Kohana Coffee and ACLFestival '09

I can't tell you how worked up we get each year being able to say "we're serving Kohana Coffee in the 'Artist's Only' tent" at Austin City Limits Festival http://www.aclfestival.com/

From picking out the coffees to brew hot - and selecting which coffee to cold brew, to making sure every single detail is ironed out and performed to perfection....we love every minute. ACL Festival is an icon in Austin and we all seem to set our lives on hold to experience it each year. Although the logistics of setting up vending in a field are fierce (and our hats are off to all those that do this for a living!), we love being able to turn people on to great coffee - it's just what we do. The line up for '09 couldn't be more exciting - so calling it work from our end is a bit of an oxymoron.

And to be behind the scenes with the artists....well, I think that part is self explanatory. Look for photos & posts on our FaceBook and Twitter pages - we'll try to share the love that way.

Kohana Coffee and Regional.Best.com

So many cool things coming our way!

Kohana Coffee was recently chosen as a www.RegionalBest.com vendor – you really need to know this website. It’s an artisan food marketplace, where shoppers buy direct from food artisans and producers across the country, including farmers, bakers, chocolatiers, cheesemakers and other small family-owned businesses (like us!). They’re committed to helping us small producers who champion local foods and flavors to move beyond our local markets and thrive by reaching a national audience. How great is that?

RegionalBest.com was launched by Marsha Cade of suburban Philly (originally a west Texas girl!) and Caragh Whalen of suburban Boston – both food lovers/appreciators, as well as smart, seasoned business execs, moms and entrepreneurs. To know us is to understand that we also stand behind them for these very reasons. They are also coffee fanatics which carries them ‘over the top’ in our book.

Kohana has nine coffees offered on their site; one being the brand spankin’ new Alamo Joe, created exclusively for RegionalBest (see the fun we had in the coffee naming blog below). Not only are our incredible Hawaiian selections available (Hawaiian Select, Hawaiian Prime, 100% Kona Estate and our popular signature, Kohana Blend) but we’ve added our Texas presence with Rockin’ Like Austin that’s topping the charts in the Lone Star state and the new Alamo Joe. To showcase the other growing regions of the world we’ve topped off our grouping with a lovely medium roast Kenya AA, dark roasted Kohana Panama and our wonderful decaf offering of Decaf Kohana Blend.

We're very excited to work with these women because we value what they do, both as consumers and as a vendor partner. Our hat is off - congrats to everyone on their team for a perfect idea and great execution.

You want a Texas themed coffee????

Sometimes being creative in our business comes easy - like how we blend coffees, how we talk about our passion of the specialty coffee industry or how we promote our brand. Sometimes its hard - like the other night when we were trying to come up with a name for a great new blend we have that needed a Texas themed name. That night, after brainstorming at the end of a very long day, we had it - done - off to the printer - finis. Unfortunatly there was a 'next morning' in this tale where I arrived in the office to see that our brilliant late night submission really sucked - truly - and would never work for what we intended it to be. It was a 'what were we thinking' sort of scenario.

What do we do? Our much more brilliant conclusion was to approach our friends and believe me, Kohana Coffee has some creative ones. I put the info on Facebook mid morning and had a skattering of suggestions by mid afternoon. Again, I prompted, and then the magic began. It was like a Texas tornado - ideas flying right and left, swirling at times. And they were GREAT. Ok, some of them were bad in a very humorous sort of way but more were great than bad. Eureka - after about 90 posts we had a winner.

Thanks to all that joined in the fun; Kristin Schell, Marye Audet, Stephanie Schmidt-Shipp and Steve Dean were the biggest contributors - with Marye Audet's submission ALAMO JOE being the winner. You guys were awesome - I mean it - and we couldn't have done it without you. Everyone involved is getting a sample of the new blend as a thank you!

So much is happening on the Kohana Coffee front. We're movin' and shakin' in lots of directions you need to know about. First, as you've read before we're becoming very popular at the North Shore Country Market on Oahu - Irma and team are holding down the fort creating Kohana Coffee converts as we speak. People there love the local farm coffees and those coffees, of course, are some of our favorites.

In Austin we're finally rounding the corner of hot months (not to be confused with 'hot coffee' months) turning into more bearable 'almost fall' months. What that translates to in the coffee world is a pick up of coffee drinkers - and that makes us happy. We have lots of new crop in - expecting more - and we're ready to pass forward the great tasting coffees you know Kohana Coffee for.

Look for more information about Kohana Coffee going 'live' on several websites very soon. We'll give all the skinny as soon as we have it. Very exciting!

Oh, and if you haven't already checked out Marye Audet's blog http://www.blisstree.com/kettleandcup/ about coffee and everything that's worth noting - you must. She's been very good about reviewing Kohana Coffee - and we feel her perspective is right on. We give her big thanks for doing what's she's doing to support indy coffee roasters - and for appreciating a great cup of coffee.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to know what you think - your ideas/thoughts/feedback are food to us. If we don't have it we're guessing at what you want - and probably somewhat ineffective in that effort. Let us know - we LOVE to hear what you have to say. Also, follow us on Twitter @kohanacoffee and Facebook, there are links above that do it for you - we're giving away FREE coffee there this week. Check it out!

Coffee on!

Piper