. It left me wanting more flavor and I ended up sweetening it. Even then it was only an OK cup.

#3 Flavored Rooibos: Bourbon St. Vanilla - this was a tasty cup filled with tones of vanilla and caramel. It held up well on its own and could also take flavors if desired. I am a big rooibus fan in general, so I enjoyed this, but I felt I have had better rooibos teas in the past.

#4 Estate Tea: Darjeeling India - this was an amazing cup of tea. Both refreshing and reinvigorating, I fell it love. It's smooth, a little earthy, and has an ever so slight sweetness to it. It also had a lingering after taste that was wonderful. I very much enjoyed this cup.

#5 Cochin Masala Chai - this was a good cup, but nothing special. I love chai tea and though this was sweet and spicy, it was missing much of its spice. Good but not great.


So, these are the first 5 teas I've had the pleasure of sampling. If any of you have had these teas before whether in a local shop or at your home, please leave your comments and thoughts from your experiences.

<3 Ashley

www.theoldworldcafe.com

Art update

So here are 2 images, you can see ash still womps me in latte art ability.....hey I only get to practice twice a month!

Where your browser goes for coffee

Barlume Back Up and Running

So our 2 group Barlume is back up and running after a waterline had broke from the wall to the filter a few months back. Here is a pick at our....semi training/test/mock center.

Enjoy the videos we will be making while under this setup and thanks for your patience as they come along!




http://theoldworldcafe.com/

What's that? Tea!

Well, we're always talking all about coffee, but what about tea? It is the most popular beverage of the world next to water and a big competitor of coffee. Though I personally love our coffee, there's nothing quite like a great cup of tea.

So, we set out to explore our tea options. We've received samples from black to rooibos. We have flavors and blends as well as just straight natural teas. Being the tea drinker of the bunch, I have set-up a method to fairly test each tea and rate it. Basically, I reach into the sample package we received and blindly choose a small package. I then boil water and brew 2 tsp of tea leaves with 10 oz of water (making sure the temperature and the brew time is appropriate for the tea type). While the tea is steeping, I check out the leaves and the aroma of the tea. As the tea finishes, I give it a sniff and then taste it. I always take several drinks before making any judgments. I then list the flavors I draw from the cup and rate the tea, including the ability to take flavoring and cream.

This may be a lot of information, but this is the set-up to give you an idea of what's going on. So each week I'll be blogging about the teas I've tried and my thoughts. So keep checking in to see the results.

<3 Ashley