If you were wondering...

I have fixed the archives on this blog so they should all be live now. I know you were all waiting for this day! ..be bold

We learn, We adapt

Well, it is a warm 1 degree here yesterday in Bozeman with snow all over the place. It is nice that winter has finally hit us. It also forced us to figure out our situation and how we plan to keep our equipment from freezing. Well, I'm happy to say that we have solved that problem. Some friends of mine have allowed me to pull our trailer into the extra garage bay at their offices. What is great about this is that the garage is actually part of the office so it is heated to room temp. This will not only allow us to keep the trailer off the side of the road -- where it has been since we purchased it -- we will be able to leave it loaded with our equipment and syrups and not have to worry about freezing. I do still have concerns about our equipment however. How long does it take for the water in the lines to freeze at, say, 5 degrees? We catered an event last night and I loaded it and just booked it over so that we could quickly get the cart out of the trailer and inside. How far can I drive before it freezes? Any science people out there who know about freezing water? Let me know. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, boiler, winter

This Is Your Chance

Are you in the Nashville, TN area or know someone that is? Then you should head over to the 3rd Annual Barista Competion at Bongo Java Roasting Company. Here are the details.. The third annual Bongo Family Barista Contest is right around the corner!! Date: Friday, December 1, 2006 Time: 3pm – whenever we’re done Place: Bongo Java Roasting Co. GRAND PRIZE: Rancilio Sylvia Espresso Machine & matching Rancilio Rocky Grinder If you or anyone at your café is interested in participating in the Barista competition please email or call Kimlai to confirm a time. The contest is based loosely on the US Barista Championships. You don’t have to stay for the entire contest, but we encourage you to cheer on your store-mates and competitors. If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please direct them to: Kimlai Yingling kimlai@bongojava.com (615) 777-2572 (BJRC) ...be bold

The Coffee and Tea Festival (#17)

Thanksgiving is over and it is time for the Coffee and Tea Festival. We had 2 submissions for this week -- thank you. Because of the holiday and events leading up to it, I did not have a chance to look around for others but the two we have are great. Post about this festival on your own blog and let us grow this thing. Here we are.. Do you enjoy a good cup of coffee? A lot of people do. Coffee is one of the most widely consumed and one of the oldest beverages in the world. There is nothing like the aroma of freshly brewed coffee to stimulate your senses. Unfortunately, coffee has had a bad reputation and has been associated with unhealthy habits such as smoking and eating fast food. However, recent studies have shown that coffee can actually be good for you, helping decrease the risks of several diseases including Parkinson’s and Diabetes. David presents Why Should I Give Up Coffee? posted at Worldwide Success. Don't worry, I think he is all for coffee! It is also interesting how we are now seeing many studies on coffee. We all know that tea has these same characteristics but coffee, too? Nice. We like coffee in our house and enjoy plenty of it. Most weekday mornings at approximately 4:50 AM, you’ll find me emptying the moist grounds from the day before into the trash container. Over the course of a year, I’m convinced that I’ve disposed of at least one or perhaps even two curbside trash bins full of coffee grounds. That’s a lot of grounds being trucked off to the landfill. Here’s my penny-wise tip of the week. Did you know that coffee is good for plants? Ah, I'm glad this is being brought up. Nina Smith presents Coffee Grounds in the Garden posted at Queercents<. I have long been interested and excited to see how people line up at the doors of their local shop after hours to pick up the used grounds. This is not only nice to the environment because it keeps trash down, it also helps grow green things. My buddy over at Progress Coffee in Austin always gives his away and I think all shops should do this. Do you know any shops that do? Leave a comment and tell us how cool it is. Well, that will do it for this weeks edition. Thanks to everyone who submitted and please keep the posts coming. The more we get, the more we can all get to know each other and these great industries. If you find anything that should be included, please pass them along! As always, you can submit your posts with this fantastic little form or click on the ad on the left side-bar of this blog. It would be great to have a Coffee and Tea Festival about coffee shops and tea rooms. Do you have a favorite? Write a post about it and include a picture and get it to me for the next edition. I will keep bringing this up and hopefully we will have something going before long. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. ..be bold Tagged: coffee and tea festival, blog carnival, espresso, coffee, tea

Comment Problems

Hello all. Over the past week or so, some of you have been leaving comments which are not posting to this blog. I receive email notifcations and see the comments, they show up on my dashboard, but they are not showing up on the blog -- unless you click on "leave a comment" which is strange. I am working on this problem and hope to have some resolution at some point in the near future. Please keep posting your comments and I will respond to them and hope we get this all worked out. I hope everyone had a great and relaxing Thanskgiving. I will be returning to Bozeman on Monday and will begin posting again. Thanks for your patience with the comment feature and have a great weekend. ..be bold

Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Jenni and I are heading to Crested Butte Colorado for some time with family and to get some early season turns. Have a great weekend and I will be back with more updates on Monday. ..be bold

This blog needs something.....and you can help!

