Today, I had the opportunity to be this week's Chef Demo at the very popular Peachtree Rd. Farmers Market. At first, it was incredibly intimidated, I mean, looking at the calendar, I'm slotted between two of my favorite chefs, and two of Atlanta's best chefs, Chef Kevin Gillespie from Woodfire Grill, and Chef Steven Satterfield from Miller Union. But the more I thought about it, as nervous as I was about standing in front of a large group of people, it was a great opportunity to represent specialty coffee, Batdorf & Bronson®, and I chose to use that opportunity to demystify manual brewing. My desire was the show people how easy it can be for folks to brew really good coffee at home. So, I used the first part of the demo to talk about the different manual brewing devices there are on the market, their history, and how they work. I talked about advantages and disadvantages. And then shared about my favorite brewing method, the Clever Dripper, and gave the information on how it works as well as it's advantages. I then, went into the demo, using the Clever, and brewing our Guatemala Finca El Valle, which really has been stellar lately. This coffee actually ended being a great choice, because we were positioned right next to the Audubon Society, and had the opportunity to talk about how the Finca El Valle is a Shade Grown coffee, and what that means. They are huge fans of Batdorf & Bronson® for our buying practices over the years, and actually had our bags on display at their booth to talk about how we buy coffee and why it's important, which I think makes me even more proud to work for such a great company. At the end of the demo, after answering MANY good questions, everyone was very pleased with the demo, and they absolutely LOVED the coffee, both hot and iced, and you'll see their responses when the video gets posted from the demo, which they'll post soon. I felt such a great sense of satisfaction. I was told by the Farmers Market coordinator that people rarely stay for the whole demo time, and the fact that most all stayed the whole time was awesome to her, and she signed me up for another one in the future. I also got two Coffee Ambush requests from the event, as well, two really cool ones I can't wait for you to hear about. Let's just say they are going to be freaking awesome, and they're going to be a lot of fun. I feel a great sense of responsibility when I get to share what specialty coffee really is, and I don't take it lightly. I want people to understand how accessible good coffee really is, and how easy brewing good coffee can be. I love the fact I get to share something so incredibly special to me, with so many folks that genuinely are interested in better coffee. It was also great to see so many of my friends this morning. And today I was called a Coffee Evangelist again, and well, I guess that's a good thing. I'm happy to share
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