God in A Cup of Coffee

For those of you who have asked and those of you who might like to know, I will be promoting God in a Cup in my hometown, Washington, DC. You can read me and see me and meet me:

In the Washington Post:
Wednesday, July 23, lead story in the Food Section
You can read what I have to say about finding great coffee in the
Washington, DC area.

I will be signing books and talking at a coffee tasting
Thursday, July 24, 6:30PM
Grape & Bean,
118 S. South Royal Street in Old Town Alexandria 24th
(www.grapeandbean.com)

on Monday, July 28th there will be an article about me and about Washington, DC’s coffee scene in the Express, the Washington Post’s tabloid geared to Metro-riders

July 28th, at Politics & Prose, Washington’s beloved independent book store, I will be signing books and reading at a coffee tasting. 7PM
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
www.politics-prose.com

On Radio
Thursday, July 31, noon
You can hear me on WAMU — 88.5FM
On the Kojo Nande Show

If you want to attend one of these events and would like to come up and say hello and you don’t know what I look like, here’s a noncoffeeish picture of my husband John and me that shows what I look like (on a good day.)

When I interviewed US barista champion Kyle Glanville two years ago, he talked about the impact of Andrea Illy’s book, Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality, on his professional development. Ernesto Illy, Andrea’s father, is revered for infusing scientific precision into the art of espresso making, and the company has long been associated with the highest standards.

During that interview, Kyle noted that Italy’s dominance in the art of espresso had faded. “Italian fetishism,” he said with characteristic panache, “is no longer relevant.” Meaning that when it comes to the art of espresso making, Italians no longer dominate the field.

Indeed.

These days Illy and another Italian roaster, Lavazza, appear to be making major inroads in the American market. A number of restaurants I have patronized recently have listed espresso from one or the other of these companies on their menus. Stylishly designed cans of Illy and Lavazza are available in many high end food stores.

I have been told by a coffee guy whose opinion I respect, that Illy, when fresh, makes a fine espresso. I cannot speak to that. Suffice it to say, that my experiences with Illy coffee have not been positive. Hard to delineate how much of the problem is execution and how much relates to the innate qualities and lack of freshness of the coffee.

Earlier this week, however, I encountered an Italian import that redefined abysmal.

My husband and I were back in Florida checking in on my Mom. On Tuesday night we had a late late lunch at Charlie’s Crab, a family favorite located on the Intercoastal canal where you can take in the view while enjoying a pretty good meal.

Charlie’s is part of the Chart House chain and on this visit, its corporate roots were more visible than in the past. The portions were big. The sauces were gloppy. A crab, mango and avocado “stack” I used to love, was weighted down with copious amounts of tasteless mayonnaise.

The waiter was friendly, but unmindful.

And the coffee?

The first little cups placed before us were tepid–maybe 110 degrees F. I had a hard time believing this coffee had been heated and forced under pressure through an espresso machine.

We told the waiter the coffee was cold.

He didn’t remove the first cups when he set the second set of espressos before us–I told you he was unmindful.

The liquid was thin and it tasted like Sanka.

The waiter looked at me.

Where does this coffee come from, I asked.

Lavazza, said the waiter, a tall thin guy from Brazil who had come to Fort Lauderdale for the swimming.

Pods? I asked.

Pods, he said.

Oh, I said.

Omigod, I say. Lavazza has defined the bottom of specialty. Alleged specialty. I doubt McDonalds could do worse.

What I love most about the specialty coffee world is its inventiveness. Many people in the business have an in born need to throw themselves, heart, soul and innards into what they do. “Coffee guys” ( this term encompasses women, too) like the ones I write about are driven to keep learning, to experiment, to question the common wisdom, to push specialty in new directions. There’s a relentlessness to their commitment, a monomania, that attracts a writer the way an ice cream truck attracts kids on a playground.

What’s often missing in the specialty world is EQ–emotional intelligence. That all important form of intelligence that helps a person understand other people, understand his or her own impact on others, understand the complexities of human relationships, understand the importance of context in all human interactions and correct course based on these perceptions.

Lots of guys have emotional intelligence, but I think it is fair (meaning not sexist) to say that more women possess this important quality. Which may explain why I have occasionally felt so lonely when hanging out with an all male group of coffee guys in some remote corner of the world. And why meeting a perceptive, insightful “coffee guy” of the female persuasion is so much fun.

