Kona Cowboy Coffee: January 2013

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

HOW “COFFEE” AND “POT” GO TOGETHER!

According to the Denver Post, a marijuana-friendly coffee and tea shop has opened in Lafayette, Colo., outside Boulder, after Gov. John Hickenlooper signed Amendment 64 into law, legalizing the recreational use of the drug.

The Hive Co-Op charges $5 for admittance, and allows customers to light up, provided they aren’t toting more than an ounce of marijuana, which owner Veronica Carpio — who previously ran a Lafayette-based dispensary — prefers to call cannabis.

Carpio said she informally started the co-op after Gov. John Hickenlooper signed Amendment 64 into law, which legalized recreational use of marijuana. She wants the co-op to be a neighborhood gathering spot where people can unwind, have a cup of coffee, smoke a joint and feel surrounded by good, healing energy, she said.

Mark Heath, an artist who helped designed the cafe’s interior, likened the social experience of using marijuana to that of drinking coffee. ”People have been getting together to drink coffee together for 200-some years,” Heath told the paper. “This is an extension of that.”

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said there are lots of gray areas that need to be sorted out by the Amendment 64 Implementation Task Force, a 24-member panel that met last month for its first time. The group is in charge of creating rules for an industry that has never existed before -- the recreational marijuana stores allowed under Colorado's newly enacted Amendment. In the interim, Garnett said if people were to sell marijuana at a cannabis club, that could be considered illegal. Garnett said his office's top priorities are public safety issues -- such as driving under the influence of marijuana or juvenile use of pot.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company can satisfy your coffee cravings with our four brands of gourmet coffees. How you drink it at home is up to you! You’ll get a real start on having a great cup of joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee happiness during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that will make you positively positive! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society!

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.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in! 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, January 15, 2013

COFFEE FOR YOUR SWEET TOOTH

Got a great Coffee Caramel recipe from the Internet on about.com. These Coffee Caramels have a smooth, smoky coffee taste and a rich, chewy, buttery texture. The recipe as written produces a caramel with a noticeable but not overwhelming coffee taste--you can adjust the amount of instant coffee to suit your personal preferences, using anywhere from 1-3 tbsp instant coffee. Your best bet in freeze-dried Kona coffee…which I can get you. Just ask.

This recipe yields about 4 dozen small caramels.

Ingredients:

· 1 cup granulated sugar

· 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

· 1/4 cup light corn syrup

· 1/4 cup honey

· 1.5 cups half and half (not fat-free)

· 2 tbsp instant coffee (Kona is the best)

· 1/4 cup (2 oz) butter (not margarine), cut into 4 pieces

· 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Prepare an 8x8 pan by lining it with aluminum foil and spraying the foil heavily with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Place the sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, honey, half and half, instant coffee, and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until the butter is melted and the sugars dissolve. Insert a candy thermometer.

3. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the thermometer reaches 250.

4. Once at 250, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the caramel into the prepared pan. Allow it to set at room temperature for 3 hours, or until cool and firm.

5. Remove the caramel from the pan by using the foil as handles. Flip it upside down and peel the foil off the back. Spray a large sharp knife with nonstick spray, and cut the caramel into small squares or bars.

6. Wrap the caramels in squares of waxed paper to prevent them from sticking together. (Alternately, they can be dipped in chocolate.) Store wrapped Coffee Caramels in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company can satisfy your coffee cravings with our four brands of gourmet coffees. You’ll get a real start on having a great cup of joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee happiness during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that will make you positively positive! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society!

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you speak perfect Arabic without ever taking a lesson! 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, January 8, 2013

GOT A SINGLE-SERVE COFFEE MAKER?

Jack Groot tweeted an online article that he found in the HuffPost:

If you use a Keurig single-serve coffee maker, or one of its many rivals, to brew your morning coffee, you're being gouged. According to a report from New York Times java expert Oliver Strand, the coffee in the machine's capsules comes out to a whopping $51 dollars a pound. That's more, he writes, than all but the highest-end beans produced by artisanal roasters like Stumptown and Intelligentsia -- let alone Folgers.

Time magazine notes that prices are a little lower if you buy the pods in bulk through a vendor like Amazon. But they're still much more expensive than even high-end beans.

The reason people -- especially young people -- are willing to pay that much is that single-serve makers are very convenient, and are often still cheaper than getting your fix at a coffee shop. They let you brew coffee extremely quickly and with no annoying cleanup afterwards.

The past few years have seen virtually every major coffee company rush to get a piece of the rapidly-growing single-serve coffee maker market. Anyone not marketing its own is probably making capsules for use in the market leader Keurig. Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, for example, both signed on in August.

One way you can make Keurig coffee using normal-priced beans by using a product called "My K-Cup." It costs $17.95 on the Keurig website and is indefinitely reusable. That makes it good for the thrifty and the eco-conscious. But it's also worth noting that a big part of the reason people use a single-serve coffee machine is that it lets them avoid having to deal with the mess of wet coffee grounds.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company can fill up your K-Cup with our four brands of gourmet coffees. You’ll get a real start on having a great cup of joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your single-serve happiness during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that will make you positively positive! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society!

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you go to AA meetings just for the free 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!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

REFLECTION

Take some time today to look through some old photo albums and reflect on the way God has worked in your life. There might be a picture of an old love who broke your heart. “Thank goodness we broke up. Otherwise I would have never met the person God really wanted me to marry.” Or you might now understand how that painful move across country brought you to a neighborhood filled with new friends and blessings. Ponder the little things, too.

Today we begin a new year. What a perfect time to take up a prayerful, thoughtful way of life. New Year’s Day is often a quiet day of transition from the holiday season into a new year. So why not take advantage of the calm to do some reflection of your own? You may even want to look at pictures from the past year to spur your memory.

See if you can detect God’s presence in the good times and the challenging times. Recognize his grace in the big and small areas of your life. Then, armed with the evidence of God’s loving care, you can begin this new year with a new level of faith and a deeper readiness to trust in the Lord.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company, maker of four brands of gourmet coffees, wishes you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. We invite you to try PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity. CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees. We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society!

You know you’re a coffee fiend when your New Year’s resolution is to amount to a hill of beans! 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!