This blog needs something. A Theme! I have been looking over the template and realized that it is white and has no aesthetic appeal. Both of my readers - I bet - would agree. Why do I mention this -- because I know there are people out there with great ideas for a coffee/business/art/community blog that want to have their design flaunted (yes, I will flaunt around with it I promise). Here is what I am looking for: 1. 3 column theme compatible with Blogger. 2. Color (I have pantone matches that I would love to use) 3. A nice banner with a picture, etc. 4. Unique approach to side bars, etc. Have any ideas? Know anyone that is interested in trying this job out? I will give a free YEAR LONG ad on this site to whomever can help me with this problem. I will also make sure everyone knows how great it is working with this person and do my best to throw business your way. Leave me a comment and we will get going on this! Thanks for all of your help! ..be bold

Your Footprint -- Take the Quiz

Have you ever been interested in what your ecological footprint would look like? I'm sure that you have heard somewhere that we would need many "planet earths" to sustain our human footprint if we continue to go at this rate. Well, I took the quiz myself to see how I was doing. Wow.. I will tell you what it had to say about me with as honest answers as possible and then explain where I think some errors occur. They say that the average footprint in the United States is 24 acres per person (wow) and that there are 4.5 biologically productive acres per person. They also said that I am using about 18 acres (I'm a bit embarrassed) and that it would take 4.1 planets if everyone lived as I did. Dang. Here is where the problem with this quiz lies, at least with me. We are a rather small "city" with about 40,000 people (including the state university) residing. We have - in the last several weeks -- just started a public transportation service but it mainly services the college. They are not even pushing for people to use it! It is very cold during the winter (temps can be as low at -30) and riding my bicycle is tough as there is also snow on the ground. My other problem is that I have to drive an SUV (sorry guys) so that we can pull our catering trailer (If a hybrid could do the job and get around snowing streets, I would do it!) So, that is my defense. I have a long way to go to get down to down to 2 planets like Green LA Girl. Hey, I'm trying! But what would it take to be at 1 planet -- that is all we have you know.. ..be bold

"2" Is The Lucky Number

Well, it took two tries but we got the machine working again. After taking the machine apart, we found that there was no boiler damage which was good and that everything seemed to check out fine once the gauge was replaced. We reset the shot volume and the guy packed it up and left. An hour or so later, I was testing some shots and the volume was way off and it did not seem right. The boiler pressure was very low (pulling about 5 bars while extracting and static at about 2) and I new something was going on. I called and the guy said as long as it was "in the green" on the gauge, I should be fine. I said he was wrong. What made me mad was that he was telling me that the reason the timing was off was because my grind was way to coarse. Please. I told him that it was only pulling about 5 bars and it needed to be 9. He tried to just tell me how to fix it myself but I told him that I had already paid him to do it so he should get back here and he did -- the next morning. At any rate, we are up and going (I think) and we were only out about about $500.00 when all was said and done. Here are some pictures... ..machine without casing ..broken water line to sink ...darn broken faucet ...I told him it was the boiler pressure ..pesky faucet again (that faucet could be taken apart into about 5 difference piece it was so broken How do you pick your maintenance man? Service? Knowledge? Coolness? I think this is grounds for a future post as I have my own thoughts. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, boiler, winter

A Big Day

It is a nice crisp morning in Bozeman today and I am sipping some coffee and waiting for the guy to come and take our machine apart. He was supposed to be here yesterday but he had some car problems (I'm glad we are not a cafe waiting on him!). He will be looking for any damage from freezing but also will be taking the risers off because the machine is to tall and it moves around a lot while we are transporting it. Because we move around so much, it will be important for us to get on a scheduled and consistent maintenance schedule for our machine to be sure we are not losing quality and hurting our equipment. We will be talking about this while he is here. I also ordered the sink assembly earlier this week and it, too, should be here today. I will then have to install it which should not take much time -- I hope. I am a bit anxious for today as I really do not want to deal with a ruined machine. I will update this post after he leaves today. Hold your breath.. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, boiler, winter