Enter Erin Meister, age 26, barista, barista trainer, blogger and professional coffee

tutor.

Erin is a woman with emotional intelligence, as well as the other kinds.

Our paths had crossed a few times, but she and I had never t really talked until I invited her to the party some old friends threw for me in New York City when God in a Cup was published last month.

That’s when Erin told me that she had developed a sideline as a “coffee tutor” or teacher, helping clients in New York City learn to how to best use their home espresso machines.

“You mean you’re a coffee consultant?” I asked somewhat incredulously, not quite getting it. (OK, I was a little buzzed.)

“I shy away from the word consultant,” Erin said. “I lam a tutor. Like someone who comes into your house to teach you math, only I do that with espresso machines and coffee.”

I found this new niche for specialty coffee expertise really interesting and made a date to talk with her on the phone.

Erin’s gig as a coffee tutor grew out of her work as a barista. Being an interactional sort, she got to know her customers well, talking at length with them about coffee and espresso making. Often a customer would express frustration at his inability–generally it’s guys with some techie skills who buy home espresso machines–to master the complexities of espresso making.

One thing led to another and pretty soon Erin and a fellow barista with whom she went into partnership were building a coffee tutoring website (www.biynyc.com), writing a manual for home espresso makers, and scheduling home visits.

Most of her clients, Erin reports, are men in their 30s to mid 40s who own their own apartments. “They tend to have moderate to high moderate espresso machines and have done a lot of research.” Their book-learning, however, hasn’t provided them with a sense of the physical skills required to operate an espresso machine well. “They haven’t gotten the tamp down,” Erin says., “They have to work on the fluidity of the movement. It’s like trying to learn about choreography from a book. You can’t do it. So I come over and help them put the moves together.”

Erin finds comments of the “only in New York” variety about her tutoring business annoying and short-sighted. “I haven’t found my clients to be rich or entitled. If these guys really had a lot of money, they would be paying someone else to make their coffee.”

Her clients, she says, are specialty coffee’s core customers: “They’re foodies. They’re really interested in wine. They read about coffee, are willing to invest in high quality equipment, are willing to try different beans and have a real love of coffee.”

Erin teaches them skills like “temperature surfing… Home espresso machines,” she explains, “don’t have much temperature stability—the boiler is small and the heat source unstable. The milk and espresso share the same boiler, so sometimes you have to trick the machine a little to get the temperatures you need.”

She teaches her clients, “techniques for fooling the machine. When someone is starting out, they don’t think in these terms.” Under ordinary circumstances, she explains, you want the water to be heated to 205 degrees F or less, while milk is steamed at a higher temperature. “You don’t want to mix the grounds with steam-heated water, because the steam will scorch the espresso, so you have to purge the steam from boiler,” she says.

Mastering an espresso machine, she adds, “is like learning another language. I think for me, these skills are instinctual, so I have had to learn how to teach…”

She has also learned to appreciate the dynamic that goes on between her clients and their wives and girlfriends who often sit in on the tutoring sessions. Sometimes, when the student asks a question or makes a comment, his spouse or spouse equivalent will say, “Honey, that’s not what she (meaning Erin) said to do.”

“What you get is a little bit of backseat barista-ing,” says Erin. “It’s a very funny, sweet dynamic. You get to see a little bit of the human relationship.” (if you have the emotional intelligence to notice.)

These days, in addition to tutoring, and writing, Erin is working as a copy editor at Time Out New York. I asked her if she missed being a barista. “I miss the customers,” she says. “I miss talking to people about coffee all day.” In my opinion as, admittedly, an outsider, the specialty industry needs people with her kinds of coffee skills and people skills.

You can reach Erin at: http://meetthepresspot.blogspot.com

-endit.

I spent yesterday being a talking head for a documentary on coffee that will air on the Discovery Channel. We taped the show at Murky Coffee in Arlington, Virginia.

The producer, Dana Millikin, had hoped to interview Murky owner Nick (Cho), but Nick is off in Copenhagen emceeing the World Barista Competition. In fact when I arrived back home from Nick’s cafe, I heard Nick talking in my house, well, talking on the radio in my house, in a National Public Radio segment on barista art taped in Copenhagen. Hearing him after spending the day in his cafe, gave me one of those sci fi feelings, as if what is in my head is shooting out into the universe.

