Roastmaster's Blog

I'm sure you're scrambling to figure out what to buy for certain people on your holiday gift list.  You've probably been googling to see what cool new gifts are out there for people who love coffee, and who doesn't love coffee?  Well, google no more.  I have compiled a list of my TOP 10.  The top 10 things that, if I didn't own the DoubleShot, but I were still me, I would be stoked about getting for Christmas (which makes shopping for ME a lot harder).  Here it is, David Letterman -style: from number 10 to number 1!

10. A DoubleShot gift card. If you just have no idea what to get, but you know they like coffee, get them a gift card. Buy a card in the DoubleShot or buy one online HERE. We can even email you a coupon to send to your favorite coffee drinker so they can buy on our website!

9.  The new DoubleShot Corporate Mastermind Tshirt!  You know your friend loves the DoubleShot.  Get them a shirt so they can let everyone else know.  It's the new design, it's just arrived, and it comes in two colors:  blueberry or split pea soup.

8.  The Thermos Sipp stainless steel travel tumbler is the most popular cup we've ever sold.  They're so popular that it's hard to keep them in stock.  Rightfully so.  All we get is positive feedback from these awesome cups.  They keep coffee hot for hours and hours, they don't leak, they're indestructible, and they come with the stylish DoubleShot logo right there on the side.  This cup has been missing from our shelves for a few days, but the new shipment will be here today.  Order now, or stop in to get one before they all go bye bye again! 

7.  The DoubleShot proprietary coffee travel kit.  I've been using one over the past year, and it's just been a lifesaver on the road.  I got the idea when I was packing for my trip to Tanzania, and it took me a few months after my return to fabricate the missing link to the whole kit:  The Connect3 Adaptor Ring.  This ring, which I construct by hand right here in the DoubleShot basement, makes it possible to screw the Hario Skerton hand grinder directly onto a Nalgene bottle (I prefer this stainless steel version), so you can grind and brew with the H2JO right in the bottle.  Saves tons of space and makes brewing on the road a piece of cake.  See a video of how it all works here:  http://www.doubleshotcoffee.com/products/connect3-adaptor-ring

6.  Gooseneck kettle.  I've been using one of these kettles for so long that whenever I try to make a pourover without it, I remember how much I like my kettle.  Available in electric or stovetop models.

5.  Everything you need to make a pourover (except the kettle).  Get your friend a Hario V60 pourover cone, some filters, and the DoubleShot filter crib to keep the cone filters neatly stacked on your counter, and they'll be in coffee paradise.  This is the method and the equipment I use every day to make my coffee, so you know I think it's good.  There's really no need to own an auto-drip if you're patient enough to make coffee by hand.  It's so much better.  Watch a video of how it works:  http://www.doubleshotcoffee.com/products/hario-v60-dripper

 4.  A burr grinder.  I've often said that, second to great coffee beans, the biggest difference I've ever noticed in my coffee brewing has been in the grinder I'm using.  Anyone using a blade grinder to whirly chop their coffee to smithereens is not getting the most out of their coffee.  A burr grinder uses a set of grinding disks that adjust to grind consistently coarse or fine, depending on your brewing method.  A consistent grind size will change anyone from a coffee drinker into a coffee taster.

3.  Subscription!  Get someone signed up for our automatic coffee shipments.  One pound of coffee will be shipped to them either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly for 6 or 12 times.  They'll remember you each time a pound of coffee shows up at their door, and they'll thank you every time they see you.  Sign up online and we'll get started shipping whenever you say the word.

2.  Maduro coffee beans plus a MADURO chocolate bar.  This is THE gift for someone who is a coffee and chocolate lover.  The Maduro, an exclusive natural coffee from Colombia (only available at the DoubleShot), is just an amazing coffee, and since we're always trying to push the envelope, we teamed up with a chocolatier to produce a chocolate bar made with Belgian dark chocolate and bits of crushed-up Maduro coffee beans, roasted right here at the DoubleShot roastery.  Satisfy two vices with one awesome gift.

And the number one gift on my list this year is...

1. The Perci Red/Lycello box set.  THIS is the ULTIMATE gift.  The best gift ever.  It's a 2 Barrel Project double wooden box, containing the Perci Red experience and the Lycello experience.  This set is extremely limited and will only be produced as they are ordered, so order yours today.  If you want this before Christmas, you'll have to get it done asap.  My dad has been nice enough to build some more Double-boxes for this awesome gift set, so you still have time to get one, but you should hurry.  The box is solid and beautiful, and the lid is etched with the DoubleShot and 2 Barrel Project logos.  Two Gesha coffees, one washed and one natural, in one box - and each with their own cup!  (If I can't have this, I'll have one of each, Lycello and Perci Red.)

 Happy holidays!

The first time I took a vacation as an adult, I had never really been anywhere besides Illinois, Oklahoma, Louisiana and the couple states in between.  So when it occurred to me to go somewhere, my options seemed limitless.  I eventually settled on Moab, Utah, because I was really into mountain biking and everyone knows that Moab is the "Mecca" of mountain biking.  So I packed up my bike and began this pilgrimage into a vast and mysterious territory.  I had never been in the mountains, nor desert, but I did grow up in farm country much like the scenery during the first 9 hours of my drive.