It's Advertising

You have to remember, there is only 1 (maybe 2) billboard in Bozeman. There are some on the Interstate but not in town. I do not think that we would have gone to that level for advertising -- not yet anyway -- so the second best option was to do the trailer and/or my car. We went with the trailer first and it looks great. The idea was to have something that people would be able to see. The problem we are having is that we are the first (and only to my knowledge) coffee catering company in Montana. We get asked all the time what we actually do and when we explain it to people, they get very excited. We have already had one call for information from the trailer and if the party gets booked, we are 1/3 of the way to paying for it. We want to attract phone calls so that we can send photos, prices, and references. This not only helps us books parties, it also gives us contact information for future marketing campaigns. I like to think of it as "putting your business card in the jar for a free lunch." Every time someone calls and asked me to send them information, I have an email address to add to my files. While I do not intend to send these people spam email, I do plan to send them updates and specials as we create them. My car will be next and it will be great to have this rolling advertising each and every day. We have also done with with our travel mugs. They are white and really stand out when people use them. We give these out to anyone that books an event as a "thank you" but are also trying to get as many people to use them as we know (want one? let me know!). The more we can have our name, brand, and identity out in public, the better off we will be. Again, the whole idea here is to stir up questions and curiosity. We will keep plugging away at this market and saturate it the best we can. To use, that means educating the public on what a coffee catering company really does and how it all works. Not only is this the most unique service available for events in Montana, it is also the best coffee service in the state. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, marketing

The Coffee and Tea Festival (#16)

Ah, the time as come again for the Coffee and Tea Festival. We had 2 submissions for this week -- thank you -- and I also added a couple. Hope you enjoy it. Post about this festival on your own blog and let us grow this thing. Here we are.. Loni presents No More Good-Byes posted at Finding JOY in the Morning. All coffee shop owners want to have this story. While it is always hard to close the doors, isn't it your dream that when it is time to say good bye, people are sad to see you go? This was a nice little post for you. Raymond David Salas presents Jason Winters Tea posted at ZenChill - Power Tools for Mind, Body, and Soul. Here is an interesting read. Everyone is always talking about the health benefits of tea -- check those story out. Larry posted this story over at the all new Arizona Coffee Forum. this article was borrowed but a great read on the quality of coffee. There has been some nice discussion about this over at the Arizona Coffee Blog if you are interested. Well, that will do it for this weeks edition. Thanks to everyone who submitted and please keep the posts coming. The more we get, the more we can all get to know each other and these great industries. If you find anything that should be included, please pass them along! As always, you can submit your posts with this fantastic little form or click on the ad on the left side-bar of this blog. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. ..be bold Tagged: coffee and tea festival, blog carnival, espresso, coffee, tea

Folgers in Review

I know, this has been a very long time coming. I received an email several weeks ago asking if I would be willing to try Folgers new gourmet coffee. I said sure. Keep in mind that there are many things I look for in coffee -- freshness, Fair Trade/Organic Certified, whole bean, non-flavored, and interesting or an "all day drinker" as I like to say. I also entered this "taste test" with a few pre-opinions which I tried to not let get in the way of what I think about coffee. Folgers sent me three different coffees to taste: Morning Cafe, Lively Colombian, and Vanilla Biscotti. Here is what I thought. It is important to keep in mind that there is a very large varity of coffee available. From Robustas to Arabicas to blends, there is a coffee suitable for every person. While I have my own thoughts about what makes a great cup of coffee, I have learned that what I like is not always the first choice of others. When I received this box of coffee, there was the same plesant aroma that I get from our current roaster. I was impressed with this as I normally do not pick up on these types of flavors with past Folgers coffee. I opened each of the following bags and they each had a very strong (but nice) scent that made you feel at home. The following were my frist, very rough, thoughts about the coffee. I mentioned above about some opinions I have on coffee and what I feel is important, namely: Fair Trade Certified, Organic Certified, Fresh, Interesting, All Day Drinkers. Here are my thoughts.. I tried the Morning Cafe blend first. Folgers says that this blend is light-bodied with a clean finish and a delicate, bright taste and aroma. I had this in the evening -- will that change my opinion of it? Just kidding. When it first hit my tough, I was impressed. It did taste a bit "stale" but way better than what I have had from them in the past (which is not much). I was very disappointed with the after taste however. It left me feeling like I needed to brush my teeth which did not make me feel good about the coffee. I never have and probably never will like flavored coffee. Sorry Folgers, your did not change my mind either. I was not impressed with the coffee palate as all I could taste was vanilla. Folgers says this has a smooth vanilla flavor and a smooth finish. Sounds good to me -- I still do not like flavored coffee. The Lively Colombian was probably the best of the group to me. Folgers says this brew is distinctively rich and full-bodied and consists of 100% Colombian beans. I first tried it and was pleased but again, the after taste stole the show. What is it about this type of coffee? What I love the most in a coffee is what it leaves me with -- memories, ideas, passion, creativity. This did not leave me with much. Folgers is roasting 100% Arabica beans which is nice and two of the three selections were sent in whole bean form which was very nice -- great job. What about a Fair Trade Blend (or two or three)? What about an Organic blend? I did not see as much of a difference between the two non-flavors as I would have liked but a large step as been made from the previous offerings. Thanks for that. I also heard from a comment on this blog that: Folgers (Proctor and Gamble) buys beans from Vietnam, which recently declared 89% of its beans sub-standard. I just posted on this, and there's a link to a great article on the horrible toll the coffee industry -- funded largely by the Big Four roasters -- has taken on Vietnam. Do you know anything about this? Have you tried this new coffee? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment! ..be bold Tagged: espresso, coffee, bozeman, montana, folgers, gourmet selections, cafe evoke, coffee catering

