Kona Cowboy Coffee: March 2014

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

REALLY CRAPPY COFFEE

I posted this information last August but there's been an upsurge in interest about this mostly fraudulent "coffee" and people have been mentioning it so I'm going to repeat it. Whenever we do a trade show, someone is bound to jokingly ask about “that coffee that comes from a monkey’s …” So, I grin and bear it, explaining to them that it’s not a monkey and, no, we don’t have it. Then I came across this item from Erin Meister, who trains baristas and inspires coffee-driven people for Counter Culture Coffee:

“Sure it's "exotic," this Pacific Island coffee that's processed by being digested and, ahem, excreted by a cat-like cutie called a civet (which is what the luwak means, kopi being "coffee"). The beans are harvested from the feces, washed (obviously), and, typically, roasted before leaving its country or source of origin, usually in fancy-seeming vacuum-sealed packs or encased in some other elaborate packaging that just reeks of "fancy coffee."

“That's not all that reeks, however: Many of the civet coffee on the market is from farms where the animals are force-fed coffee cherry and kept in cages too small for them to turn around. Beyond that, regardless of their animal instinct to eat ripe fruit, the cat-like creatures can't always be counted on to eat the highest quality of coffee, and the animals' and plants' health, environmental conditions, and other myriad dubious factors pretty much guarantee that the only sure thing you'll get with an order of kopi luwak is a crock of, well...”

Thanks, Erin. Lots of reasons not to spend your money on that! Now if you want to buy expensive coffee that doesn’t come from the business end of a wild animal…or even one in a cage…the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has PANIOLA brand 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee estate grown on the western slope of Mauna Loa volcano on the famous Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. Sure, you might think it’s expensive but it will be the best darn coffee you’ve ever tasted!

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest, animal digestion-free coffee available. You’ll get 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 experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut or Mango Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has updated our website with new prices, new products and more! Order on line and we’ll do our best to get it to you as fast as possible. Go to www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com and look at the coffees. Go to the “Chocolates” page and find our new Cowboy Coffee Choco-Drops, a coffee caramel smothered in milk chocolate and dusted in cocoa powder! We have new Mescalero Morning Cowboy Coffee Candles on our “Bath Products” page, too.

The purpose of this missive 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 also join 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/. You can also find us on tweeting onTwitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster. And look us up on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you can jump-start your car without cables! 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, March 18, 2014

GLOBAL COFFEE SHORTAGE

Don’t panic. We don’t buy coffee from Brazil. But, for example, usually during this time of year, the delicate Arabica coffee plants in the mountains of Brazil, where most of the world's coffee comes from, are maturing. White, fragrant flowers have appeared, followed by cherry-like fruit, each containing two seeds: Arabica coffee beans, the most popular in the world.

But last month, the worst drought in decades hit Brazil's coffee belt region, destroying crop yields and causing the price of coffee to shoot up by more than 50 percent so far this year. The drought is historic, with more than 140 cities in Brazil forced to ration water. The country's leading newspapers reported that some neighborhoods are receiving water only every three days.

For now, retail prices for coffee are stable. Roasters typically have enough supplies to cover themselves for a few months. But if the price of the Arabica beans continues to rise, consumers could start seeing the cost of their morning coffee creep up later this year, according to Jack Scoville, a futures market analyst specializing in grains and coffee, among other commodities.

Coffee bought, roasted and packaged for the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company comes from Kona, Hawaii, of course, along with central America, Ethiopia and Indonesia.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest coffee available to enjoy by the cup. You’ll get 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 experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut or Mango Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you can type sixty words per minute ... with your feet! 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, March 11, 2014

COFFEE AND CHOCOLATE

I’ve always said that nothing goes together better than cowboys and coffee. Well, nothing TASTES better together than coffee and chocolate! Here’s a recipe for a Kona Coffee and Chocolate sauce that will wow you!

You’re going to need a third of a cup of strongly brewed PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, two ounces of unsweetened chocolate, half a cup of granulated sugar, three tablespoons of unsalted butter and a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract. Got ‘em?

In a sauce pan, cook and stir the coffee and chocolate over low heat until melted. Stir in the sugar and butter until dissolved. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

That’s it. Use it over ice cream. As they say in Kona, it’s ono, brah!

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest coffee available to enjoy by the cup. And you can probably pronounce most of the names. You’ll get 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 experience during the day. And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane! We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society! If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut or Mango Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you're so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas! 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!