Has anyone been paying attention to all the hints we have been leaving on our site?

We’re up to something, TBF has a new purpose, a new business in town, a strange new smell floating by.  Any of this ring a bell?

We had one well aimed guess of a brewery.  Yes there is a history of home brewing being mentioned on the site.  Nope.  In reality, you need so much equipment the startup costs are mind boggling.  So that was not it, yet.  I’ll keep it on the back burner.

COFFEE.

Greene Bean Coffee has been born.  http://www.greenebeancoffee.com/

Right now, we are a small coffee roaster.  The business plan does call for a local coffee house, but we still need to find a place first.  Until then, we are supplying you directly with fresh roasted coffee.  Most of the time, we are aiming to have Organic, Fair-trade, Rain Forest Alliance, certified coffees.  Sometimes a non-certified coffee comes in, when we strive for a specific taste.

Huh, who, what, why???

There is very little choice out here for coffee.  Our local grocery had about 3-4 brands, including Foldgers, Millstone, and Starbucks.  Even the big city stores had few choices.  There are a handful of other roasters in the state, but we fit on one hand when counted.  So, we set out to find good coffee.  After bringing in bag after bag, I somehow realized that I had a friend in the coffee world and asked about roasting your own.

So, if you know me, I like to do things right.  At least I get the equipment to do things right.  It may take a few attempts to be right.  Our first test batches were amazing, and roasting it was fun.  Then the “bigger and better” bug bit.  Why do 1 cup of beans, when I could roast 5lbs?  Really, 6 months ago I had no clue that I would be doing this.  It is ideal as there are many coffee houses, but few who roast their own.
At that point, we started asking around.  We knew many people that loved good coffee, but could not find any.  After some planning, more equipment showed up, and larger and larger orders of beans started coming.  Our UPS guy is going to hate us.  I started sampling so many variations, I even learned to phase through time.
People have been excited.  They love the flavor.  We have a full year of events lined up already and the webstore has just been created.  All that’s left now is for you to try some.

http://www.greenebeancoffee.com/

2 Comments »

Well, I thought that we were not splurging much on presents this year.  After we became hooked on some new Wii games, including Guitar Hero world tour, we got a few good days of playing.  Then on Monday, we turned on the TV, and the red was all over the screen.

Stupid rear projection TV.  Every 2-3 years, they burn out the convergence ships.  This is the 2nd time.  I got a quote for just under $300.  On top of that, in a month I’d need to get one of those digital tuners.  It was HD ready, just didn’t have a built in tuner.  So, I was guessing it would take $400 to keep it running.  So…..

I searched for a TV, and found a sweet 46″ plasma for $950.  HDMI inputs, digital tuner, and the same size screen we had.  Plus, it’s tiny thin.  Plasma has a better picture for action and color than LCD.  LCD works better in bright rooms.  Our TV is in the basement.  Perfect.  I sent Reagan to Costco that night to pick one up.
WOW.  I had a great antenna up in the attic for regular channels before.  We don’t have any cable or satellite feeds since we hardly watch regular TV.  I let it search for stations, and we found a bunch of them.  HOLY COW, talk about clear and pretty.  We are 40 miles out of a city, so we had snow on most channels, but this is crystal clear and detailed.  I could read the lettering on the pencils sitting in the cup on Dave Letterman’s desk.

We tried the upconverting DVD player (1080i) and the HD-DVD drive on the xBox (1080p) and it is so amazing.  Plus, I removed a huge stack of cables that were replaced by 3 tiny HDMI cables.  BONUS.  I hate cables.

Business update.  I know I said we will announce it at the start of the year.  Well, as of today we are in operation and licensed and etc.  Quite a few friends and acquaintances know what we are doing, and the buzz seems really good.  I’m not making the official announcement until I get a little more marketing material ready.  Hang on

No Comments »