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Risky business
Recently I've taken a few risks. Not in a safety 'if you do this the building might burn down' or 'if you do that all of your customers might all go away' sort of risk. That would be foolish. No, I've bought some expensive green coffees that a year ago would have scared me. I would have looked at the price and wondered how much I would need to charge to make it work and thought.. "who is going to buy this". Recently I bought my most expensive green coffee by a margin. The Colombian Las Margar...
Read moreWe're in the Muddy finals
A huge thanks to all of you that voted for Crankhouse recently in the Devon Muddy Stilettos 'Best Local Food/Drink Producer' category.
Due to your efforts we’re in the finals along with 4 other Devon businesses in this category.
Read moreLondon Coffee Festival 2018 highlights
London Coffee Festival 2018 is done and dusted and what an amazing 4 days of caffeine fuelled fun and conversations. Plenty of highlights over the festival and this year the top moments included some fabulous feedback on the coffees we were serving by some of the speciality coffee industry big-guns. The biggest highlight for me was having seven skilled and passionate baristas come and stand behind the Crankhouse counter and then thank me for the opportunity to represent the Crankhouse brand. Read moreCosta Rica field trip - part 2
Costa Rica field trip part 2. Cupping at the Cafe Imports San Jose office, a beautiful unplanned visit to Oscar Medez's Finca Genesis and finally to La Perla De Cafe micro-mill owned by Carlos Barrantes. Two more quotable quotes. Oscar Mendez: "I have a lot of respect for cuppers and roasters, as they know that what they are tasting is a beautiful symphony - a culmination of the world's natural beauty, and the hard work of many different hands", and Carlos Barrantes: If you work hard, you can achieve anything. Read moreCosta Rica field report - Part 1
Part 1 of our trip report to Costa Rica covers visits to the La Pira De Dota, El Pilon and La Chumeca in the Tarrazu region, then onto Cerro San Luis and Las Lajas in the West Valley region. Stunning farms and micro-mills.
QOTD: "If it smells good, it's going to taste good" Francisca Cachon
Read moreNew coffees and goings on
Competitions, forums, snowmaggeden and a trip to Costa Rica. Read moreInfluences and Influencers
I've just received my itinerary for a 4 day visit to some of Costa Rica's main growing regions including Tarrazu and the the central valley. I'm joining one of our green sourcing partners Cafe Imports and one of the farms we'll visit is Las Lajas. The yellow honey processed coffee from Las Lajas was one of my standout coffees from last years list and I'm looking for to cupping this crops offerings. Read moreKnowing your onions...
This week I received my signed copy of James Hoffmann's collection of blog posts entitled "`The best of Jim Seven 200...
Read moreFriday reflections
Friday night reflections on the week and I feel good. Some people I respect have made some lovely comments about Cran...
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