Alan's Corner

Hi everybody,welcome to week two of Alan's Corner. I hope you all had a good week and are ready for another Market.The weather forecast is good and all your favorite Vendors will be at The Chesterfield Town Center Market tomorrow (Friday)

This week I will be brewing two coffees, a medium roast from the Island of Irian Jaya and a dark roast from Java. The Medium roast is called Wamena and if you go to our Supplier's web site at www.MerdekaCoffee.com you will find a very interesting article, written by Alun Evans,the owner of Merdeka about his trip to Irian Jaya in 2009. Alun sources all of his coffee beans direct from the Grower. There are no Brokers or MiddleMen involved. Alun travels all over Indonesia in his Land Rover carrying a coffee grinder and tasting cup. He visits the Villages and samples the latest crop. If the Beans are good he will purchase, if not to his standard then it is a case of see you next time. We carry 13 different Merdeka Coffees, mainly sourced from Java and Sumatra, but we have one each from Bali, Irian Jaya and Timor.

To all you Football (sorry Soccer) fans you will know that the English Premier League started last Saturday. My favorite team is Arsenal, from north London, and already I am filled with trepidation. We have just sold our best player to Barcelona and seem to be about to sell another Star player to Manchester City. In addition we have picked up 3 long term injuries in key positions. All in all not a very promising start. Still we live in hope.

Coffee Trivia for this week:

Did you know that the expansion of coffee supply was based on the Slave Trade. In the mid 1800's Brazil, still the World's largest grower of coffee beans, imported
African Slaves at the rate of 50,000 per month until the business was banned in
1850. Still, some two million Slaves already in the Country remained in Bondage.