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It
may be the dog days to some, but at Peace Coffee
it's our favorite time of the year. Yes, it can be
hot, but generally not too hot to bike or hike.
And if the temps start getting a little too
toasty, we can always cool down with an ice cream
or an iced cup of Peace Coffee. In this issue of Fair
Grounds, we offer more bike messenger wisdom
from Brad the Intrepid, review some of our recent
activities and share our secret for the best ice
cream in Minneapolis. There's also the start of a
new Dr. Coffee series on the lifecycle of a coffee
bean, a Fair Trade Fact, plus a new recipe and
trivia question. Read on and enjoy!
(Back
to Headlines)
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 Howdy,
y’all. As you can see from my newly acquired
accent, I was just in Texas. Beautiful country,
full of friendly folks fond of staring at
strangers, but hot as all get out. I saw one
cyclist in the small town where I was visiting. He
was riding the white line on a road with no
shoulder, baking under 97 degrees of full sun,
looking positively wretched. I felt deep empathy.
The
next day I was back on a plane. The captain
announced "72 and clear skies" as we
began our decent into MSP. I could practically
sense all the backyard bar-be-ques happening below
as suburban Eagan scrolled past and we glided into
the airport.
Summer’s
been good to us this year. Temperatures have been
down, rain comes when it’s supposed to, and
though forest fires have been raging through
Voyageurs National Park, the wind’s been blowing
the smoke over that pesky Canada. If anything
it’s going by too fast -- again. My beshorted
and unsocked days are numbered but my tan is
looking good. Now more than ever people are
looking past that tan and eyeing-up my job
instead, thinking I could do that -- I want to do
that!
My
co-worker, Anna, received an email this week from
an ambitious, strapping chap in western Michigan
who offered to deliver our coffee by bike in his
community. We’d ship the beans to him and he’d
take it from there: his idea. Anna’s idea:
let’s keep shipping directly to these stores via
UPS and forget the liason approach. My idea: hmm,
what if…
Read
on...
(Back
to Headlines)
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by
Melanee Meegan, Peace Coffee
 It’s
the most perfect hot summer afternoon in
Minneapolis. Crema Café's doors are propped open
so I know they are ready to scoop their delicious
ice creams and sorbets. Since May they have been
open every day of the week. Growing up only three
blocks away from Crema, going for dessert was the
best treat any kid could imagine. In fact the
entire neighborhood seems to be addicted to
Sonny’s Ice Cream. Every night the café is
filled with Lyndale neighborhood residents eating
their favorite flavors. My dad for example can
barely go a day without their chocolate sorbet. My
mother is a fan of any flavor that includes wine
such as the black berry cabernet, pear pinot
grigio, or raspberry zinfandel. This afternoon a
boy no older than fourteen came into the café
wanting to take home a pint of his favorite
flavor, chocolate covered strawberries. When he
didn’t see any behind the glass case a look of
panic crossed his face. Melissa, the barista, made
an emergency call to the ice cream kitchen located
behind the café. Within five minutes one of
Crema’s owners and son of Sonny, Ron Siron,
appeared with his arms full of ice cream pints
fresh from production.
Read
more…
(Back
to Headlines)
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 Peace
Coffee Retreat at Warner Nature Center
Peace
Coffee had a midyear planning retreat at the Warner
Nature Center, located in St. Croix,
Minnesota. Most of the meeting was spent indoors
evaluating the year, but we did get out on their
solar panel pontoon cruiser for a leisurely boat
ride. The solar pontoon is used during the week by
bird watchers who quietly troll near the shore
observing the beautiful wildlife. We managed to get
a lot of work done and have a little fun in the sun.
Peace
Coffee Visits Ames, Iowa
Peace
Coffee held a Fair Trade presentation and coffee
tasting at Café Diem Coffee Shop in Ames, Iowa. The
event was hosted by the Café, Cooks Emporium and
Worldly Goods. We’d like to thank them for making
the evening of coffee education possible. Attendees
learned about Fair Trade as they sampled six
varieties of Peace Coffee. They were also introduced
to a large selection of coffee brewing machines and
accessories. If you’d like to host a fair trade
presentation in your hometown, please contact mel@peacecoffee.com
Peace
Coffee at the Fringe Festival
Fringe
Central is the headquarters for the Minnesota Fringe
Festival, an annual ten-day festival of live stage
performance and visual arts, including theater,
dance and performance art, puppetry, spoken word,
storytelling and more. This year, there were 176
different performing arts companies and individual
artists in 21 venues staging 900 different
performances. Also, 17 visual artists exhibited at
five different galleries. With such a whirlwind of
festival activities, two things Fringers should
never be without are coffee and beer. Peace Coffee
supplied the coffee and local brewery, Summit,
brought the beer. An estimated 45,000 were expected
to attend the Fringe Festival this year, which
concluded on August 15th. Some folks skip work for
the week, others ditch out early and lots more view
shows on the weekends. Minnesota is the largest
Fringe in the United States. For more information on
the MN Fringe Festival, visit their website at www.fringefestival.org.
(Back
to Headlines)
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| We're
giving away coffee!
Think
you know a lot about coffee? Then enter our Fair
Grounds Trivia Contest. Click
here for our question of the month. Entering is easy
and it's FUN!
There
was no winner from last month’s Coffee Knowledge
question -- it was a hard one! But in case you're
dying to know -- the ingredients of the
traditional Ethiopian "powerbar" are
butter, teft flour and (of course) coffee.
(Back
to Headlines)
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We
dare not trust our wit for making our house
pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.
Ralph
Waldo Emerson |
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Fair
Grounds is produced by:
Cooperative
Coffees
Contact
Information:
Orders
and General Information
Phone - 612.870.3440 or 1.888.324.7872
Fax - 612-677-3989
E-Mail - info@peacecoffee.com
Web - http://www.peacecoffee.com
Peace
Coffee Crew*:
Anna
Canning
Beth Backen
Rachel Hiltsley
Melanee Meegan
Michelle Ramier
TJ Semanchin
Scott Patterson
*We
work together to get the coffee out to our customers.
Although we have specific job titles, we all take turns
switching roles and putting in time where it's needed
most.
Peace
Coffee Bikers*:
Brad
Wilson
*Our bikers pack a mean trailer full of coffee. They are
speedy as speedy gets. Watch out, when they are on the
street, they mean business!
Fair
Grounds is designed by:
Starstruck
Design
335 West Gill Road
Gill, MA 01376
Contact
Information:
Don Kruger
Lynn Nichols
Phone - 413.863.7752
Fax - 413-863-7752
Web -
http://www.starstruckdesign.com
You
are receiving your Fair Grounds e-newsletter
because you told us you wanted to get it, or a good
friend of yours suggested to us that you would like to
get it. If you like it, let us know. If you want to
suggest ways that we can make it better, let us know.
Our e-mail is info@peacecoffee.com
If
you would like to unsubscribe to the Fair Grounds
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- or any other reason
simply send an e-mail to: newsletter-off@peacecoffee.com
and put your e-mail address in the subject line.
Remember,
you are always welcome to visit our website at http://www.peacecoffee.com
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