Tuesday, August 28, 2012

LET’S LOOK AT HOW MUCH THAT CUP OF COFFEE COSTS

Found a guest column by Chase Walters on the Daily Shot of Coffee blog and I thought I’d pass it along.

Most people wish they had better control over their finances and more money to invest in savings. Often, we look at our largest bills as the culprit draining our paychecks, and mortgages and car payments certainly do add up.

However, it’s often smaller purchases that really add up over time and these are the purchases that are often overlooked. For example, many of us indulge in a morning cup of coffee and $4 for a latte doesn’t sound all that expensive.

But let us look at how much that cup of joe can cost you over the course of a week, month and year. Even if you only bought coffee on weekdays, you’d spend $20 a week. That adds up to $80 a month and $960 a year.

Most people would be thrilled to have an extra $960 a year, and that is only the savings of one spending habit!

If you pick up a weekly copy of a tabloid magazine at the newsstand, you’re spending close to $200 a year. The daily newspaper will cost, on average, $360 a year.

Perhaps you also eat out at a fast food restaurant three times a week. Spending a mere $5 on lunch sounds like a great deal, but it adds up quickly. You’re spending $60 a month which equals $720 a year for fast food.

All of these very common small purchases add up to over $2000 a year!

What can you do with an extra $2000? A wise move would be to invest the money. Investing often sounds intimidating and complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.

For example, say you’ve decided to give up your small purchases for an entire month. You now have an extra $170 in the bank. You invest this $170 in an investment account with an average rate of return of 8%. You continue to contribute the $170 every month. Over the course of 20 years, you’d earn over $101,000.

Yes, it’s true. By simply giving up small indulgences each month, you can save over $101,000 towards retirement.

This is an average calculation. Depending on where you invest your money, you can potentially earn a higher rate of return.

This all sounds like a wonderful plan, but how does one actually achieve continued success cutting back on indulgences that you truly enjoy?

Consider purchasing a good coffee maker and brew your own cup of coffee at home. Add in the cost of packaged coffee or coffee beans from the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company plus cream and sugar if you use them and you’ll still only pay approximately 42 cents per cup of coffee. That means you’ll still be saving $860 a year on coffee.

Pack your own lunch instead of eating out. A turkey and cheese sandwich, plus an apple and some cookies averages only $1.31.

If you can’t imagine giving up the magazine or newspaper you really enjoy, consider a few alternatives. Go to your local library to read these items for free. Borrow copies from a friend, or read articles online. Even becoming a subscriber instead of buying off the newsstand can save you hundreds of dollars a year.

To begin saving money, start keeping track of all your purchases and look at where your money is going. Decide what you can eliminate or cut back on, and add up the savings.

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time. Join up, become a member, comment and have fun! You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553. Just copy and paste to your browser. You can also find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster. And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

Look for the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at the SASS U.S. Open, September 4 – 9 at the World Shooting Complex in Sparta, Illinois.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when Instant coffee takes too long! So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

Monday, August 13, 2012

COFFEE HISTORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

According to our guest writer, Richard Woods, most of the world begins the day with a fresh cup of coffee. What has become the most popular beverage today was literally unheard of several centuries ago. If it hadn’t been for a shepherd in Ethiopia, we may not know about coffee at all. The history of coffee is definitely an interesting one, with multiple stories weaving throughout history, right up until present day. Take this version of the story of Kaldi cum grano.

According to legend, coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a shepherd by the name of Kaldi. Although history has been unable to verify the story, there has been some evidence of truth in certain elements of the story. It is believed that Kaldi discovered coffee when he realized that his sheep remained active and spirited throughout the night if they consumed berries from a certain tree. He explained this to the abbot, who believed Kaldi and made a drink from the berries based on his observation. To his amazement, the abbot also found it hard to sleep after saying his prayers. The next day, he shared his experience with the other monks and soon the tales of the drink that kept you awake spread across the country. Soon after, coffee began its journey to the rest of the world.

The Arabs are known to be first people to trade with coffee. They began to grow and cultivate the berries and by the fifteenth and sixteenth century, coffee was being cultivated for commercial trade in Yemen, Persia, Syria, Turkey and Egypt.

