Tag: Guatemala

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Coffee Frosting on Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Coffee Frosting made a great day of work even better!

This recipe was found on Pinterest and comes from roxanashomebaking.com.  While the coffee frosting topping doesn’t have the same “visual appeal” as hers did (we didn’t have a squeezy thing like she used, I guarantee you that it tasted much better since we substituted the instant coffee her recipe calls for — for the best coffee in the world — organic, Camano Island Coffee.

The coffee frosting contained our decaf espresso coffee beans ground for espresso.  I enjoyed a french press cup of our light roast  Guatemala coffee along with it.

Scroll Past the Picture for the Recipe!

Chocolate Cupcake with Coffee Frosting

Ingredients

  • Chocolate Cupcakes
  • 1 3/4 cup (210 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp (8 grams) baking powder
  • 1/4 cup (20 grams) dark cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 cup (160 ml) almond oil
  • 2/3 cup (160 ml) milk
  • Coffee Frosting
  • 3 tbsp (42 grams) soft butter
  • 6 tbsp (168 grams) soft cream cheese
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp espresso ground Camano Island Coffee ( original recipe calls for instant coffee…. if you’ve not had our coffee before, look below to pick up a pound for free, you’ll be happy you did!)
  • 3 cups (360 grams) powder sugar

Instructions

  1. Chocolate cupcakes
  2. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 12 cupcake pan with paper liners. Set aside.
  3. In a mixing bowl sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Add the sugar also.
  4. Make a well in the middle and stir in the eggs, corn syrup, milk and oil.
  5. Mix until just combined.
  6. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake pan and bake for 20 minutes.
  7. Cool completely before frosting them.
  1. Coffee frosting
  2. In a small bowl mix the vanilla extract with the coffee powder.
  3. Add it to a mixing bowl with the butter and the cream cheese. Mix until smooth and creamy.
  4. Scrap the sides of the bowl and slowly add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time until all the sugar is incorporated.
  5. Spoon the frosting into a piping bag and frost the cupcakes.

Needless to say… these were REALLY yummy cupcakes.  The mixture of dark chocolate cupcakes and coffee frosting was perfect and it went well with fresh coffee, french pressed.

By Dan Ericson

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September’s Coffee of the Month

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Guatemala Light and Medium Roast

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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.

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April’s Coffee of the Month – Guatopia!

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Guatemalan Coffee and Ethiopian Coffee = Guatopia

It’s Back!  Last Year we debuted our “Guatopia” for the April coffee of the month and it was a HIT with our prosumers!  So for April, exactly 1 year later, we’ve brought this fun blend back.  Get it while you can for April because when May hits, it disappears until next time!  You can add it to your Coffee Lover’s Club order or you can purchase it as a one time order for yourself or a friend. Click Here to go directly to our website and order some now!

Note: If you’re reading this post after April just order our Guatemalan medium roast coffee and our Ethiopian Reserve coffee. Then blend them together 50/50.

coffee of the month

Bean Notes:

The pleasant blueberry tones of our Ethiopian coffee begin this flavor experience as you take the first sip.  Once your mouth fills with the syrupy body of this blend, you’ll notice a subtle, well-balanced nuttiness and a slight hint of fruity sweetness.  Finally, you’ll enjoy the slight citrus note in the finish, which will leave you longing for more

Roast Notes:

This Guatemala coffee is slightly darker than our other medium roasts, and on our scale of roasting, it rates just below a dark roast.  This Ethiopia coffee, on the other hand, is more of a medium roast coffee or light roast coffee. The differences in the two roasts are what make this one of the best coffees in seattle.

Country Notes:

coffee of the month

Our wonderful Trapichitos Guatemalan coffee 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 with its high elevation coffees being among the hardest beans available (dense coffee is GOOD coffee).

See our Guatemala Medium Roast coffee on our Website: Click Here

coffee of the month

Our Ethiopian coffee is one of our two current reserve coffees. The reserves are harder coffees for us to come by for one reason or another. We offer them because they add a flavor nuance to our coffee offering list that our other coffees miss. The Ethiopian coffee is among my favorite coffee choices as it has an extremely distinct blueberry tone that really gives this coffee a uniqueness all to itself.

See our Ethiopia Reserve on our Website: Click Here

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July’s Coffee of the Month – Guatemala Medium Roast

It’s back! Our acclaimed Guatemala Coffee Medium Roast is featured this month for all to enjoy! We do, of course, carry it year-round but many wait to enjoy it for those special months that we offer it as our Coffee of the Month!

Sweet and tangy citrus accents set this Guatemala coffee bean apart from the others. With distinct and distinguished flavor and aroma, this medium roast pleases the coffee lover with its complexity and colorful aromatic qualities.

Of course, most of our customers already know there is much more to our Guatemala coffee than the great flavor. Our Guatemala Medium Roast is a wonderful Agros coffee. It’s my personal favorite, actually. From the village of Trapichitos in Guatemala, comes this wonderfully rich, full flavored, original Guatemala coffee bean.

