Just Coffee

Yup.

You heard it here first

Mark T. Spark is a father, people.

He and his lovely partner Deb had them a baby today! Word on the street is that the little cuss is around 6 'n 3/4 pounds and a wopping 18 plus inches long. News reports stating the tike was born clutching a small matini glass have been debunked.

Leave comments and name suggestions below. I came up with Orson Scott Olajuwan Bystrom, but what do I know. I also like Issac Hayes Bystrom III.

Congrats Spark from all of us at the JC!!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 6 p.m.
Escape Coffeehouse, 916 Williamson St in Madison.

Join a delegation to our sister county in Venezuela!

As of June 2008, Dane County has been growing a relationship with the municipality Andres Eloy Blanco. We're like fraternal twins, separated by the Caribbean and, oh, the rest of the United States.
Seriously, Andres Eloy Blanco and Dane County share a rich agricultural economy and tradition of cooperatives. They grow coffee, we drink coffee.

Click on the link below to buy a copy of the excellent documentary about Santa Anita Co-op: "Voice of A Mountain".

It is only $12 and would make a great holiday gift for your socially conscious coffee drinking loved one. It's true. I checked it in my gut.

JC is featured in a new article in Fresh Cup magazine this month.

For those of you who do not religiously read industry journals, Fresh Cup is the coffee industry publication most read by the "younger and hipper" coffee generation. Remember the coffee propaganda piece in the '80s featuring ELO's "Hold on Tight"? Well they did not put that out, but I'll bet they think it is funny too (see below). Fresh Cup fairly regularly covers fair trade issues and occasionally profiles coffee growers.

The article is entitled somewhat cheekily "Exploiting the Cooperative Advantage" and gives a very good account of the challenges and advantages of being a worker cooperative. He also points out that the co-op is the most tried and true business structure dating back centuries.

Check out the story by downloading the PDF below the video. If you like it, visit their website here.

And finally, please drink more coffee. It will propel you to smack a man down like Cicely Tyson does in the video.

The real BIO-FUEL, originally uploaded by justcoffee4u.

The second annual " BIKE THE BARNS" CSA tour was a raging success. 500-plus cyclists did the rural ride this year. Coffee for at least 400 was served at Drumlin farm at 7:30 am! I was up at 4:30 and brewing by 5am -- Made it to Cafe Soleil by 7am to pick up a 1000 pastries and hard boiled eggs --- All delivered to Drumlin by 7:33 --- they went thru 6 - 5 gallon cambro's of BIKE FUEL by 8:30 -- the rest of my day was spent in JC 1 picking up broken bikes or bikers (only one biker).

All in all a great day -- Check out the Pics --

Longtime JC friend Dan Jaffee was recently awarded the 2007 C. Wright Mills Book Award for the book based on his Ph.D. dissertation from UW, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival. It's kind of a big deal, and well deserved.

As explained by the Society for the Study of Social Problems which administers the award:

C. Wright Mills wrote in The Power Elite that: “Only when mind has an autonomous basis, independent of power, but powerfully related to it, can mind exert its force in the shaping of human affairs. This is democratically possible only when there exists a free and knowledgeable public, to which [people] of knowledge may address themselves, and to which [people] of power are truly responsible.”

They award the prize to the book that most effectively:

1) critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance,

2) brings to the topic a fresh, imaginative perspective,

3) advances social scientific understanding of the topic,

4) displays a theoretically informed view and empirical orientation,

5) evinces quality in style of writing,

6) explicitly or implicitly contains implications for courses of action.

Congrats Dan!

Here is another nice article about Oscura; the new Furthermore beer brewed with La FEM grown, JC-roasted coffee.

Read it, if you please. And then drink some of them Oscuras. If you are not driving, you can maybe have more than one. You can find Furthermore at these places.

Thanks Furthermore and FEM!

The 2008 version of "Where Your Money Goes" is now loaded on the right sidebar of our homepage.

Please notice that almost every cost has gone up in the past year.

The cool part of that is that we are paying growers more money. The downside is that other costs have gone up as well.

Another note-- We have largely switched to 12oz bags, but the breakdown is in pounds. This is because we deal in pounds when we buy coffee from farmers and because we sell in two pound and five pound bags as well. To get the right equation for 12-ouncers, please take .75 of the costs presented. Except for bags and labels which are good to go.

This is another piece of the JC Transparency Project. We will have more coming. Please see our supply chain and profit and loss statements for even more info on what in the heck we are doing here.

And if you like the idea of being up front with traditionally guarded business info, ask other companies you buy from to show you the same.

Oh, and remember the "retail mark up" is controlled by the store you buy from, not JC. That percentage will vary from place to place.

Barista Training, originally uploaded by justcoffee4u.

Mark T Spark has officially moved on -- Last weekend we moved all of him... and his stuff to Lincoln NE .. --Click Here for some of the photos
-- He didn't have much time to relax once we got there ...Deb started his barista training as soon as we arrived -- "man who can catch fly with chopsticks will make good barista" wax on wax off --- He has a beautiful new family and it was as happy as it was sad to say goodbye -- I will miss him so much in the day to day around Madison. My family and I have eaten a good number of meals at his house we will miss that the most - supper at his house is always as good for the palate as it is for the soul. I guess its just a bit more of a drive now --- Mark Deb and Jonah -- we will see you soon!!!!