News — coffee

April Showers bring Spring Specials!

Okay, so it doesn't rhyme as nice as the old tale but we went a little crazy with all of the cold, snow and polar vortex of this past winter and we're bringing a little of that craziness back to you with our Spring Special.

Get a BonaVita Brewer (normally $60), a box of 100 Filtropa #4 Filters ($7), a Spro Elements Mug ($15) and a 10z bag of our delicious Lekempte G4 Ethiopia coffee ($20) for the crazy low price of $75 - that's a $28 savings over the normal prices!

The express bus to Jinotega.

I'm back on the road again, this time I'm off to Nicaragua for twelve days of visiting coffee farms, cupping new crop coffees and also visiting the cigar factory that makes the Fratello cigar. It's been about three years since my last trip to Nicaragua.

Previously, my trips to Central America focused around judging coffee competitions. During those trips, we might get a day or two to visit a farm and cup coffees, but this time it's all about the coffee and seeing what's going on in the world. First stop: Jinotega.

Not too long ago, a young couple came into Spro and asked me if we had "Fair Trade" coffee for sale. Like always, I informed them that we don't subscribe to these certification coffees and that we buy our coffees based on their individual qualities. They then told me that they would prefer to buy "Fair Trade" coffee and declined to try any of our coffees. Usually when I speak to someone about our buying practices based on quality instead of certification that's enough for them to at least give our coffees a try, but not this time. I was...

Just finished prepping the new ice creams for The Charmery that they'll release over the next week or so. As we've been moving into regular production with David and Laura, it's been a fun challenge to come up with something interesting every production cycle. Typically, we're preparing about nine gallons worth of ice cream but in order for the flavors to come out right, we're also prepping them days ahead of time. Add to that the calculation of roasting, degassing and allowing flavor maturation of the coffee itself and we're actually looking at about a two week lead time from...

David and Laura are opening an ice cream shop in The Avenue and we're helping them with their coffee ice cream!

I've always found ice cream to be a fascinating exploration. So many possibilities and those of you who have been visiting Spro over the years know we've done limited runs of different ice creams and paletas (Mexican style popsicles), but one of the challenges has always been to do a thoughtful coffee ice cream.

But what do I mean when I say "thoughtful"? Quality and locally-sourced ingredients are a must, and so too is a...