Lots of parallels with wine and specialty coffees. Last Saturday Kevin (Josh's uncle and co-owner) and Josh (the winemaker), a couple gents from a (relatively) local winery, stopped by unannounced to try some of my Beehouse station pour-over coffees. They liked what they tasted and we chatted a hour or so. Phone and email exchanges continued during the week. Yesterday Sweet Valley Wines officially became my first private label wholesale customer picking up their first bags-o-beans order.

Kevin came in to pick up their order with a friend he said was an extreme coffee connaisseur and former coffeeshop owner. Before picking up the order they ordered a couple Mountain Thunder Estate Kona XF pour-over cups. We talked a bit about different coffees, growing regions etc. and future offerings at their tasting room including custom blends, limited COE offerings etc. Of course I mentioned Idido Misty Valley which neither had heard of. So I grabbed the open bag of IMV from the pour over station and said you gotta smell the whole bean let alone ground aroma of this chocolate fruit bomb potpourri explosion coffee. On whif and immediate reaction was "can we get a couple bags of that too". "Sure, no problem, but it won't be private labeled this time." "No problem, we just want it!"

Few hours later 3pm rolls around but instead scheduled education public cupping decided to do espresso tasting of my two current espresso blends. Being in a great mood decided on the fly to end it with surprise SO espresso shots, Panama Esmeralda #5. Everyone was duly impressed, and wired:-)

After closing stopped by a new cafe I've started wooing. Joey was back from out of town for his grand father's funeral. We've hit it off well and he likes the idea of dealing local. Tuesday afternoon espresso and pour-over tasting scheduled.

All in all yesterday was a great day even if I'm still dead broke and working on opening a second location on a gossamer thread!

(Typed out an entry last night, clicked publish post, and off to the la-la land bit bucket it went. Reminder to self: Gotta make a habit of copying the text before attempting to post on BX!)