TJ – Page 11 – Camano Island Coffee

Posted on December 1, 2011July 23, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

Thoughtful, Easy Holiday Coffee Gifts

As the Holidays are upon us and whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or any of the other holidays – many of you are probably scrambling to find that perfect gift for your loved one. You want that gift to say, “I’m thinking about you and I want to give you something that shows that thoughtfulness!”

Here’s why a gift of the Top 1% of the world’s coffee is not only thoughtful, but one of the best possible holiday coffee gifts to give during the holiday season…

It’s the BEST tasting coffee your loved one will have ever tasted. Yes, this is a bold claim. We whole-heartedly believe and back it.

It’s the HEALTHIEST coffee you can buy.

Our Coffee Lover’s Club gives a gift BEYOND a one time Holiday coffee gift. In other words, with our Coffee Lover’s Club, you can buy a gift now and have that gift continue on long after the Holidays are over because it is subscription coffee. Your recipient will receive: The Top 1% of coffee, fresh roasted, shipped to their door! You’ll receive special “Member Direct Pricing” that includes Free Shipping as well as piece of mind in knowing that your gift will be well-received.

You’re doing something GREAT for others. As always, our coffee supports a greater cause – helping third-world coffee farmers achieve sustainability through our commitment to ethical coffee. Not only do we commit to paying fair prices for our beans, but our support of Agros International takes it to a completely different level!

A gift of the best, healthy coffee that is lasting due to the coffee club can mean a lot. Ultimately, the gift’s value is in the thoughtfulness behind the reasons you purchased it. How many coffee drinkers do you know? Chances are, quite a few.

So setup a Coffee Lover’s Club order for your loved one – it comes with FREE SHIPPING through December 15th!

Posted on October 19, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

Annual Holiday Gift Shop

The holidays are just around the corner and this year we’re celebrating the 10th Anniversary of our Holiday Gift Shop!

We will be featuring over 40 local artists and vendors and we’ll also be sampling specialty food items, the best coffee in Seattle — Camano Island Coffee Roasters — of course, cocoa and more! Whether you’re shopping for friends, family or co-workers, we have something for everyone on your list! The Holiday Gift Shop will open on Thursday, October 27th at 10:00am!

If you’re looking for that perfect gift to send to friends and family, check out our new holiday gift boxes! Visit our website where you can choose from a variety of gift boxes, ethical coffee, our coffee club, tea, and more!

Our delightful new “Winter Drinks” gift box has something for the whole family! Cuddle up by the fire and enjoy sipping Holiday Blend Coffee, Island Select Dark Hot Chocolate, or soothing English Breakfast Black Tea.

If you’re a chocolate lover, be sure to stop by and taste the new Pirates Fudge! We also will have our famous Shipwreck S’mores, Dark Chocolate Truffles, Choc-O-Pop’s, Karamel Stickz, and Salted Caramel Shells.

We look forward to seeing all of you this year at the Holiday House gift shop! Our hours will be extended Monday-Wednesday from 8am-6pm, Thursday-Saturday from 10am-7pm, and Sunday from 12pm-5pm.

Posted on October 3, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

October’s Coffee of the Month- Boo Brew!

Boo Brew- Brazil Dark Roast

Our Boo Brew is back for October! This delicious dark roast is the perfect complement to a blustery fall day.

Bean Notes: Our Brazilian roasts are some of our best selling coffees. With bright, caramel tones and rich flavors, this coffee is a delicious addition to the daily routine.

Roast Notes: When our Brazilian Cerrado coffee is roasted to a darker level, the bean develops into a beautiful, dark chocolate color. Our Brazilian coffee is roasted at a higher temperature, allowing for a rich, smoky flavor to rise to the surface of each bean. This provides a similar brightness in the flavor, which also brings out rich, nutty tones.

Country Notes: This month our Boo Brew comes from the Cerrado region of Brazil. Cerrado means “closed” or “inaccessible”, and has earned its nickname from the closed canopy of the rainforest. This region has earned a unique reputation as being one of the few areas in the world where fire and the surrounding environment have found a way to co-exist. Fire is constantly purging the land and putting nutrients back into the soil, while the rest of the area continues to flourish.