The documentary producer, Dana Millikin and the camera man were food lovers eager to learn about coffee. I relived my own “coffee conversion” watching them experience their first “real” cappuccinos made with whole milk and Counter Culture’s Espresso Toscano–velvety foam, a mouthful of chocolate caramel, perfectly executed rosettas, framed in white, then ringed with brown. Smooth as cashmere. How I love the sensuality of a good cappuccino.

The baristas, Travis Edwards, David Flynn and Katie Duris, turned out competition-quality caps all day–OK, the presence of a TV crew might have had a teeny tiny impact on their stellar performances. but these guys are good.

The coffee that blew me away, though, was from Nyeri, Kenya–Counter Culture’s Kangocho Auction Lot 4587.  On CC’s  website this coffee is described saying it,  “offers layers of black cherry, dried currant, dark chocolate, and allspice above a substantial, velvety body.”  I tasted a round mouthful of spicy grape juice. Mmmm.

I sipped the Nyeri and then handed the cup over to Dana Millikin, the producer who as the day progressed was becoming my new best friend.   As Dana tasted the coffee a look spread across her face. “Now I get what you mean about drinking brewed coffee black,” Dana said with a certain wonder.  “Coffee like this doesn’t need enhancing.”

 By 2pm, I was pretty hungry, and it was clear we weren’t going to break for lunch. I stared at the pastry in the counter and eventually  I bought a chocolate chip biscotti.  It was big, and I  attacked it  with  the good manners of, oh, a dog, driving his teeth into a bit of red meat.

Ohhhhh.  Disappointment.  Wrong texture.  And cinnamon.  I don’t want to taste  cinnamon in my biscotti!  Almond, yes.  I want to taste almond, but not cinnamon.

Phooey.

I guess sourcing great cookies is even harder than sourcing great  coffee.

(I am going to ask Dana Millikin to email me some pictures from yesterday’s shoot at Murky, and I will post them here.)

I had dinner last night at one of my favorite restaurants in the DC area: Black Market Bistro.

Black Market is located in a restored Victorian house across from the railroad “station” (in fact there is no station, just a stop) in a leafy 100-year old suburb called Garrett Park. With its towering trees and welcoming tennis courts, picnic tables and town green, Garrett Park recalls the time in America when people with taste and money wanted to live in suburbs.

The setting doesn’t mean much, of course, if a restaurant’s food and wine don’t live up to the visual. Not the case at Black Market.

There were three of us last night. My husband and our friend ordered one of Black Market’s signature dishes. Pan Seared Monkfish, served over saffron-flavored papas bravas, small cubes of potatoes in aioli, with sauteed haricot verts and a tomato parsley relish. I had the New Orleans style barbecue shrimp served with wilted swiss chard and creamy sweet corn grits that were to die for. Unsure whether to order a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Australia or the dry Riesling from New Zealand, our server brought us a taste of both and we chose the Riesling, which had a zesty lemon/honey thing going on. ($36.)

I could describe the frozen mango mousse we shared for dessert, but I will spare you. Suffice it to say: the food and wine and setting at Black Market provided us with a satisfying laughter-filled oasis from everyday life, reminding us all why we love dining out.

The quality of the meal did not come as a surprise because Black Market is one of four restaurants owned by local chefs Jeff and Barbara Black. Each one of their places –Black Market, Black’s Bar & Kitchen, Addies, and BlackSalt Restaurant and Fish Market ( without question the best fish store in DC), are all gems.

So why when I asked about the coffee last night, did our talented wait person proudly proclaim that coffee. espresso. cappuccinos and lattes were provided by Illy Caffe? How can it be that talented food people like the Blacks serve coffee that tastes like dreck?

Don’t they taste their own coffee?

The answer is, “no!”

They don’t taste coffee consciously and purposefully using the same set of standards and expectations that they apply when assessing other foodstuffs.

I have been pondering this mystery all morning, and I have decided what is required is a “conversion experience.” Until chefs’ understanding of coffee is “reborn,” they just aren’t going to get it.

Like it or not, most chefs don’t view coffee as an agricultural product or understand drinking coffee to be a culinary experience.

I had a conversation about coffee with the general manager of one of the other restaurants owned by the Blacks a year or two ago. He told me that he had made a stab at offering “gourmet” coffee.

He ordered four different coffees from an elite roaster (Intelligentsia, if memory serves). He prepared a special coffee menu and offered a hodge podge of coffees, espressos and cappuccinos to the public as an experiment. The experiment failed and that was that.