One Thing -- Then Another

My "to-do" board has many half checks. What I mean by this is that I have started many projects but cannot seems to finish them. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Why is it so hard to get anything done? Where has all of my time gone? I try to sit down and do one thing at a time but I always seem to lose focus. I received an email from a business group a few days ago that sums up my problem. Here is a portion of it.. One morning, Farmer Jones told his wife he was going out immediately after breakfast to plow the back pasture. But the tractor needed oil, so he went to the shop to get some. On the way he noticed the pigs weren't fed – so he proceeded to the corn crib. The feed sacks in the corn crib reminded him that his potatoes were sprouting. On the way to the potato shed, he passed the wood pile and remembered his wife wanted firewood for the kitchen stove. By the time he had picked up a few sticks, an ailing chicken passed by. He dropped the wood and reached to help the mother hen. When lunchtime arrived, the frustrated farmer was asked by Mrs. Jones: "Did you get the south pasture plowed?" "Nope," was his reply, "I didn't even get the John Deere oiled. I intended to, but… That is my life. I have the information packets started, I have marketing campaigns started, I have emails that are waiting to be sent, I have blog posts that are only saved as drafts, I have phone calls to make, the garage is only half way organized with catering stuff, and there is even more that I do not mention here. It seems that what I need to do is make a list of the things that need to be done and put them in order of iimportance. Then, work on one until it is done and mark it off so that I can start on the next one. That is my goal for this coming week. I will keep you updated on how that goes. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana

Equipment Update

OK, for those that were up late last night wondering what in the world was going to happen with Cafe Evoke Catering after yesterday's discovery of damaged equipment, here is your answer. We are going to have it all fixed! I talked with Bridge Industries yesterday who built the cart and they are going to send me a new faucet assembly (under $30.00) and our maintenance guy for our espresso machine is coming out with a new gauge and will take the thing apart to clean it and check all the seals and boiler to be sure that is OK. This is a nice outcome to a very bad situation. I have learned from this however -- if your gut says to have someone bring your machine in so it does not freeze, listen to it. The cart looks a bit sad with the faucet missing and drip trays off the machine but it will get fixed. We will be out of commission for the next week or so but that should not put us behind any. I have some more paper work and "admin" stuff to work on and this will give me a chance to get that done. ...be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, boiler, winter, bridge industries

Water + Our Equipment + Freezing Temperatures = Not Good

We have had our first potentially bad situation since "going into business" 6 or so months ago. Yes, we all know that Cafe Evoke ran into it's share of hardships along the way but nothing like this. The equation is above in the title of this post and it is somewhat of my worst nightmare. We arrived at a weekly event last night and the collar around the sink faucet was cracked and I could see that one of the gaskets seemed to be showing. I thought everything would be alright but then we plugged the cart in. Remember as a kid when you would watch cartoons and the character would be shot up into the air by some geyser (maybe oil or water?) Have you ever been to Yellowstone to see Old Faithful? If yes, you know what we were looking at last night. The faucet shot straight up into the air and water was spilling everywhere. Not good. We tried several things but the only thing that worked was unhooking it and plugging the line so that the pump did not shot water all over the place. I was then very nervous about our machine. Did the boiler freeze? Are we going to have problems with these water lines as well? I know one thing -- the temperature and pressure gauge were off because it said it was half way to hot before we even turned on the machine and the pressure gauge seemed to be stuck at 0 bars. I turned it on and it sounded ok. I checked the water as it got hotter and everything seemed to be fine -- we were getting to 9 bars, etc. The problem was that the temperature gauge was going into the red and I did not want to ruin anything that was not already in trouble so we shut it down. I think the gauge just needs to be re-collaborated (at least I hope). Now, in the midst of trying to get all of our advertising in control, I have to make arrangements to get a new assembly for the sink and also get someone out here to service our machine. I also have to figure out what to do with our equipment in the cold Bozeman winter. My options are to rent a heated storage space and take it there after each event or by a heater for my garage and cover the cart with a blanket. I am leaning towards number 2 as our overhead is getting pretty high compared with our revenues. I am trying to stay positive about this because I do not have time to stress and freak out. So, I am calling the manufactures of my cart today to find out what the cost is for the assembly and will be calling the two people I know that service machines to see when they can come out (of have me bring the cart to them) to get this squared away. I guess I should have called our "employees" here in Bozeman and asked them to bring the cart in from the trailer and cover it in my garage. We -- my wife and friend from Bozeman -- were just talking about freezing machines and what we were going to need to do with our stuff while we were in Seattle. Should have known.. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, boiler, winter

