My husband and I began Barbaric Bean Coffee Roasters Cafe' nearly 3 years ago, after falling in love with specialty coffee and then this business and looked for a cafe' location for over 3 years.  We travelled all around the country for training, let's see: Florida twice, Seattle (SCAA), Washington, DC (Coffeefest) so we could learn and become great baristas, solid business owners, you name it. 

Well, we found our location in Ocean Grove, NJ, by the beach at the "Jersey…

i did a rosetta in hot chocolate today. that was fun : )



then i smothered it in whip cream cause that's what the customer wanted. then i did one of my best rosettas yet in a latte (made with half and half, mind you) and the customer acted like he didn't see it! i know my latte art isnt perfect (and maybe only decent for half of the time), but every time a dude i work with draws in espresso with milk, everyone freaks out.



oh well. i'm filling in a shift again tomorrow night…

There have been some good discussion posts on the topic of 3-way brew solenoids lately.  I just wanted to add a little explanation of 3-way valves to help people understand how they function in espresso machines and problems you may see.

First, thanks to Terry Z and the Espresso Parts guys for putting up great pics of these parts on their site.  Most of the pics that follow came from there.…

Once it might have meant catch the Third Wave in Specialty Coffee, single origins, brew to order etc. Today for us it's catching a temporary down swing in the C-Market upward spiraling price wave. Last week got lucky on our order for over a Ton of greens catching the lowest price point in a couple weeks. Next day back up 15 cents a pound, today one week later up a whopping 46 cents a pound hitting a new highest price in over two decades. At today's high price would have been double what it…

Our little company hit a milestone today. For the first time over one Ton of greens delivered in one day, 2375.09lb. Up from previous high of 1845.1lb delivered less than six weeks ago. (ok, not much less, 5 weeks 4 days:) I been a roastin' fool on my little USRC 3k!

Pic includes some greens already had, Brazil Moreninha Formosa 2 wided by 3 deep...…

Waterbury, Vermont - December 17, 2010

A major shake up in the coffee industry Friday.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has finalized a deal to buy the Canadian coffee company Van Houtte for $905 million.

Van Houtte employs nearly 2,000 people at its Montreal facility.

Excerpted from: WCAX.com article

i wrote a whole post describing my present day life and what it's like now that i'm not fully submerged in the coffee industry and the reasons why i left it and the reasons why i actually never really did leave it and what i hope to gain from this business in the future.



but..then my computer crashed.



things definitely have and haven't been going my way lately. i'm currently writing this on a computer with a cracked screen, i just changed my tire on the side of the…

Hi guys I will like to know if any barista will come to Valencia Venezuela, please visit our coffee shop Le Jeune Cafe C.A.

Best Regards.

Luis Martin

Tuesday, December 7th …

So what do you do when you run across a Bunn H5E water tower model 12500.0020? You know, one of those strange ones hard set for 115f water temp! (for dough proofing). What good is it in a coffee house! I mean, not even white tea wants water at 115f.

Well, found one on Craigslist some time back, got it for a song, $75.

One hundred fifteen fahrenheit no more! All…