I think this sad situation will not change until the specialty coffee industry begins to understand that chefs are not cheap snarky bastards out to “dis” the creativity of great coffee roasters. When it comes to coffee, chefs are the unconverted. They need to be coaxed and cajoled and welcomed into the tent of the true believers. In order to change and be reborn, they need love, not disdain.

……

Here is a picture of Black Market in Garrett Park. The picture doesn’t do the place justice. Go and eat there. Speak gently to to the chef the word of great coffee.

It’s 100 degrees in Washington, DC and I am as lazy as a kid defying orders to pick up his toys.

Still, I promised myself I would write about Grape & Bean, the new wine and coffee bar located on South Royal Street in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia. I visited this appealing little boite located in an historic building for the first time last week and was impressed as hell.

This tiny little place positions specialty coffee as the companion to all that is handmade and delicious in a way that I consider an absolute model for the specialty industry. In an accessible and yet stylish environment food, wine and coffee marry one another harmoniously.

The emotional tone of the place is set by owner David Gwathmey and Sheera Rosenfeld’s eagerness to share what they love, so the place is friendly, rather than snooty.

The point is to create an environment where all feel welcome to explore new tastes and new pairings of coffee, wine and food. Unusual social pairings are also on the menu. On my visit, David Gwathmey told me he loves seeing “freaky coffee people” chatting up upscale wine drinkers at the coffee bar.

Grape & Bean offers wines from around the world by the glass and by the bottle; Counter Culture coffees by the cup (brewed on a Clover), and as bean; equipment for brewing coffee at home; and an array of unusual food products, including exotic chocolate and spices and artisan breads baked daily by the talented baker from Restaurant Eve. (I bought a baguette and my husband, fondly known as the Bread Nazi, was blown away by this deeply fragrant, earthy, yet refined loaf.) Soon Grape & Bean will be offering customers at its wine bar and outdoor tables a simple sampling of foods made in house.

Grape and Bean is located in an historic building. Its culinary aesthetic is matched by a concern for design and architectural , as you can see from this collage lifted from another foodie blog:

As a result of my blog, I have been outed: It’s true. I am a bad speller, have been all my life. (My third grade teacher described my skills as a student to my mother saying that I wrote so well, and spelled so creatively.) As an adult, I came to realize spelling is a visual acuity skill unrelated to writing ability, reasoning and even memory.

As a young reporter, recognizing that I was a bad speller I would check every word over and over when I wrote a piece. And then spell check came along and undid my careful ways. I came to rely on this software feature and in time I forgot that I am a bad speller who must always always be on guard.

I didn’t quite take in this fact when I began, but blogging is undertaken naked: There is no editor or copy editor fig-leafing the writer’s shortcomings. And on my blogging software, there is no automatic spell check.

Still, a good writer must love the language and should try mightily and constantly to honor the language in all ways. Which means honoring words, using them accurately and with verve and spelling them correctly. And a good reporter must strive always to get things right.

So she must learn to be more careful. and she must learn to spell palate correctly and she can remember how to spell palate because palate and plate are the same word with just the addition of one a.

So I will do better and perhaps my critics will develop a sense of humor. Or perhaps they will not. I, however, will try to maintain mine.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been a guest on a number of foodies radio programs, on the east coast, the west and in the middle. Wiley, the publisher for God in a cup arranged these appearances to promote my book. I like to talk, and I have had a lot of fun parrying with the different hosts, whose age, sex, culinary sophisticatiaon and backgrounds vary greatly. One thing they all have in common, though, has taken me by surprise: few of them know much of anything about coffee. Remember, these are professionals—folks who know enough about food and drink to warrant air time on a radio station in a major market—well, OK, some markets are more major than others.

It surpises me that professional foodies are still so uninformed about a beverage that most of them, most of us, drink every day, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about why that is. Especially since we are in an era which to quote coffeegeek empressario Mark Prince described on a recent podcast as “a golden age of coffee.” (He said that to me, on the podcast on which I was a guest which he posted a day ago.)

If this is a golden age, why are so few civilians, those outside the specialty coffee industry and the barista and café communities, so oblivious? And is there any likelihood that this disconnect between the coffee and the culinary worlds will be remedied in the near future?)