Coffee started to be consumed in homes and public places alike, as it was not an alcoholic drink – forbidden in many Eastern Countries. It became a drink of choice at social gatherings and soon the wine of Araby as it was called, began to spread beyond Arabia.

Coffee began its slow journey to Europe in the seventeenth century when it was brought back by European travelers from Arabia. Contrary to the welcome that coffee received in Arabia when it first made its appearance, it was widely condemned in Europe. In 1615, the clergy of Venice condemned the consumption of the beverage strongly and created a controversy that required the intervention of Pope Clement III. The Pope drank the controversial beverage and gave his approval to coffee almost instantly.

Soon after, coffee spread to the rest of Europe with many coffee houses springing up across major cities in England, France, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. It was easily available and people found themselves engaging in conservations over a cup of coffee. Coffee reached the America’s or the ‘New World’ during the 1600′s and became popular a century later as a result of the high taxes imposed on tea by the ruling government.

Although the Arabs closely guarded coffee to protect their monopoly on the beverage, the Dutch managed to obtain a few seeds in late seventeenth century. From the Ethiopian highlands, coffee is now grown in almost all parts of the world.

So next time you take a sip of the dark rejuvenating hot drink, think of the journey it made through time and geography to find a place, right there in your cup.

Look for the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company’s Cowboy Coffee Saloon at the Western Legends Roundup in Kanab, Utah, August 17-18, along with Dr. Buck’s Wild Bunch, Cowboy Action Shooting with the North Rim Regulators and lots of movie stars and heroes.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you “channel surf” faster without a remote! So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

CHOCOLATE COVERED COFFEE BEANS

One of the most popular items from the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is Miss Kitty’s Chocolate Covered Kona Cowboy Coffee Beans. Just imagine: dark roasted Kona coffee beans from Hawaii smothered in a blend of rich dark chocolate. Have you ever popped a chocolate covered coffee bean in your mouth and thought: “Who was the genius who invented these?”

Harold Alexander of Koppers Chocolates in New York invented the chocolate covered coffee bean in 1965, coating premium estate coffee beans in layers of chocolate. Although this classic pairing has a long culinary history, Alexander’s creation set off a specialty marketing trend for all things coffee and chocolate.

Now you may see them as espresso beans or, as we market them, coffee beans. So…which is it? Are they chocolate covered coffee beans or chocolate covered espresso beans? You might not care about the particulars of the name if you are obsessed with both chocolate and coffee. But we would be remiss in our duties as weekly coffee bloggers if we didn’t point out the reasons behind the confusion.

You will often see chocolate covered coffee beans labeled as espresso beans. It’s a misnomer, as there is no such thing as an “espresso bean” to begin with. Espresso refers to a brewing process, and the product of that process, not a bean. Espresso is a drink made with coffee beans, and it’s one of the top coffee-related myths that there is a special bean variety just for espresso. There’s not. Therefore, coffee fiends, call ‘em chocolate covered coffee beans. Or, in our case, Miss Kitty’s Chocolate Covered Kona Cowboy Coffee Beans.

Now, every time I sample some of our chocolate covered Kona coffee beans at a trade show someone will remark, “Now I won’t have to drink a cup of coffee,” as if one bean is going to do it. Here’s the truth about caffeine.

We once figured that it take about 24 coffee beans to make the average size mug of coffee. That got us wondering about Miss Kitty’s Chocolate Covered Kona Cowboy Coffee beans. We did some research.

You have to take into consideration the coffee, the chocolate and the sugar. Marco Arment (creator of Instapaper, technology writer and coffee enthusiast) presented a back-of-the-envelope calculation and came up with 2-4 mg of caffeine per chocolate covered bean or roughly 120 mg per one ounce serving. Self Magazine puts the number higher, at 224 mg per one ounce serving. Following our line of investigation, the bloggers we researched found credible estimates between these two points of reference. So, in a nutshell, these candies do pack a caffeine punch within the range of a serving of coffee. Chomping on one or two won’t do it but eating a hand full might. Be cautious in indulging past the single serving zone.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you get intoxicated just so you can sober up on coffee! So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!