Ethiopia has given coffee to the world and now we give back to their farmers through Fair Trade Organic coffee. Enjoy the caramel taste of this medium dark roast and give Ethiopian workers a just wage.

Dark roast coffees offer a balance between a smokey dark roast and a lighter high caff

I have found a really cool coffee roaster.  Plus buying coffee from them, helps their charitable activities, and also we make a little coin on it too.

Let me say, right up front, I would never represent anything that I did not think was the best, so I don’t do much “representing.”  I am a coffee lover as anyone who knows me can attest, and I have been on a lifelong quest for a great coffee roaster, because I really have found that fresh roasted coffee is way better than any of the coffee you buy in stores or in retail coffee companies.

HOW TO MAKE THE BEST COFFEE EVER:

1)     Use fresh roasted whole bean coffee, do not buy coffee pre-ground but grind it only as you intend to use it.

2)     Use a Bur style grinder.  Not the less expensive blade grinder, if possible.  The blade grinders heat up the beans prematurely and leave less robust flavor and can make the resulting coffee a tiny bit more bitter.

3)     Buy FRESH roasted coffee beans, roasted to the darkness that fits your taste, from a company that ships its coffee fresh roasted.  The fresher the better.

4)     Order only what you will use in a couple weeks, and then order again instead of ordering enough to last a month or more.  Coffee has a shelf life once roasted.  Most coffee you buy in the store is already far past that shelf life by the time it even arrives at the store.

5)     Use only filtered, or pure cold water for pressing or brewing coffee.

6)     Coffee drip makers are good.  Or old school percolators.  And believe me different coffee makers taste different.  I have tried many, and it is a “taste subjective” thing.

And finally, the final set of tips for the best cup of coffee ever.

Click on the Mystic Monk Coffee link/graphic, they are the best roasters I have found.  Order a nice dark roasted, or medium roasted bean, shipping fresh to you.  Use a bur grinder, and grind the amount you need to make one pot – and grind them to a coarse even grind for using with a coffee press. (grind will vary for other coffee makers).

Instructions for using a french press: I brew with a “coffee press,” because this is just, simply, the best and sweetest way to make coffee, old school great coffee. It is less bitter, more robust and will amaze you. Use filtered water, and heat the water to 195 degrees.  Not hotter, and not colder.  195 degrees! and then using your coffee press, stirring twice during the steeping, Steep for 4.5 minutes, not more and not less, and then press the coffee, and enjoy black, or with cream and sweetener of choice. This method will give you the coffee experience of a life time, and you can enjoy it every time.

The simple pleasures in life that matter most.  A blessing from God himself for those who are God believers, and if you are not a God believer, you may well believe in God after tasting such good coffee, a blessing that only a superior being could provide: a really well roasted and brewed cup of coffee!

P.S.  Mystic Monks have a gift shop on line as well, and also make some of the world’s best tea, for you non-coffee drinkers.  In the gift shop are recording of the monk’s themselves in great chanting form too.  A relaxing experience, listening to beautiful chants by the monks.

The flight,
disguised as freedom.
the end of my dreams,
the sands fall to sand
though the light seems
far from coming.

The sand,
brooding, smothers
the tailings of life,
the moment of judgment,
and the just, fight
the slings of darkness.

The stone,
whipped, guilty, fast,
through the bone of my head,
dividing the beat of my heart
and spread the silence,
final and welcome.

My heart,
cooled down and quiet,
lay down like a virgin,
hopeful for wonder and love,
purged in, the kindle of pain,
blood and endings.

The love,
nurtured, it’s bounty
swings from the rope,
like a king’s feast,
before royalty and slave,
watching and hearing,
keeping and failing,
silent and burning,
deaths arrows sailing,
silent tears from the corner
of my deepest
darkest
grave.

There are many poems, written in the midst of the darkness and the madness.  I’m never sure whether to post them.  But they are real, maybe more real than about anything else I write.  This poem, written in 2001, and others like it, when I read them now sometimes surprise me, give me a feeling of a dark nostalgia.  I don’t go to places like this very often any more, thank God.  I don’t remember writing this one, but I remember more, being in this place for what seemed like eternity each time.  And what seems like a very, very long time ago.   

Warning:  some adult language.

Gibberish, gibberish, makes
no slamming sense.
The words are come.
The words are go.
The patterns of sounds
squeezed into some uniform,
yet naked running through
the dark empty streets.

Dance and say,
fuck yourself, you fuck,
you, master of this castle,
plaster the mantel,
fish for men,
what is a mantel fish?

Watch and wonder,
blunderfully said, Fred,
but spread, and asunder
my words like thunder.

Lingual congruity?
no change
no annuity
standing
at a loss,
is the dead,
boss,
next to
my investment
lay the real cost.

So, bla, bla, bla,
the doctor says ah,
for a change
I stick things into him.

The last vestige
of dignity,
royalty, and
lay down to
rectal trembling,
and my head,
spitting open,
the bones separate,
there in cerebral tomes
the words of hope
I miss the most.

The ghost, I find
that my kind
sublime in my mind,
is in reality, just
a stupid rhyme
but it has a time
as in the empty lines
waits the demon,
like for an “e” ticket ride.

I’m screamin`
and scheme`n
you dogs and pigs,
you see and they
mate, and then what?
A dogpig?
What else?
The demons there
the boxes arrive,
the table scratched
the movers are high,
my head is so full,
god take it away,
fill it with hay, something
anything, any damned thing
that does not fucking think!

from The Fading Silence, by Rob Krabbe, a novel to be released late 2012

© 2012 Rob Krabbe, NoonAtNight Publications

close yet far, tis coming when,

the horizons climb up whilst

night’s darkness falls and hells

fury stabs through, again.

the roiling sea, so wild and true,

close yet far, and death’s green,

not blue, the color of graves

turned open, and empty tombs.

ye be sure and thee may too, purses

and coins the strumpet saves;

yet trumpet and lute plays like

dolphins upon the tossing waves.

nymphs dance and sea turtles troll

along the undertow and these old

men of the sea roll on and on,

and call to me heart, and soul.

this, me lad, shall the foundry

of thy soul, press both treasure

and fodder of hope and long years;

yes, tis true and closer ‘een further.

For the sight of that kindly old sun’s sharpest

rays, can lift the heart of a bad many days.

and if thy countenance, peering, settle upon

me brow, mighty sun, mayest thee do so,

cajoling these old dusty bones, with

a song of, mayhem, dance and rum.

So then settle down, like the glint

of the moon on me gold’s eight,

and that ray of light, and a pint,

and a good run, then I shouldst

think meself a right lucky pirate!