Cafe Evoke Coffee Catering :: An Update

It is very hard to get back into the swing of things when so many "to-do's" were left hanging 10 days ago before I left for CoffeeFEST and a trip to PA. Not only do I now have to catch up on those, I also have all the new things that have been added over the past 10 days. Not to worry, I got organized tonight and figured out my game plan. The main thing that we need to tie up are our ads. We finalized one tonight and we will be working on making the decisions as to what other channels we feel fit our needs the best. Remember, even great ads are worthless if they do not reach your target market. We expect our first ad to come out by the end of this month and we are excited (I think I have said that before). We are also working on information packets to hand out to people and those are basically finished. We are waiting to take those to print until we get our new letter head which looks great so far. We will use these packets at the bridal show in January that we will be a part of but also to pass along to wedding centers all around the area. I have 12 listed on my board right now but I hope to find even more. Other than advertising, we are expanding some ideas that we had while at CoffeeFEST. I will talk about each of these as the days go on. I want to develop them a bit more before posting. I have learned a lot in the past 2 years about my ideas and I am not going to present them until there is a firm foundation for them, including: 1. Pros/Cons 2. Thoughtful model 3. Initial research 4. List of questions that need to be answered 5. etc There are also some ideas for an all new Cafe Evoke so be watching for this. I am excited for these plans and am looking forward to what might come out of them. Is this something that I am working full time on right now? No. I am putting my full effort into Cafe Evoke Catering but am taking the time to develop the ideas for the all new version. Again, more to come on this in the coming months. We have had some interest spike with the catering business and I hope this is the beginning to a nice future. We are chasing leads and going after it with everything we have. ..be bold Tagged: cafe evoke, coffee catering, coffee, espresso, tea, bozeman, montana, marketing

Almost Home

After the trade show and a week with family in PA, I am heading home. We are back in Seattle and are expecting to head back to Bozeman (weather permitting) tomorrow. When I get back.. 1. Folgers Coffee Review -- yes, a long time coming 2. More about our trip to CoffeeFEST 3. A new plan for Cafe Evoke 4. ..and other posts for your daily read Sorry for the long break. Things will be back to normal soon. ..be bold

The Coffee and Tea Festival (#15)

Welcome to the 15th -- at least I think that is where we are -- edition of the Coffee and Tea Festival. We have 5 posts for this week so I hope you enjoy.. Ruth presents Four Cups of Tea a Day For Your Health posted at Eating Fabulous. This is just another example of the benefits of drinking tea (and even coffee) on a daily basis. Joe Donnachie presents Redbush Tea posted at joedonnachie.com Pursuing Health and Happiness. Joe has been caffeine free for a long time it seems but finds the this tea to be a nice aside. Vineeta Chopra presents The Art of Indian Chai posted at for the conscious pursuit of a good life. Yet another nice post about tea -- this time the chai variety. I am not a huge fan of chai but know that many are. If you are, make this a stop. Chris Tingom presents Arizona Coffee - Out of the Darkness and Into the Light: Appreciating Coffee for What it is posted at Arizona Coffee Chris says that this is a great article contributed to Arizona Coffee by Jason Haeger. It helps people understand the difference between a light roast and a dark roast. This post is quite long but worth every second it takes to read it. Believe me, it could have been longer. Jason is great at getting to the point and explaining it well. Sam presents Coffee Jokes and the Coffee Bean Game. Surfer Sam posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, "Enjoy. Life's a Beach !!" Just a bit of light hearted reading for you. Well, that will do it for this weeks edition. Thanks to everyone who submitted and please keep the posts coming. The more we get, the more we can all get to know each other and these great industries. If you find anything that should be included, please pass them along! As always, you can submit your posts with this fantastic little form or click on the ad on the left side-bar of this blog. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page. ..be bold Tagged: coffee and tea festival, blog carnival, espresso, coffee, tea