I didn't do much research about Moab, other than finding it on a map, because Moab is legendary.  Without a naysayer, the mountain bikers who have ridden Moab say it's Mecca, and the people who haven't ridden it either want to or are too scared.  I knew that Moab is in the desert.  So I had this image in my head of a desert.  The desert of Lawrence of Arabia.  Of Captain Riley's "Skeletons on the Sahara" and of my roadtrip to Little Sahara in Northwest Oklahoma during my first year in college.  Of the great, 1,000-foot dunes of Namibia.  And I wondered how people could ride their mountain bikes through sand as deep as a camel's knee, but I never questioned that they did; I just didn't know how yet.  

The drive from Tulsa to Moab is a dogleg north and straight west for hours through wheat fields and sunflower farms.  And then, on the horizon, the Rocky Mountains appear through the haze over Denver.  I camped as soon as the sun set, up on a 4WD road, and I awoke to a mountainside matrix of white trees, which I assumed were aspens.  Needless to say, the next few hours were some of the most amazing miles of my life.  I stopped frequently to look around and take pictures of landscape completely foreign to my corn-fed eyes.  And then the western slope.  And I entered Utah.  

When I turned off I-70 onto Highway 128 and traversed the ledge overlooking the Colorado River, Moab became real to me.  It was no longer a sandy, barren expanse of dunes, but this amazing, ominous land of cliffs and canyons and arches and rock formations of every unimaginable shape.  It became ride-able and beautiful and real, and better than I could've ever imagined.

And honestly, that's the way I feel about Perci Red.  For you, right now, coffee may have a certain Saharan stigma as a bitter, bland, caffeine-saturated eye-opener.  Perci Red will change your mind.  Even if you are a die-hard DoubleShot fan, and you've enjoyed the variety of coffees we offer, from the blackberry notes of our Natural Sidamo to the heavy smoke and herbals of Sumatra Aceh Gold, Perci Red will open your mind to what coffee can be.  It will change your perspective.

Perci Red is a natural Gesha coffee from Ninety Plus Gesha Estates in Volcan, Panama.  It's the sister of our washed Gesha, Lycello.  It has all the amazing flavors of jasmine and lemon and tea and milk chocolate that you tasted in the Lycello, but it has a complex stratus of flavors lingering over that base - black cherry and cranberry and mace.  Layers of complexity are the hallmark of Perci Red, and the aromas are just stunning.

When I visited Panama last January, I was able to taste the fruit of the Gesha trees and watch the coffee pickers carefully selecting only the ripest cherries.  I saw the meticulous nature by which the workers harvested and cared for the coffee.  I made my way to nearby Finca Hartmann, where the coffee was laid out on African raised beds, so the cherries could dry evenly in the sun.  And I experienced the unusual sounds and fragrances and tastes and sights that emanate from the Panamanian rainforest, which all contribute to the terroir of Perci Red.  

The coffee beans are red.  Most unroasted coffee beans are green or bluish-green or yellowish-green, but mostly green.  But the ever-curious instigators of coffee quality at Ninety Plus Coffee decided to separate these beans that mysteriously turned red in processing.  Or maybe they were born red.  And they hand-selected all the red beans from the lot of green ones, creating the coffee we have and hold in such high prestige.  The red ones turned out to be so much more intense and unique and complex from the rest of the lot.  And of the 330 pounds in existence today, we bought 132.  This is the coffee that we have chosen to offer this holiday season.

As part of the 2 Barrel Project, we took this amazing coffee and created an experience around it.  I worked with Tulsa potter, Teresa Rechter, to produce a cup that met my specifications for one that is uniquely suited for drawing out all that Perci Red has to give.  The shape of the cup cradles the Perci Red just right and draws all of its magical aromas into your mouth and nose.  The cup is accompanied by a booklet I wrote that tells all about the origin of Perci Red, and the proper brewing method for the coffee, as well as a food pairing that is just going to rock your world.  All this, with 200 grams of our Perci Red, craft roasted right here at the DoubleShot, held in an amber glass bottle and encased in a custom Perci Red wooden box, build with the tools and vision of Paul McEntire, the creator of the North American Wood Amp.  The Perci Red experience is ready, and you should reserve yours today.  

Buy Perci Red online here:  www.DoubleShotCoffee.com/red

You are invited to our free tasting this Saturday, December 8 at 10:30 a.m. right here at the DoubleShot.  It's open to the public and completely free, so bring your family and friends.  I'll talk about the coffee, show you the goods, and we'll all enjoy a taste of the Perci Red and the food pairing that really amplifies this coffee.

Thanks for being a part of all that we do here at the DoubleShot.  We do it for you, and we hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor this holiday season.  Take some time off.  Take some deep breaths, and retreat from life with a cup of Perci Red.  Happy holidays.