You’re at the hip new coffee shop in your neighborhood browsing the coffee selection while the barista makes your drink. Their shelves are socked with beans from all over the world, but how do you know which ones to buy? Sure, Ethiopian coffee has a good rep, but maybe you should just stick with something less exotic. We’ve all been there at some point in our coffee journey. Maybe you were too intimidated to ask questions about the differences, or maybe you didn’t even know what to ask. We get questions on this topic a lot, so we’ve put together...

Arabica (coffea arabica) and Robusta (coffea canephora) are the two most common coffee species. Generally, arabica beans are considered to be superior in quality to robusta beans. Instant and cheap ground coffees are almost exclusively robusta. But don’t assume that just because beans are arabica that they are also high quality. As with anything, there are higher and lower quality arabica beans available. We’ve put together a list of the major differences between the two coffee species to help you learn more about our beloved beans. Growing Conditions Most arabica is shade grown in higher altitudes on mountain tops and...

We usually drink our first morning cup of coffee out of necessity to wake up and start the day. The delicious flavor doesn’t hurt either. But it turns out that regarding overall health, drinking coffee has many wonderful effects. For this post we’ve summarized our favorite health benefits of coffee.  Fat Burning  Look at the ingredients of most commercial fat burning supplements and you will likely find caffeine. Drinking a cup of coffee energizes you. It makes you want to get up, move around and be active. This translates to burning calories and speeding up your metabolism. Studies show that...

Did you know that Coffee originated in Ethiopia? It evolved right in the same area as the human species, in the Rift Valley, also known as the “craddle of mankind.” Our thought - what better first blog post to share with you than the fascinating history of coffee! This will be the first of many posts, we invite you to share feedback &/or suggestions. So, back to Ethiopia. Legend is that the ancient Ethiopian warriors would combine animal fat and coffee fruit in a ball, making essentially what would be an energy bar in today’s world. The warriors would eat...