Anodyne Coffee House, Peace Coffee Roaster

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Glen

So here I am living just outside the twin cities now. I am still getting used to anything and everything, I have not ventured out much yet. This weekend however after a bike ride I went to Anodyne Coffee House in Minneapolis.

The cafe has an industrial loft feel to it,they feature coffee by local roasters. While there I had Mississippi Mud Blend from Great River Roasters, decent coffee, it had a bit of an edge to the aroma, the coffee was tangy, certainly good though. I brought home Espresso Blend from Peace Coffee.

Good news! It has lots of bloom bloom makes a happy coffee drinker. This blend has complex flavors to it, you can really taste the different beans trying to break through. There is body to it, with a slight spiciness that rolls over your tongue nicely. It is really good.

I know this bag I have at home is fairly fresh, I went to a higher end grocer later in the day, Kowalski’s and they also featuer Peace coffee. As I was browsing came upon one of those usual displays you see in large grocers where they have coffee in bins that you bag up. I starte to ignore it but wait, what is that?

It is Peace Coffee inside the bin!!! I confess, my heart sank. This strikes me as an awful way to store what should be a premium coffee. All the work put into growing it, processing it, roasting it, just got flushed.

So what am I to make of this? I might just send Peace an email asking them if this is what they intended or if they have some guarantee of freshness. Also on the whole bean bagged coffee they had I saw no roasted on dates. Coffee with out a roasted on date is out of date and out of usability.

But, again let me stress, the bag I have at home, delish. If you are looking for a fun quirky place to get good coffee, go to Anodyne Coffee House and get some Peace!

What do you want talk about?

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Glen

So what do I talk about? Yes I talk about coffee. I talk about coffee roasters, coffee blogs, coffee shops and more. I talk about specifics about brewing coffee. How do I know this? Cause my Wordle told me so.

This cool “tool” looks at your site and creates an image based on the weight of the words on your site. For me you can see that the biggest one is coffee, that is fairly obvious, then let us see, roast, like, think, roaster, crack, dark, light, city, roasting, the list goes on. Probably 99% of those words are coffee related. There might be one or two about SOPA because I wrote something on that recently here.

It was a neat thing to see my site in such a breakdown. I actually felt a little pride in thinking “yep that’s mine!”. What do you want to read when you go to a coffee blog? Do those words describe what you are looking for? That opens up a few other questions.

How can this site be more useful? When I started working on it I was learning a lot all the time about coffee. I still am. This web log is all about helping you state clearly, I LOVE COFFEE… To know why I loved coffee I needed to learn. I had to learn why Starbucks was really bad. I knew it was but why was it? So I learned about coffee roasts, I had to learn about the water you put in your coffee. I had to learn as much as I could about all the aspects of coffee. Where and how it was grown and produced to how you brew it to how it tastes. Those are just a very few of the topics covered.

But, I want to answer questions, email me at sanitybycoffee@gmail.com and I will answer your questions. I will even try to do some video answering using my web cam. I cannot promise that I will be able to show a lot other than me talking on it but, hey, whatever you need. Stump me please. If I do not know it I will research it. So, leave your questions in the comments and let’s all learn.

Late night musings – Duality of Coffee

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Glen

Is it the aroma in the morning? The warmth of the coffee as you drink it? Or maybe it is the chance to talk to someone else who is enjoying the coffee with you. Why do you love it? Why would anyone love it?

I love coffee for the flavor. I started out loving coffee for the perceived kick in the pants. I think I mentioned that once in a previous article. The whole world is full of coffee addicts. Should we drink coffee for the social cause?

I think we drink coffee because it allows us to do two diametrically opposed things: enjoy a brief time perfectly alone and, to enjoy the company of folks you know or just met. How many of you treasure that preciously short time on Sunday morning, where maybe you are watching Sunday Morning on CBS (one of my fave shows, Charles Kuralt was awesome) or reading your paper? At times like those, nothing else in the world can touch you. You are completely insulated and can be introspective for a short time. Be serious, that’s one heck of a time to enjoy that black gold (oil just pretends to have claim to it).

Then there is the time where you are talking to your spouse over a cup or another loved one or close friend. It lets you relax so you can get into the conversation more. The conversations over coffee have a tendency to go well and be sincere. There was a thing a few years back, I do not know if it was considered a fad or not but it was called the coffee date. Two people would go to some place public, usually a starbucks, and have coffee and talk and do what? Get to know each other a little more. Nothing wrong at all with that, although if you want to impress the other person, take em to an indie shop). But be just like your coffee, sincere, put it out there, the good the bad the not half bad.

Coffee is an enabler for intimacy, be it allowing introspection. Coffee also seems to enable you to enjoy time with someone around you. Coffee has come to mean many different things to different people. Think about what that is and recognize it. So tell me, what does coffee mean to you? What does it enable you to do?

