Victor Prieto is tall, soft-spoken and sturdy as the mountains surrounding his 2 hectare FINCA EL CONSUELO, which he and his wife Cecilia have operated for 22 years. Their strength and dedication have allowed them to raise 9 children; all of them are respected professionals living in several cities of Colombia.

Step right up ladies and gentlemen and witness the amazing.  The truth is out there.  And it goes by the name Pete Licata.

I am ecstatic right now as I type this.  The reason is that I just cheated.  Not sure why, but I just typed into Google, “How does Kenyan coffee taste?”  You see, I had picked up 100 grams of single-origin Kenyan coffee this week and cupped it yesterday.  I loved the stuff !   In fact, of the five coffees I’ve reviewed for biscotti, I enjoyed it more than all of the others, except maybe for the single-origin Colombian I tried the first week.  Ac

Alicia Murcia is a retired school teacher who, along with her daughter Isaura Bermudez also a retired school teacher, run the family's estate of FINCA EL CARMELO, founded 72 years ago by their forefathers.

In Hawai‘i, the blending of Kona coffee with imported coffee is a regular controversy.  I’ve written about it before and I expect I’ll write about it again.  Today’s blog addresses a new development in the discussion.

It has been a busy end of 2009. I love beginnings and 2010 is promising. I am sure it will bring us opportunities to make it a better year.

Last week, I volunteered at a booth at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  The booth belonged to the Hawaii Coffee Association and its purpose was to promote Hawaiian coffees.  Few other booths were dedicated to coffee at the show, consequently, plenty of folks stopped to sample our brews.

OK.  Biscotti’s first post was well received.  Blessing/curse.  Now what should I write about this week?

You mean I get to blog about coffee?  For real?  Where's the cameras - c'mon, who put you up to this?

Oh, OK.  You were serious.  Let's begin.

The endless blue ocean that is the Arafura Sea meets Papua with a violent shudder of breaking surf on rocky beaches. Papua simply rises out of the water like some strange prehistoric animal. Ponderous, enormous, mysterious. The mountains climb endlessly, effortlessly towards the sky. These are some mountains: craggy, monumental- a darker kind of bruised and violent blue. This is a land stuck in time.

Photo by Blogdeguatemala.com 

As if it wasn't complicated enough.

Sometimes I think that coffee is more complicated than wine.  Forget about the up-front factors, like location, weather, ripeness of the fruit, processing, aging, etc.  They both have those things in common.  I'm just talking here about the final enjoyment.