Agros’ website gives us a little more insight:

Trapichitos
“Place of the Sugar Mills”
Nebaj, Quiché, Guatemala
Size: 635 acres
Population: 61 families
Founded: 2000

Also known as La Trinidad (the Trinity), Trapichitos is an Ixil community that has persevered through great challenges. Squeezed together for many years on just 25 acres of land, the original 85 families organized themselves to purchase land 25 minutes from their homes. After five frustrating years and many fruitless attempts to acquire land, the community approached Agros for assistance in April 2000. Agros had never worked with previously organized groups in the Ixil, thereby, presenting a new opportunity. With Agros’ support, local leaders finally had the financial backing to approach the landowner. The 635-acre tract of Trapichitos was purchased in November 2000

Read More: http://www.agros.org/ag/our-villages/guatemala/trapichitos/

I hope you enjoy what is my personal favorite of our coffee beans!

Dan Ericson
“Coffee Guru”
CICR

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April’s Coffee of the Month 2010 – Guatemala Medium Roast and Ethiopia Reserve

Last month we brought back a yearly favorite, our blend of Papua New Guinea and Sumatra. We call it “PapuaMatra.”  For April’s coffee of the month, we’re bringing you another coffee blend that received quite a warm welcome last year.

“Introducing the Coffee of the Month: Guatetopia!”

April’s coffee of the month, our Guatetopian coffee, is a fun melding of our Guatemalan coffee with our Ethiopian coffee. Our Ethiopian brings a distinct blueberry-like fruitiness to the combo while the Guatemalan rounds the flavor with a steady base and a slight citrus tone. It’s an amazing, “odd couple” combination that leaves us all wishing it were around all throughout the year not just for the coffee of the month.

What exactly is in our coffee of the month: Guatetopia?

Our Guatemalan Coffee

This Guatemalan coffee is a medium roast coffee.  Our wonderful Trapichitos Guatemalan coffee 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 best coffees in the world with its high elevation being among the hardest beans available (dense coffee is GOOD coffee).

For more about our Guatemalan coffee’s taste profile, check our our coffee description on our blog at this link: http://cicrblog.com/coffee/coffee/guatemala/.

Our Ethiopian Coffee

Our Ethiopian coffee is one of our two current reserve coffees. The reserves are harder coffees for us to come by for one reason or another. This Ethiopian coffee is one of the most expensive coffees. We offer them because they add a flavor nuance to our coffee offering list that our other coffees miss. The Ethiopian coffee is among my favorite coffee choices as it has an extremely distinct blueberry tone that really gives this coffee a uniqueness all to itself. As I type this description from home, I’m sipping a french pressed cup of Ethiopian coffee and I have to add… it’s hard to concentrate on what I’m typing!

For more info on our Ethiopian coffee, check out our description on our website: https://camanoislandcoffee.com/buy-coffee-online/ethiopian-coffee-roasters.html

 

This is perhaps my personal favorite coffee of the month as it has both of my favorite French Press coffee beans and I’m a big French Presser! It makes awesome drip as well so I’m pretty much covered whether I’m at the roaster or at home. This coffee is a deal at the standard price too! If you like it, make sure you get your fill of it this month and enjoy the deal because next month, the mix is only available if you buy both the Guatemala Medium Roast coffee and also purchase the Ethiopia Reserve coffee at its full reserve price!

Enjoy!

Dan Ericson
“Coffee Guru”
CICR

 

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January’s Coffee of the Month – Medium Roast Guatemala and Light Roast

The Holiday Blend coffees are gone until November 2010….
Are you upset you won’t be able to get them? Don’t worry about it! This month is the chance for something different, yet unique and delicious. We’re bringing you a very special blend of Guatemala coffee for January that is sure to keep you wanting more.

Our “Coffee of the Month” is a wonderful Agros coffee. It’s my personal favorite actually. 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 January, we’re blending the light and medium roasts of this exquisite bean. The result is a mellow, yet medium/full bodied coffee with a slight citrus highlight.

Agros’ website gives us a little more insight:

Trapichitos
“Place of the Sugar Mills”
Nebaj, Quiché, Guatemala
Size: 635 acres
Population: 61 families
Founded: 2000

Also known as La Trinidad (the Trinity), Trapichitos is an Ixil community that has persevered through great challenges. Squeezed together for many years on just 25 acres of land, the original 85 families organized themselves to purchase land 25 minutes from their homes. After five frustrating years and many fruitless attempts to acquire land, the community approached Agros for assistance in April 2000. Agros had never worked with previously organized groups in the Ixil, thereby, presenting a new opportunity. With Agros’ support, local leaders finally had the financial backing to approach the landowner. The 635-acre tract of Trapichitos was purchased in November 2000

Read More: http://www.agros.org/ag/our-villages/guatemala/trapichitos/

I hope you enjoy what is my personal favorite of our coffee beans!

Dan – CICR