I think those inside the specialty business don’t understand the barriers: I am not a coffee professional or a trained taster, but it seems to me that coffee is hard to get. It takes a a lot of exposures in a comfortable environment to start to get the range of flavors in a cup of black coffee. The arcane language that has come to dominate the discussion is off putting too. Most reasonably senstive foodies don’t discern the wild strawberry, the bergomot and licorice in coffee .

Even folks with sensitive palettes feel put off.

Part of the problem has to do with the contentious debate about FairTrade. So much screaming and shouting, so much vitriol in the discussion has turned foodie’s off to the subject of coffee. It’s not the debate that is the problem, it’s the terms of the debate. The hatred and anger that makes outsiders weary of the discussion and lose sight of the coffee. I experienced this hijacking first hand two years ago when I organized a Slow Food coffee tasting at Murky.

Another part of the problem, I think, has to do with the wine analogy. People in the specialty business are always comparing specialty coffee to the wine business and predicting that high end coffee in this century is just about to take off, as the us wine business did in the 1980s.

While some aspects of the analogy may be true, there are problems. Wine is easier to “get” than coffee. The tastes of wine, the mouthfeel, the start and finish are more accessible. And everyone already knows that wines come from different grapes, different regions, different colors and that each of these categories comes with its own profile. Even before you ever taste a burgundy, somewhere in you mind you have absorbed the fact that a burgundy and a pinot noir are different. You expect them to taste different and then when you taste them you go looking for the differences.

But that’s just part of the problem that prevents foodies from entering coffee world. Wine is what you drink when you are relaxing, eating nice food, taking the time to savor life. You pay attention to the taste of it, because wine is all about slowing down and tasting. But coffee!!!! Coffee is about the caffeine. About drugging yourself into a heightened state of productivity—I am sitting on the train to Philly (another radio show) typing this blog, the train is rocking, my eyes are slowing shutting and I am thinking, oh god it was five hours ago when I woke up and made my self a cup of coffee (Yirgacheffe, that, admit it, I barely tasted as I raced around packing and doing last minute email. Many—but not all — of the rituals and ceremonies that surround coffee drinking, are anti-sensual. You don’t pause and taste and contemplate, you drink, maybe have a moment of tasting, and then you revv up and start going—unless it is Sunday morning.

And in restaurants, when people are more relaxed and perhaps would take the time to savor the coffee, well, their palettes may be alcohol soaked and degraded by the time the coffee is served and even more disastrously the the coffee is generally blechhhhhhhhh!!!!! Hideous. No training the palette here to taste the beans.

The subculture surrounding the specialty world, both the brewed coffee and espresso worlds, also keep people out. A lot of the people who inhabit the specialty world are making up for high school: now they are the cool kids and they have no intention of welcoming the uncool and the unhip into their special universe.

…..It all adds up to an exclusive little universe disconnected from the culinary world, and that, I believe is profoundly bad for business. If the specialy industry is to grow and meet its potential, more customers have to be invited in.

I

A number of thoughtful women who work in the specialty coffee industry have told me that they find my use of the term “coffee guys” in God in a Cup annoying and, well sexist.

Coffee buyer and consultant Trish Rothgeb (aka Trish Skeie) has said she hopes my next book will be about the inspiring women who are transforming the specialty coffee industry at origin. She points in particular to some of the advances made by women growers in Butare, Rwanda, for whom coffee is a livelihood and a vehicle for reconciling the political hatred between Hutus and Tutsis.

Here is a picture of Trish, who is a very talented coffee person:

Regarding Trish’s suggestion, I am not sure what I will write about next, but the idea of writing about a woman or women coffee growers certainly appeals to me.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about my own attraction to the “guyness” part of the specialty coffee industry. Why is it that when I first started writing about coffee and interviewed young (male) coffee buyers, roasters and entrepreneurs, they were so compelling to me? Why did I cast my story as a book about young coffee guys when their certainly are many women in the industry and many men who are no longer young, who have made great contributions to the industry.

iMy first book, A History of Women in America, published by Bantam, written with Carol Hymowtiz, establishes my credentials as a writer who is interested in the lives and experiences of women.

