First of all, we hope you had a very wonderful and blessed Easter!

New Retail Locations Offering Blacksmith Coffee

We’ve added new stores across southern and western Kansas.  Many of our customers have asked to be notified when new stores have been added in their area. If that’s you, here’s the list of new stores where you can now get Blacksmith Coffee:

• Karl’s IGA – Caldwell, Kansas
• Meade Thriftway – Meade, Kansas
• Venture Foods – Coldwater, Kansas
• White’s Foodliner – Cimarron, Kansas
• Town & Country Supermarket – Hoisington
• Venture Foods – Ashland
• Jetmore Food Center – Jetmore
• Kinsley Food Pride – Kinsley
• Rose Hill Apple Market – Rose Hill
• Winfield Apple Market – Winfield
• Checkers – Wichita
• Mize Thriftway – Clearwater
• Jim’s Foods – Cheney
• Grandma Hoerner’s – Alma

For a complete list of locations see our retail locator map.

New Brewing Equipment Arriving

As you know if you’ve been to Blacksmith Coffee Roastery, we have a lot unusual coffee brewing items that we use and sell.  Over the last couple weeks we’ve begun to receive shipments of some new merchandise that may be of interest to you if you’re into more traditional methods of brewing coffee.

Once we get things in place we’ll begin filming demonstrations and how-to info on these amazing coffee presses, pour-over funnels, hand mills and cold drip brewers from Hario Glass of Japan, Yama Glass, Bodum, Zassenhaus, Cona and others.

If you’re content with Mr. Coffee, these items may not capture your interest, but if you appreciate the art of artisan coffee brewing, you’ll be on Cloud 9.  Stay tuned.

Visit us at the Kansas Sampler Festival

Coming up on May 1st & 2nd, we will be attending the Kansas Sampler Festival in Leavenworth.  This is a great event for Kansas communities and companies to promote themselves and give attendees an opportunity to get a taste of all the best that Kansas has to offer!  It’s kind of like a miniature state fair without the rides, animals and ridiculous prices.  Just all the best that Kansas has to offer! We hope to see you there!

I was going to make a how-to video about how to brew outstanding coffee in a coffee press, but when I saw this fantastic one from James Hoffman of Square Mile Coffee Roasters in the U.K., I said to myself, “Why reinvent the wheel?”  He references measurements in metric units, but hey, that just gave me an excuse to put a unit converter down below.

So, if you’ve been considering moving out of the land of Mr. Coffee and into the realm of ultra-brewing, check it out.

You’ll notice, the press used in the video is the same one we sell here at Blacksmith Coffee Roastery. It’s the Bodum Columbia, and in my opinion it’s the best press you can buy. If you need a mind-blowing Christmas gift for the coffee geek in your life, the shopping cart links are below.

In case you need a way to convert from grams to ounces or litres to ounces try this cool unit converter:

Bodum Columbia Coffee Press

In part 1 I mentioned the GQ article about how to use a Bodum French Press to cold brew coffee.  I tried out their method and the results are in.  We followed the directions to a “T”.

Here’s what we did:

First,  in our favorite coffee press – the Bodum Colombia, we used 1 Bodum scoop of course ground Blacksmith Coffee per 4oz of water.  In case you don’t have a Bodum scoop, one level Bodum scoop is approximately the equivalent to a heaping tablespoon.  Then I stirred the cold concoction up with a wooden spoon to make sure all the grounds were submerged.

Second,  I placed the lid on the pot in the up position.  That means, we didn’t depress the plunger.

Third, I put it in the refrigerator at 10:36am and forgot about it until the news was over at 10:35pm.  Then I removed the Colombia press from the refrigerator and gently pressed down on the plunger as instructed.

Lastly I poured this concentrate into a Tupperware pitcher or something and cleaned out my Colombia.  After placing ice cubes into a glass I poured the cup half full of this cold coffee and topped the glass off with water.

First Impression

It tasted like good iced coffee.   It wasn’t great, but I’m not a huge iced coffee fan.  I think iced coffee afficionados would be pleased with the results.  However, my favorite way to enjoy iced coffee is to doctor it up a bit……

Second Impression

After I added 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1.5 tablespoons of Hershey’s syrup and about an 1/8th of a cup of half and half – basically creating an iced mocha,  it went from being good to being great.  In fact, our 6 year old son had one with breakfast this morning and said it was his new favorite drink.

Overall Impression

I think the Bodum/GQ recipe is a winner!  For people who like iced coffee, and yet would like to keep their coffee brewing hardware down to a minimum, this is a great way to get the most mileage out of your french press!