To learn more about Brazil Dark roast, visit our Brazil Coffee Facebook Page, or check out our website!

Posted on September 1, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

September’s Coffee of the Month

Guatemala Light and Medium Roast

September 2011_icon.jpg

This month we are excited to offer a delicious blend of Guatemala Coffee Medium and Light roasts. This blend is my personal favorite and is a delightful addition to any occasion. From the village of Trapichitos in Guatemala, comes this wonderfully rich, full flavored, original Guatemala coffee bean. We carry Guatemala all year but for the month of September we’re blending the light and medium roasts of this exquisite bean.The result is a mellow, yet medium/full bodied coffee with slight hints of citrus.

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Bean Notes: Sweet, tangy citrus tones give this organic coffee a very distinct yet distinguished flavor and aroma. One of our best morning coffees, this Guatemala coffee bean has both the aromatic qualities and taste complexity to set it apart from many coffees worldwide. It is often considered by coffee experts to be among the best coffees in the world.

Roast Notes: The blend of light and medium roasts brings together the complexity of the light roast with the depth and smokiness of the medium roast. Our Guatemala Medium Roast is our darkest medium roast while our Guatemala light is a fairly light roast.

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Country Notes: Our wonderful Guatemala Trapichitos bean has more than a great flavor to it. It’s the first coffee CICR has carried that has a direct connection to our relationship with Agros. Check out this link to read about Agros’ work in Trapichitos. The country of Guatemala is bordered by Mexico to the north, Belize to the northeast, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. It is known for having some of the most desirable coffees in the Americas, producing dense beans from high elevations.

Posted on August 1, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

August 2011’s Coffee of the Month: Beach Brew

August 2011 — Coffee of the Month — Beach Brew.

Our Original Beach Brew is back! This coffee of the month is a combination of our Papua New Guinea in light roast coffee and medium roast coffee. For those that love our Holiday Blend coffee (only available in November and December each year), this is the closest you can get to it! Get these fresh coffee beans while you still can!

Our Papua New Guinea Coffee:

Our Papua New Guinea coffee (PNG) is one of our most popular coffees which is entirely understandable given its undertones that provide hints of cocoa. It has a medium to full body and is considered by many to be among the finest coffees in the world. Most of PNG’s arabica coffee comes from trees that were uprooted in Jamaica (Blue Mountain) and replanted in PNG.

coffee of the month

How to taste this coffee:

Available individually in both a light roast coffee and a medium roast coffee, our Papua New Guinea’s best flavors come to the front when not going too dark with the roast. The chocolaty tones become more pronounced as the bean is roasted lighter. This blend of roasts provides your tastebuds with just the right amount of chocolate tone while introducing a very slight hint of spice developed mainly by the blend of the two roast levels.

More about our Papua New Guinea coffee:

According to the Department of State’s website (click the link if you’d like to read all the in-depth details on PNG), PNG is roughly the size of the state of California and has around 6.3 million people. It has three official languages (English, Tok Pisin, and Motu) as well as close to 860 other languages which plays a huge part in the overall fragmentation of the country and its people. Another topic of note is that PNG only has 49.3% literacy. PNG is known as a country ripped in pieces by civil war, lawlessness and poverty. Yet in the last few years, thanks to many factors including sustainable coffee purchasing, Papua New Guinea has started down the road to recovering its economy. It’s a long road ahead, but we have helped immensely and can continue to help just through responsible purchasing.

Get this coffee of the month while you still can!

Update: if you’re seeing after August 2011 don’t fear! You can still recreate this Coffee of the Month in your own kitchen! Simply order our Papua New Guinea coffee in both light roast and medium roast and mix them yourself.

Here’s a link to check out our Papua New Guinea coffee!