But I think it is my second book, Deadly Consequences, written with Deborah Prothrow Stith and published by HarperCollins, that says explains why I found young “coffee guys” such compelling subjects. Deadly Consequences is about teenage violence in the African American community. Writing that book, I learned how tough life can be if you are a guy, especially a guy from a non-elite background. Though reporters and scholars are always splitting the world into racial categories, I figured out that it didn’t really matter if you were black or white. If you are poor and male and have no non-violent male figure in your life to lead you out of adolescence and into responsible manhood, you are kind of screwed. Under the best of circumstances, it is often extremely difficult for young guys without fathers, or young guys from strained economic circumstances to find a place for themselves in the world. I had never really understood how fragile male identity can be. I got interested for a while in Marky Mark and wanted to write a book about him. All that talent. All that raw sex appeal. All that dumb inability to control himself. He fascinated me as a potential literary subject.

When I started reporting on specialty coffee and began meeting young coffee buyers and entrepreneurs, I recognized some of that vulnerability in them.

Being the mother of a son deepened my interest in writing about guys. Growing up female, I really did think the world belonged to guys. And the world does belong to guys, sort of. But when you are bringing up a son, you get to see the complexities.

….and I guess it is the complexities of maleness that fueled my writerly interest in the young “coffee guys,” and eventually led to me writing a book about them.

Stumptown founder Duane Sorenson, Stumptown coffee buyer Aleco Chogounis, and Stumptown marketing chief Matt Lounsbury brag that their company, based in Portland, Oregon owns the most exquisite and the most expensive supply of coffee in the world. And the thing is: they do.

During a nine hour online auction yesterday, Stumptown outbid companies based in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia, winning ownership of the best of the best of Hacienda La Esmeralda’s 2008 Geisha crop.

Stumptown partnered in the purchase of some of the coffee with Tom Owen, owner of Sweet Maria’s, the Oakland, California company that sells green coffee to home roasters. Together they outbid feverish competition in order to command all five of this year’s top lots. Each lot consisted of 300 pounds of coffee. That means Stumptown and its partner paid approximately $135,000 for 1500 pounds of coffee.

Batch one, consisting of two identical lots, sold for $95.25 a pound. Batch two, also made up of two lots, sold for $105.25 a pound, so in a certain perverse sense you could say Stumptown got a bargain, as coffee from the batch two location sold online last year at the Best of Panama auction for $130 a pound.

Batch three, the fifth lot of coffee purchased by Stumptown and Sweet Maria’s was made up of peaberries and sold for $50.24 a pound. (While most coffee beans grow as twins, peaberries are small singlets, and some contend they are fuller flavored than other coffee beans.)

Batch Four, the controversial raison-like, partially fermented superripe beans that the Petersons, owners of Hacienda La Esmeralda, plucked out of the water, separating them from seconds called floaters, sold for $28.00 a pound. 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters located in Vancouver bought all 300 pounds of these beans. (I would love to taste this coffee, which I imagine will have the sweet juiciness of Geisha, but lack the tea-like delicacy. I guess that says something about my not entirely refined palette.)

Rachel Peterson, in charge of marketing for Hacienda La Esmeralda, expressed delight today at the auction’s outcome, which brought in approximately $500,000. Still, Rachel noted, the auction results were not what she expected.

“My idea was that all the buyers would mix in a middle area, giving us a better idea of a (uniform) price for the entire 3,000 pound supply of Esmeralda,” Rachel said today on the telephone from her home in Puerto Rico. In other words, she expected all the Esmeralda to sell for around $15.00 a pound–instead a huge gap emerged between the super premium, high altitude Geisha, harvested and processed on optimal dates and the rest, much of which sold for $12. or $13. a pound, although the least favored batches sold for $6.00 a pound and change.

Information about who bought what for how much is posted online at: http://coffee.stoneworks.com. Having this information out there for all to see, Rachel said, is important to ensure that all the roaters operate on the up and up and no one tries to fool customers into thinking their 6 dollar a pound Esmeralda was purchased at auction for twenty times that price.

Will there be another auction next year? “At the moment we don’t know if we will do it. We have to wait and hear the feedback. Our buyers spent nine hours at their computers yesterday bidding on our coffee. That’s more than a full work day….And it turns out the auction was not so great for overseas buyers. Two of our customers in Hong Kong and Europe told us they fell asleep at their computers and when they woke up the auction was over,” and they had been shut out. “We have to keep this in mind as we consider what to do next year,” Rachel said.

************************

 ……..and in case you have been following the drama of my wine soaked MacBook, I received a check in the mail yesterday from the Millennium Hotel in Minneapolis for $755, what it would have cost me to repair my computer.  (I bought a new one.) Pretty nice customer relations, I say.