China to Import Jamaican Green Coffee Beans

Blue Mountain Coffee of Jamaica has exported seventy tons of Blue Mountain Coffee’s green coffee beans for the first time ever. For anyone who has been following the westernization of China for the last several decades there is no surprise that a radical increase in the consumption of coffee follows the increase of many other items and lifestyle choices have been imported from the United States and Western Europe. China has started to import significant amounts of petroleum products driving up the cost of goods for everyone in the world. They have also for the first time in history begun to import more rice than they produce which in 2007 started inflating the price of rice which has been a staple for fighting world hunger and substantially impacted the budget of many world hunger organizations.

Green Coffee Beans and the Growing Coffee Business in China

Although there is an attraction to items from the western world, frequently the items are modified to fit with Chinese taste and culture. I am sure that the Chinese business men who are importing the coffee will find a better way to infiltrate the Chinese culture of drinking tea than has Starbucks and other outside companies from the western world. The long term picture is that no matter how much you are paying for your coffee now it is sure to increase the price at a steady rate over the next several years as China will become the world’s number one consumer of coffee beans.

Green Coffee Beans

Coffee for Less

Coffee for less makes coffee better

The lifeblood of every morning is coffee For less than you can imagine you can have that morning cup of gold that wakes you and enables you to charge full steam ahead into the world that is waiting to take you down.  I love saving money on anything and everything but better than any coupon or discount is coffee for less than what I expected to pay.  The price of a cup of java has been going up faster than you can imagine and pretty soon no one will be able to afford their morning joe without sacrificing their dinner.  So it is wonderful that someone decided that coffee for less is the most important thing they could do to help people save money and still have one of the greatest pleasures in life.

Coffee for less is easier

The amazing thing about coffee for less is that they make coffee even easier to make.  The truly greatest cup of coffee is not found at Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, Caribou, or the local greasy spoon.  The best cup of coffee is made when you can roast your own green coffee beans and then grind it and brew right away.  So if you can have the best cup of coffee in the world the next best thing is coffee for less.  So if you can pass on the ten dollar trip to Starbucks and forgo your venti frappuccino  or tall cafe au lait with soy you can enjoy the next best thing right at home with your coffee for less. Imagine the money you can save by taking a quality coffee product but being able to buy it for so much less.  With the price of coffee for less you can share at the office for less than you spend on yourself right now.  Goodbye to the latte and hello coffee for less.

Sonic Smoothies Commercial – Drivin me Bananas

We love Sonic’s happy hour specials, half off of all their drinks and Sonic Smoothies.  They may not drive me bananas but they are hard to pass up when your kids are calling out from the back seat as you pass a Sonic Drive-In and it is between 2 and 4 PM.  They have some amazing prices for their real fruit smoothies, especially if you are comparing it with the other real fruit smoothie options of Starbucks or GNC.  Most stores charge at least $3 for their real fruit smoothies.  But Sonic smoothies are only $1.99 for their largest smoothies, even the real fruit smoothies.  So if you go during the Happy Hour time it is only $1 (plus tax) for your favorite real fruit Sonic smoothies.

Sonic Smoothies Customer Service Still Exists

So I have to tell you my story from this afternoon.  My daughter and son have autism and I had taken them to the next town over from us for their weekly occupational therapy sessions.  My daughter has been doing odd jobs for her older siblings and earning a couple bucks here and there.  When she finished her therapy session she begged me to take her to get a smoothie with her own money–who can say no to that?  Of course, that means I will have to spring for a smoothie for her brother as well, can’t do one without the other.  But it was only 3:30 and Sonic smoothies were only about 10 minutes from there with traffic.  Unfortunately it was all left turns and school had just gotten out, but we did make it there in time.  My son knows just what he wants, he’s the creature of habit–Powerade Smoothie.  Awesome, simple, just the way I like it.  Now the next major hurdle is getting my daughter to decide what she wants.  No, you don’t understand what that is like.  Trust me, it’s the worst back and forth ever, usually.  But this time was different.  She looked at the picture and said, “Which one has the cherry on top?  That’s the one I want.”  GREAT!  She sees the nice decorative picture of the Sonic smoothies and the front one has a cherry and two lemon slices on top.  I commenced to try to teach her the important lesson that they just put the cherry on that one to make it pretty for the picture, and they probably don’t have any cherries to put on top.

Sonic Smoothies

How Can I Help You Get Perfect Sonic Smoothies?

That is the next thing I heard after I pushed the button.  “Well,” I started, “My daughter really wants the real fruit smoothie that has the cherry on top just like the picture so which one is that?”

“Um, that is the Cherry Smoothie but it doesn’t really come with a cherry on top, ma’am.”

“Uh, she REALLY wants it with a cherry on top like the picture if that is at all possible (with great pleading in my voice).”

“Well, I could put a cherry on top and just charge you extra for the cherry.”

“That’s perfect.”

So we are so excited that we are going to get the Sonic smoothies just like we ordered.  They didn’t even charge us extra for the cherry!

They Even Gave Me Lemons!

So we get all settled into the seat belt and back on the road again, and all of the sudden my daughter exclaims in sheer joy, as only she can, “They gave me lemons, too.  Two of them………Three of them!!!”

She not only got the cherry on top, which she had eaten immediately and LOVED, but after eating half of her Sonic smoothies she opened it and discovered the lemons as well.  She is one of those crazy palettes who loves to chew on lemons!  I have to say that I now love Sonic smoothies especially at Happy hour and the Sonic Drive-In in Easley, SC on Highway 123, you deserve an award for making an autistic girl and her mommy very excited with her favorite Sonic Smoothies.

Green Coffee Beans Roasting

What are green coffee beans

Some of you may be asking what in the world are green coffee beans.  If you have only ever had folgers or generic coffee grounds that come in a five pound can you might be shocked to hear that your coffee comes from something that sounds like a vegetable.   How does my beautiful brown toasty coffee grounds come from something that’s a green bean.   Coffee grows on small trees or bushes in pods with seeds.  The seeds are what make the green coffee beans.  The seeds are removed from the pod and washed and cleaned.  Then the green coffee beans are sold to various buyers based on the quality of the green coffee beans they demand different prices.  Then the beans are shipped to various locations around the world.  The large distributors roast and package the lowest grade beans in bulk and package it as folgers or something that is bought in the grocery.  The medium grade green coffee beans are bought and roasted in smaller batches so that there is less time between roasting and brewing.  These are places like Starbucks and Caribou.   Then there are the high end green coffee beans that  are bought by the specialty coffee shops and are roasted for your order and shipped the same day so that within 60 hours of roasting you are drinking the coffee.

Why Green Coffee Beans

Roasted Green Coffee beans start to lose their flavor the second they cool off and even the best system for sealing in the flavor won’t stop them from leaking out the best of the flavor.   So if you want to experience the best in an ultimate cup of coffee you need to find a place that roasts their green coffee beans on site and drink a truly freshly roasted and brewed cup of coffee.

Roasting Coffee Beans

If you are the ultimate coffee connoisseur you may want to invest in the equipment so that you can roast your own green coffee beans.   It used to be only a handful of roasting machines and some of them were dangerous.  Now there are countertop coffee roasting machines that will roast and brew the coffee with little of your input.