💛 Thank you for one more year of Brewing Greatness!

Today is the last day of 2022 - and we did not want the year to end without writing you a heartfelt thank you note. We are deeply grateful for every single order, every review, every email, every recommendation that has helped our Ethos grow this year, and especially grateful if this is your second, third… or maybe even sixth year as part of our Ethos family!

Thank you for continuing to believe - and support - this dream of going beyond a better cup of coffee, of actually doing our best to make a difference, and to continue doing things differently (i.e. adamantly resisting having a roasted coffee inventory, supermarket “distribution”, or any other industry strategies that accelerate growth at the price of quality, freshness, and sustainability). We will happily continue roasting and packing every single bag and shipping it within hours of roasting - especially for you, every single time! And we hope that the quality, freshness, value, and overall experience will make you want to “brag” a little about your coffee… and perhaps share our story with others, and the WHY behind the coffee you drink every day. We are honored to be your roasters, and we know that we get to roast for some of the most wonderful people in the world - people who every day remind us that we get to BE the change we want to see in the world.

Thank you for one more year of Brewing Greatness… we hope 2023 brings you everything you are most wishing for, and we can’t wait to write one more chapter of our collective Ethos coffee adventure!

Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. We’re on our last few kilos of Marcala, and Oak Barrel Aged… and the new crop of Poaquil Honey finally made it! (online now, and hopefully for most of 2023!)

☕️ RE: Our Grinder Guide (+ new Rio Coco crop!)

There’s truly nothing like waking up to a brew of freshly ground coffee beans! In fact, one of the most frequent questions we’ve been asked lately is about what type of grinder would we recommend buying. Knowing there are many great options in the market - some of which we haven’t had the chance to try ourselves personally - we thought we would give you some essential aspects to consider, both in your purchase journey, and keeping your grinder - and coffee experience - at its best!

1. Get a “burr grinder” - i.e. make sure that your grinder uses two rotating burr plates or burr cones for grinding your beans. This is the most consistent type of grinder design, as it is the distance between the burrs that determines your grind size. This means you’ll always get a very uniform, consistent grind - which is essential for consistently great cups of coffee in every method!

2. Get a grinder that matches your most used coffee preparation method. This is particularly important if you do mostly Espresso - Espresso grinders are designed differently, with burrs that are particularly close to each other, for the ultra-fine grind needed for Espresso. A ‘standard’ grinder that grinds everything from coarse grinds to “Espresso” will never be able to match the grind quality of a true Espresso grinder. So, if you have mostly a Espresso household, we would highly recommend getting a Espresso grinder, and we’ll always be happy to send you a coarsely ground bag for your Cold Brew or medium grind for your Drip (we always have those options on the drop-down menu on each coffee). Espresso grind is also the only grind we don’t offer in our beans, because the grind size needed is very dependent on calibration with your machine, and it is so extremely fine that the coffee will oxidize in a matter of hours after grinding.

3. Know - and use - your budget. The amount you’re willing to spend on your new grinder will generally be the most useful factor when narrowing your choices. Some of the things you can expect at higher price levels are better build and materials (i.e. stainless steel vs. some plastic parts on cheaper models), easier maintenance (i.e. easier to clean / take apart), and quieter operation (i.e. cheaper machines are always much louder), and perhaps some other extra features (i.e. grinding directly into the filter/portafilter, which also saves you some cleanup). Comparing options within your budget range is always a great way to make decision you’ll be very happy with! The best machine for you probably won’t be the cheapest, or the most expensive (certain brands have a hefty markup just for their “name”) - it is the one that has everything you need -and most of what you want- for the amount you’d like to spend!

4. Learn from the experience of others - if you know someone who owns the particular grinder you’re considering buying, asking if they would buy it again. Or, if you don’t personally know anyone, read at least a few of the most recent reviews, and pay attention to those recurring themes or attributes mentioned by the most detailed reviews (generally the most trustworthy).

5. Keep it up! Once you’ve made your decision, make sure you keep your grinder working at its best by doing a deep cleaning (i.e. take apart and clean the burrs with a brush) every 1-3 months depending on your use and type of beans (i.e. more often if you love dark, slightly oily roasts - like our current “Amani”). Avoid cleaning agents - all you need is a good brush (or a vacuum cleaner if a bean is ever “stuck”). Grinders are generally very easy to maintain, and can last a long time (ours is over 5 years old), especially when you’re using only fresh, high-quality beans. Also, be sure to never store beans in your hopper’s grinder - it will oxidize them more quickly, and if you live in a humid environment (like Florida!), the beans will absorb some of the humidity in the air and oxidize even quicker, and they may “cake” and overheat your machine as you grind them. Keep your beans inside their bag, on a cool, dark place in your pantry and just use what you need!

We hope this was helpful and please know we’re always here for you if you need us! So, so grateful for our busiest summer yet!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. The 2022 crop of “Rio Coco” from Nicaragua, just came in on Friday! It is remarkable this year - the sweetness and cocoa notes are off the charts! We’ll be sharing samples with all your orders this next week!