So a last second thought, in culture there is the thought of Duality. Two opposing sides, coffee allows you to explore these. You need to explore these to be healthy, ergo you need coffee to be healthy, that is Sane! Sanity by Coffee! See, psychology proves the name!

Seriously, I want to know what you think… Please tell me.

Image via Wikipedia

Premium Joe

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Glen

Simple Joe Coffee’s “Premium Joes” blend is a solid hit. This is a smooth coffee that does not go to far off the dark end of the spectrum. You will get some smokey caramelized notes from the coffee which are timely when it hits your mouth. The aroma, wonderful. Smooth finish, not too heavy. It leaves you with a little bit of a tang in your mouth. Andrew there at Simple Joes knows how to put together a solid cup of Joe…

Simple Joe Monsooned Malabar

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Glen

Oh waiter! I would like some Simple Joe please! I have a friend of mine who introduced me to Monsooned Malabar years ago. He grew up on the Malabar coast, and in fact his parents did grow some coffee. I am going to see if I can get him to write a post about that, but more on that another time. I was eager to try this coffee today, been looking forward to it all day.

I opened the bag up (roasted on Oct. 28^th, this is the 2^nd well within the window of flavor) and I would describe it as on the darker end of medium. Some aroma but not too strong. I set the trust Mr. Coffee to fine and started pulverizing it. Oh yeah olfactory explosion. Floral and salty is how I would describe the aroma. VERY attractive smell. I could not wait to try. 25 or so grams coffee to 340grams water in the Clever Dripper. We have coffee! So a bit of acidity, but the body balances it out. Nice subtle spicing. I think if I use more water next time it might bring out more of the spice notes. I will try that.

Wow this is good coffee. It has a pleasant aftertaste. Well heck, in the name of a review, I think I am going to have to make another cup. I will try a little more water this time. What can I say, I do this in the name of a review!

This is good multilevel coffee. Different brewing methods bring out different tastes in every coffee and this one is no exception. A drip brew brings out a slightly more malty note that the Clever did, flowery maybe. This is a good coffee it was well worth tasting.

Andrew Burnett at Simple Joe likes his motto, keep it simple, Simple Joe.

Espresso Blend – Grassroots style

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Glen

At first I was confused. Nothing I could do was getting rid of the ash taste. The clever nor the drip were doing it for me. I was fixing to email Spencer at Grassroots Coffee asking about this blend. Well, I figured it out finally.

I went at it again this morning. When making the drip I used more water. Simple as that. This is how important your coffee to water ratio is. The coffee went from being an ash tray to being a smokey blend. Boy was that a relief. I tell you what though, certainly this brings to mind that you have to watch what you do and know why you do it with coffee!

This blend will take some more exploration, but now that I understand I will do a Clever with it later religiously sticking to the 1:16 ratio. This blend has some distinct possibilities. I will amend this post later after I have done more experimentation.

A Symphony of flavor?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by Glen

Had a great morning at the river market. Had a pleasant conversation with and met Sandie Crowley the @AugustaGolfGirl who is our hometown go to girl for Social Media. A good chat with John about apps for pour overs that Jason Dominy *note author of a must read blog (which is listed on blog roll on right side of screen), showed him at a recent pouring 101 day.

Picked up some Symphony Orchestra Augusta (SOA) blend from Buona Caffe. This is a three bean blend that can definitely be called fair and balanced! I will not divulge the beans involved as Pat swore me to secrecy but hey this is a good cup of coffee. Light earthy tones, a bit of fruity, a really even flavor.

Sadly the filter broke on my clever as I was too aggressive in my stirring. I am about to try it again with a different coffee to water ratio. Last time I went with 24g-c:384g-w. I think I will try the 30g-c:250g-w this time. I want to bust those flavors out. I will watch the steeping time carefully at 4 minutes. I will use my little whisk this time instead of a spoon too.

The flavors of a coffee are greatly affected by the brewing method. I did not realize this fully till I used my Clever on the Nicaraguan. It pulled out some flowery notes I was not getting in drip.

The coffee is now steeping. I stirred after initially pouring water in and at the two minute mark. When tasting the coffee I like to take small sips and swish it around. I have seen in videos where people slurp the first few sips. Not sure why. So I got some more earthy tones out of it and a little bit of fruity. With this being a dark roast I think some of the lighter notes might have been caramelized out.

However, my sense of smell and taste is not the strongest in the world so it might be too light for me to pick out. It is a good coffee, it has a pleasant mouth-feel, it was smooth and a nice aftertaste. Aftertaste is important, it’s what you are left with. I had previously discussed these tastes on this blog. It is after all about the taste. I will try drip in the morning and edit this post to include.

May the Coffee be with you…

Edit -23-Oct-11

The drip was pretty darn good on this coffee. Clean tasting, a little bit of acidity, good stuff. Nice light cup of coffee for the morning.

Sanity By Coffee – a coffee blog

Blogs and Reviews about Coffee Roasters and Shops

Tag Archives: Coffee and Tea