Posted on July 4, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

July 2011’s Coffee of the Month: Colombia Reserve

July's Coffee of the Month

For the Month of July, we wanted to offer a Reserve that we haven’t offered in over 5 years to our customers. Camano Island Coffee Roasters only has 2 reserves in stock currently and it’s rare we are able to get the quantity necessary to offer one of them as our “Coffee of the Month” to our prosumers. This month, we were able to secure enough supply of our Colombia Reserve coffee.

Bean Notes:
As one of Camano Island Coffee Roasters’ “Roaster’s Reserve” coffees, the Colombian Excelso is the perfect combination of nuttiness, sweet caramel tones, along with a touch of spice on the undertone. Specifically, the nuttiness shines through. If you’re one of the many that love nutty coffee’s, this coffee will quickly become one of your favorites!

Country Notes:
Colombia has around 46 million people and is the third most populated country in Latin America. It is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil, to the south by Ecuador and Peru, to the north by the Caribbean Sea, and to the west by Panama and the Pacific Ocean. Colombia is one of the world’s 17 “megadiverse countries” (most biodiverse per unit area). (see Colombia’s entry on Wikipedia for more information)

Roast Notes:
Our Colombian coffee beans are roasted to a medium/light color. A lot of people equate Colombian beans with some of the darker roasts around but we’ve found that the flavor is best when roasted to this level.

Related Links:
Colombian Coffee on CICR’s Website
CICR’s Coffee of the Month (best for ordering at the discounted price!)

Posted on June 29, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — 1 Comment

Fueling the “Give Every Day” Family

The Sheaffer family is on a mission to help others, to grow closer as a family, and to make a difference in the world. In November, 2010, they began to sell and give away their possessions and prepare their family for one year of giving. Around the start of 2011, they packed up the family and the essentials, and left for a road trip around the country.

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The Sheaffer’s believe that you don’t have to be rich to be able to give. They value their family, and together with their two daughters, they volunteer to help out wherever they are needed. They have found ways to give time, energy, support, and joy to people across the United States and have volunteered for over 50 organizations. They are currently travelling around the U.S. and volunteering to serve or give in any way they can!

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The Sheaffers have been long time supporters of Camano Island Coffee Roasters, and we are excited to see the great work they continue to accomplish! They recently let us know that they posted a Camano Island Coffee sticker on their trailer and that they are helping to spread the word!

On their blog, the Sheaffer family gives a pledge of all the things they will do along the way! Here are some of the things they have already accomplished or are hoping to soon!

“We hereby pledge:

To spend intimate, quantity time with our family.
To actively help the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the helpless.
To value, protect, and advocate for children.
To de-emphasize the importance of “stuff” in our lives.
To bring publicity to good causes and good people.
To live with intentionality, as if this year was our very last.
To observe the needs in our country/community – and then do something about them.
To give – every day.”

Check out the great work that the Sheaffer family is doing across the U.S.!

Check out these links for more information:

Give Every Day on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/givingeveryday
Give Every Day’s Blog: http://www.giveeveryday.com
Tim Sheaffer’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/timsheaffer/
Stephanie Sheaffer’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephsday/

Posted on June 20, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

Yvonne’s Garden Corner: Gardening with Burlap Bags

Yvonn’s Garden Corner: Gardening with Burlap Bags

The gardening season is in full swing, and with it, we look for the best way to curb the growth of those persistent weeds while continuing to nourish our soil — gardening with burlap bags can be extra helpful. Burlap bags are made of biodegradable, natural fibers, which break down in the soil and provide a rich layer of nutrients for your plants. If you haven’t thought gardening with burlap bags, now is your chance to learn a little bit about it and see if it’s a possibility for you!

Burlap bags are usually made out of several different ingredients, with the two most common being Jute and Hemp. Jute is a small, soft plant which is grown mostly in Bangladesh and some parts of India. It thrives in wet/monsoon climates and is the second largest natural fiber grown around the world after cotton. Jute leaves are rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, beta-carotene, iron, calcium and vitamin E. The leaves of the Jute plant historically were eaten to restore youth and good health. Jute is woven into burlap bags, along with hemp, agave, and vegetable fibers, and is then exported all over the world.