🎉 "PACHECO" - our newest High-Impact Honey! 🇭🇳

Our newest High-Impact coffee from Honduras is now available as a single-origin! And - thanks to your valuable advice on the name, it is called “Pacheco” - as it comes from the town of Pacheco in La Paz, Honduras. It is our newest high-impact partnership through our collaboration with Chad and Christie of Mtn2Sea Ministries, and the more we have gotten to know them, the more inspired and in awe we are of their calling to make a difference… Chad is currently in Honduras right now, doing a lot of the groundwork to amplify the impact that coffee can have in this community, and we truly can’t wait to see the transformation (we have plans to join him next year). This coffee is incredibly sweet, balanced, and full-bodied that offers a kaleidoscope of flavor gems to savor in every cup. A truly special collaboration with people who deeply share our desire to be the difference, and one which we hope to be able to support for many years, and change many lives in Honduras!

This Summer, you can also look forward to the launch of the 2022 Ethereal Summer Blend (late May), the new seasonal “Sunrise” herbal tea (a refreshing blend of lemongrass, rose hips and other botanicals), and more videos on coffee methods on our Facebook and IG @ethosroasters. Plus, we’ll be back next month with our 2022 “RE:” technical summer series with an Iced Coffee deep-dive, a fun historical piece and… anything else we haven’t covered but you’d like to know more about? (all our past technical series begin with “RE:” so you can easily search for them in our blog archives).

If you’re getting back to traveling more this year, we hope you’ll bring some Ethos with you in your adventures… if you do, please tag us on your stories (@ethosroasters), so we can share with our Ethos family! We can’t wait to see all the places you’ll go, and the coffees you’ll choose to go with you!

Always looking forward to roasting for you, and always deeply grateful to begin each day Brewing Greatness in the world with you!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

🥳 Celebrating 6 years! 🎂

We’ll soon be celebrating 6 years of roasting coffee for the best people in the world - each of you! We’re beyond grateful for the incredible journey you have made possible for us - a journey that began with an idea and desire to make a difference, and that is now a thriving roastery that gets to buy thousands of pounds of coffee from hundreds of small farmers around the world - year after year! It’s a dream come true, and as our Ethos family has grown, we continue to look for new partnerships to grow our impact.

Our newest high-impact partnership in Honduras is such a special one! When Chad and Christie first reached out to us and told us their story working with a community of small coffee growers in a remote area in Honduras, and how they aimed to break their cycle of poverty through the sale of their coffee, and shared this video, we couldn’t pass the opportunity to meet them and try their coffee. It blew us away - it was the sweetest, most delightful honey-processed Honduran coffee we had ever tasted. The fact they had paid the farmers life-changing prices (which by the way, was set by the farmers in answer to the question “what price would change your lives?”) - we just knew this was a coffee that would Brew (so much) Greatness in the world, and it will soon be the star for our 2022 Brew Greatness Blend! It will be complemented by our awesome Poaquil Natural for a celebratory blend to truly Brew Greatness in every possible way!

We will be officially launching it March 1st, and sending special preview samples on all online orders placed from now until then 🙌… and since we’re celebrating 6 years, it will be available for 6 weeks, until mid-April to hopefully give you a chance to order this amazing blend more than once! Afterwards, we are planning to launch it as a single-origin offering… yet, there’s a curious coincidence that has us thinking about what would be the “right” name for it… as the name of the small town in Honduras is… PACHECO! (this is Lisbeth’s family name… which has some drawbacks: it’s hard for people to both pronounce and remember, and it can mislead some to think it is the farm or the business of a relative (for those who don’t know, Lisbeth is originally from Guatemala -not Honduras- and didn’t even know there was a town named like this in Honduras, until Chad and Christie told us - we couldn’t even believe it at first!). So, we would really, really like to hear your thoughts on this - should we go with the town’s name, as is our long-standing tradition… or have another name contest so you can help us pick a great new name for it? Email us back and let us know!

Can’t wait to share this amazing coffee and celebrate 6 years with you!

Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. We’ll also be sending you a special anniversary souvenir on your boxes next month… follow us on Instagram (@ethosroasters) for a special preview this week!

💫 Our 2022 journey begins!

We’re starting this year with a beautiful present (this amazing video!), and a new coffee: Organic Sierra Nevada from the highest peaks in Colombia! An outstanding 88-pt coffee with a heavy body and intense notes of caramel, citrus, and brown sugars, and the perfectly bold, well-balanced cup to start the New Year!

We also just secured a limited amount of the highly renowned “Geisha” varietal (a famously delicate and floral, yet very challenging to grow coffee!) - ours will come from a small group of women farmers in Santa Barbara, Honduras, and should arrive just in time to celebrate our SIXTH year anniversary (officially March 8th). We’ll also have the 2022 Brew Greatness Blend, special freebies on all your boxes, and maybe even some birthday treat collaborations with one of our amazing local partners!

We truly want 2022 to be our most impactful year yet, both for our existing coffee partners, and for any new small coffee farmers we get to meet this year! Living through all the pandemic challenges made us realize -more than ever - how fortunate we are, and how much of a difference we can make. The world is changing faster than ever, yet it’s often easy to forget that people - just like us - are the ones actually changing the world. Whether we realize it or not, our world has always been a product of our collective actions. And though we are only a small group of people in the world… for the small farmers we get to support, we are the difference in their world. Thank you for beginning one more year #BrewingGreatness with us… we truly can’t wait to write this new chapter with you!

Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. We really would love your ideas on what you would like to see from us this year! More coffee origins? More loose-leaf teas? Roastery visits? More coffee partner events? Email lisbeth@ethosroasters.com and/or jolian@ethosroasters.com and let us know!