5/16/2013

Special Blend

Beans: Special Blend
Roaster: Okino Coffee

Organically grown, After mix
Imported individually

Peru 60%, Ecuador 30%, Guatemala 10%    

【Impression】
Medium to dark body, nutty, cacao nib, a tint of orange, sweet, mellow, silky, clear, cocoa, roasted almonds, dark chocolate, rich, full-flavored, layers of bitterness with a touch of mellow sweetness between, a long lasting juicy sweetness as after taste.    

5/12/2013

Verve ~ Something new ??



Warm welcome back to Verve Coffee Roasters in downtown Santa Cruz.

There are some familiar faces and some new behind the counter, wondering maybe it is time for them to cultivate/nourish next generation.  Downtown Verve is always filled with younger people, packed with people sometime, which appears their flagship is functioning as it designed to be.        

Opening a flagship in downtown Santa Cruz three or four years ago, Verve may have adjusted their prospective to further business oriented: Bland equity building.
Verve Coffee hosted Varista Championship South West regional in Santa Cruz and sent their Varista to this competition.  Are they known better now?  Maybe, yes.  Hosting a regional championship was their chance to imprint "VERVE" name nation wide and to gather coffee lovers attention.  
Varista champ. is now growing and growing.  
Coffee had been "in house" culture for a long time in the States, but, thank for Starbucks, it has turned as the key to grow and develop  cafes/coffee bars culture.  This is Nation wide trend moving toward to "gourmand coffees", better quality and flavor just like wines.  

Behind the curtain, there is a big winner in this market: Harrio.  
Sales of Hario US is growing since and I found it is funny to see most of coffee tools are made in Japan printed on.  Especially, there are very very few pour-over tools and no water drip tools made in other countries.  It has been only few years since US focused on "Coffee" as "articles of taste" so that there maybe new tools are developed already and hidden still.  
Coffee is the chain of artisans: Grower, Buyer, Roaster, Varista.  
There are always "tools" to develop and chance to create Magic.