Dan, its been a few weeks. Any clue on what's next?

A couple things are in the works. Getting the ducks in a row right now, and we should be publishing closer to mid-August.

I am sure there are some excellent espresso blends out there and before I started roasting I was ordering from most of the more popular roasters. The only ones that I gravitated to most ofter were Vivace Dolce and Red Bird. I always enjoyed Black Cat but it was a moving target from bag to bag and I tired of it quickly. It has taken quite a while to get my blends the way I like them which is different than any I have ever bought commercially. Chocolate? It has to be balanced and if it dominates I consider it a failed blend. I would prefer a chocolate, vanilla, malty, nutty base with some fruity midtones and supported with mysterious earthy, leathery bass notes. I don't consider the cost of the components when I blend and I think this is where the commercial blends are limited in their flavor profile. It also appears to me that the coffees from both Central and South America are changing each season with flavors reminiscent of some of the finer African coffees. They are influencing my thoughts on future espresso blends.

I would also like to comment that the new Blue Jaguar espresso blend from Jeff Pentel at Redbird Coffee is absolutely delicious with flavors I haven't discovered before.

<rant>

too many of the listed sites deserve a web site sux

• missing pages & images
• lousy, generic description.
• blank pages
• busted shopping carts
• no espresso recommendations
• 'dial-up' servers
• busted 'contact' so we can't even tell them

FWIW, I troll a site to make sure it works before posting a link. Which is not to say it won't 404 tomorrow.

Dan - how about an H-B policy that to have your site listed, it at least has to work?

</rant>

I'd rather have a policy that the coffees nominated for consideration have to not suck.

Is there some background?

http://godshot.blogspot.com/2011/04/espresso-bastard-stepchild-of-us-coffee.html

No - just what I said.
I'd rather have coffees that taste great but come from roasters with ugly bad websites than horrible coffees that come from companies with super sexy sites.

That maybe well and good for the glitterati who get samples to evaluate, but for the great unwashed, a glowing review of a stellar coffee that's difficult to obtain is less useful than a spent puck.