Coffee

Hey, I've had some of their beans! :D Picked them up when I was in Buffalo almost 2 years ago. Still love the name of that place! :cool:



Can't blame you for standing in line for a good shop! ;)



Congrats! No worries "outing" your Santa, it's usually only a secret until you get your gift box.

With that said, I also received my SS gift box on Monday. Thank you Monofletch Monofletch !!! :D :thumbsup:

I texted him before I got it, and it actually arrived at my door while we were talking. He got to talk with me "live" as I was unwrapping it. Full disclosure, I had figured out my SS as soon as he shipped the box, as I got a text notice of an inbound shipment from St. Louis through the "My USPS" dashboard.

He was trying to throw me off the scent, saying he had sent me "27" knives from Frost Cutlery, lol! :p Upon opening the box, what was on TOP of everything, but a magnificent Frost Cutlery "Park Ranger II"!!! :cool: :eek: ;)

I unloaded the box, and found 3 bags of coffee, a bunch of glitter (o_O) off of the Christmas tags, the Frost knife, a BF t-shirt, a microfiber cloth, and another wrapped box. As I was setting everything out for the picture, I tossed the box onto the floor, and something metallic came out and hit the wall. Almost missed the Kershaw K-tool...

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I wanted to wait to open the wrapped box, but John said to open it, so I did. How cool, a Lionsteel SR2! :cool: I haven't had anything from Lionsteel before (and John figured that out), and this is a great little beefy knife. Love it! The color is cool too (and my son's favorite color).

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A few other pics...

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Made a cup of the 25th anniversary blend right away, and it surprised me a LOT! Despite being Kenya, Guatemala, and Columbia, it reminds me of an Indonesian or dry-processed Ethiopia.

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What fun this swap is!!! :D I'll be shipping soon, having some difficulty figuring out my giftee...
You are one of Bladeforums coffee royalty- very hard to buy for...sir. I hope everything is to your liking. This is my favorite time of the year...
 
I think I'll be safe. He's got a couple knives with shiny new edges headed home that might buy me some favor.

Lol! :D

SpyderPhreak SpyderPhreak John's a class act for sure!!!

Indeed he is! :cool: Glad to call him my friend! :D :thumbsup:

You are one of Bladeforums coffee royalty- very hard to buy for...sir. I hope everything is to your liking. This is my favorite time of the year...

My wife would agree, lol! :p Everything is excellent! :thumbsup: Going to try the 700 espresso shortly. :)
 
Fullflat Fullflat thank you sir! Brewing up my first cup right now and will report back later but it sure smells good. Really digging the stretch, first fidget friendly and very flickable spydie lockback I've had. Fits perfectly into my frn collection! Sorry for the crappy pic.
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Very welcome brother! Hope you enjoy those beans :) Very stoked to see the Stretch fitting in so nicely with the frn fam. Now I want one.
Merry Christmas!
 
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday swap. I just caught up on the last few pages. I was lucky enough to get this Northfield. It’s always nice to get a true surprise. Got some fresh beans to grind as well. Things are looking up!
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Glad you are enjoying! Josh and I had fun researching coffee roasters here in Oregon and trying out the different coffees. The one kind was still getting blended so we sat and watched their production through a window from their cafeteria.
 
Confused as hell, found this in my job's pantry today.
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It's Hugh Jackman's boutique coffee shop. As far as I know, I've only been to the one near my old Bank of NY Mellon job. So now boutique coffees are available in a K Cup from costco. Stumptown is at Target as is Blue Bottle. Makes me wonder are we being duped in terms of availability of great coffee beans? Does roasting have more to do with it than anything else? For the fellas who are roasters on the thread, can you school me on how important the bean is vs the person roasting the bean?

Here's a video of Cafe Grumpy's roastery. I'm a huge fan of my favorite coffee shop's house blends. As I trust these roasters to really create coffee profiles that are super drinkable. Gregory's and Grumpy's are two of my favorite blends and as I get older I find myself buying less and less single origin in terms of frequency.


One more interesting thing about Grumpy which I havn't seen at any other coffee shop in NYC. The cafe purchases hyper micro-sourced (beans they literally know the mountain that the coffee bean is being grown on) that are graded on quality and are extremely limited in supply. Depending on how the crop is graded and supply, the price for their beans and a cup of coffee at the cafe changes. So the single origin cup of coffee could range from $4.75 and $10. So fair prices for the farmers. In general when the crop comes in at a higher price, sometimes I havn't been able to tell a difference and then other times the falvor profile is pretty unique.
 
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Roasted coffee today for my secret santa and shipped it out. Gift box is in the hands of USPS. Monofletch Monofletch said he'd personally supervise the progress of the package... ;) :p

One more interesting thing about Grumpy which I havn't seen at any other coffee shop in NYC. The cafe purchases hyper micro-sourced (beans they literally know the mountain that the coffee bean is being grown on) that are graded on quality and are extremely limited in supply. Depending on how the crop is graded and supply, the price for their beans and a cup of coffee at the cafe changes. So the single origin cup of coffee could range from $4.75 and $10. So fair prices for the farmers. In general when the crop comes in at a higher price, sometimes I havn't been able to tell a difference and then other times the falvor profile is pretty unique.

Sounds like they're buying specific small lots of coffee at auction. That's nothing new, that's how Sweet Maria's, where I buy a lot of my green beans, has been doing it for ages. The good news is this is how the small percentage of the tippy top of the best coffee in the world is sold, so they're roasting and selling you the good stuff. :cool: :thumbsup: Many other shops do this as well.
 
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Does roasting have more to do with it than anything else? For the fellas who are roasters on the thread, can you school me on how important the bean is vs the person roasting the bean?

Here's a video of Cafe Grumpy's roastery. I'm a huge fan of my favorite coffee shop's house blends. As I trust these roasters to really create coffee profiles that are super drinkable. Gregory's and Grumpy's are two of my favorite blends and as I get older I find myself buying less and less single origin in terms of frequency.

In my amateur opinion, it more the bean than the roaster, if you're talking about a single origin coffee. Even an expert roaster can't make a crappy bean great. Whereas a novice roaster can get great results from a good bean. Yeah, an expert roaster can probably coax a little more out of a bean than an amateur can, but as the saying goes, "You can't polish a turd."

Now, with blends, I think it's quite the opposite. There is a real art to blending coffee, and it is easy to screw it up. We touched on this a couple three pages back. Beans that are great on their own can taste like garbage (relatively) in a poor blend, and mediocre beans can shine if blended properly.

My ¢.02, worth exactly what you paid for it. ;)
 
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