Follow these easy steps for gardening with burlap bags!

Choose the right location for gardening with burlap bags. I usually place mine in areas with tough weeds or along garden paths.
Place the burlap directly over the weeds and layer if necessary. If you have time, you can choose to dig up the weeds before covering them with burlap. This can lead to stronger weed prevention!
After placing the burlap in your garden, cover with sand, soil, bark, or rocks. This simple step before planting will fortify your garden soil with rich vitamins and will keep weeds at a minimum.

Tip: If the weeds in your garden are extra persistent, first place newspaper or cardboard beneath the burlap to create a stronger wall between the weeds and your plants.

Let us know how gardening with burlap bags has helped you show off your garden in the comments below!

Posted on June 2, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

PapuaMatra

It’s back, by popular demand! Our blend of Papua New Guinea Medium Roast and Sumatra Medium Roast is a favorite with many of our customers. Our “PapuaMatra” is a yearly blend that brings such a huge demand, we need to purchase a lot of extra coffee beans!

Bean Notes: Both the Papua New Guinea coffee bean and the Sumatra coffee Bean enjoy a very loyal following. Both are uniquely different yet come from a similar area. Our Papua New Guinea (Jeff’s favorite coffee) has a subtle chocolaty tone that when coupled with the Sumatra’s dried fruit tones produce an unparalleled flavor. The Sumatra coffee provides a deep, heavy body to compliment the bright tones of the Papua New Guinea coffee bean.

Sumatra Coffee - Medium Roast.jpeg

Country Notes: The Indonesian Islands consist of many fragmented provinces such as Papua, Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and more. If you didn’t notice, all of those countries are well known for growing exceptional beans! The biggest thing that sets our Papua New Guinea and Sumatra coffees apart from those others is that we have sourced top grade, arabica, certified organic, fairly traded, and shade-grown coffees from our Papua New Guinea and Sumatra farmers.

Papua New Guinea Coffee: New Guinea Medium Roast.jpeg

Roast Notes: Keeping both of these coffees in a Medium Roast profile helps to accentuate the nuances of each bean. We’ve tried darker roasts (resulting in the bright flavor notes being roasted out) and we’ve tried lighter roasts (which we ended up making the two coffees compete too much for flavor). In the end the Medium Roast for each of these created this amazing aromatic, flavorful blend.

Posted on May 2, 2011June 14, 2020 by TJ — Leave a comment

May 2011’s Coffee of the Month – Peru Light and Dark Roast

Our “Coffee of the Month” for May, 2011 is a wonderful blend of light and dark roasted Peruvian beans.

Country Notes:
One of the highest in elevation in the region, this Peru coffee bean has sweet, fruity tones that lend towards a naturally sweet cup. Our Peru is a light bodied coffee, which gives great flavor and taste to each cup. This coffee is great any time of the day and will complement every meal.

That description still holds true with this special blend of roasts. The only addition I would make to that description is the added amount of complexity from the combination of a Light Roast coffee and a Dark Roast coffee.

Peru Light Roast.jpeg

Roast Notes:
At CICR, we get so caught up in coffees that have a “strength” in flavor or provide the drinker with a “rich” cup of coffee, that the Peru often gets overlooked. Peru, while not having a super deep, dark flavor, has a wonderfully mellow tone and smooth taste. When I’m eating a meal, I want my coffee to taste great, but not compete with what I’m enjoying. The natural sweetness and subtle flavors of this Peru blend will complement any meal.

Country Notes: Peru is a beautiful country with a diverse landscape. It is bordered by Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, and Chile to the south. The estimated population of Peru is 30 million people (2011), and the two national languages are Spanish and Quechua. Peru is home to many people groups today and was the native land of the Incas.

Related Links and Information:

Peru Light Roast on CICR’s Website
Peru Dark Roast on CICR’s Website

Enjoy this wonderfully subtle favorite!

-Dan