We had a great time serving our carbon negative coffee to the volunteers and discussing global sustainability issues with amazingly bright and motivated 6th – 12th grade students from an ever-widening variety of Minnesota schools. It’s a wonderful educational opportunity for anyone with a child in middle school or high school.

As for the coffee, don’t be fooled by the capability of brewing great coffee out of an urn. We love our single cup pour over Harios and single cup Clover, but they are not the only way to brew a stellar cup of coffee. We brewed and served our medium roasted Peru Apu Cenfrocafe and Flores Bajawan Ngura, as well as our dark roasted Nicaragua Segovia Prodecoop. Each of the coffees were dense, clean and sweet with enough acidity to show off their fruity and floral tones that kept students, parents and volunteers coming back for more. Each of these coffees are available on our online coffee store if you’d like to try them for yourself.

We’d like to thank World Savvy for inviting us to be a part of this wonderful event and look forward to next year.

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TINY FOOTPRINT COFFEE

Name: Peru Apu Cenfrocafe

Roast: Light-Medium

Flavor Profile: This is coffee you can sip all day, pleasing soft caramel like mouth feel balanced by elegant citrus acidity and a sweet, clean finish.

Certification: Fair-Trade and Organic

There’s a reason we’ve received more than one “best Peru ever” comments over the last two years: Cenfrocafe cups and selects the best coffees from their top member farms (1-4 bags of production for most) to build their Apu designated lots.  The cooperative then carefully pulps and dries the cherry on covered raised screens.  Not only are all the APU lots certified Fair Trade and Organic certified this year, the shade canopies from the selected farms buffer the Santuario Nacional Tabaconas Namballe forest reserve located in northern Peru right on the Peru-Ecuador border. Here’s a link to learn more: Cenfrocafe.

Ready to grab a bag or two for you and your coffee loving friends? Check out our online coffee store.

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Name: Java Taman Dadar Union

Roast: Medium

Flavor Profile: Big, bold low-acid (molasses and maple-syrup accented) body, balanced by light notes of jasmine, melon and spice with a seductive, savory finish

This is the first Java we’ve offered; produced mainly by government controlled mills Java’s are typically pedestrian and overpriced. Taman Dadar (flower garden) is the exception, not only is it the only certified organic coffee on the island, it is painstakingly grown and prepared by a “Union” of small-land holders whose farms dot the Ijen Plateau in eastern Java.  Shade cover is primarily Erythrina, Albizia and Leucaena trees for shade with some intercropping of Parkia beans, Avocado and timber trees for sustenance, diversified income and as a source of food for their livestock, which provide a critical fertilizer ingredient.

Under normal climate conditions, harvesting takes place between May and September.  After picking, the Union prepares the coffee using a modified “wet-hulled’ process (Sumatra style): pulping then fermenting the remaining fruit, parchment and interior coffee beans (two seeds per cherry) for 24-36 hours, before washing and sun-drying on bamboo mats to around 35% moisture content.  Once compete, the parchment is transported to the dry mill for hulling, final drying (12-13%) and sorting before export.

Certified Organic & Rainforest Alliance

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TINY FOOTPRINT COFFEE

Name: Christmas Morning Blend

Roast: Medium

Flavor Profile: Our favorite Central American, South American and Ethiopian coffees blended and roasted to a satisfyingly rich, full-bodied medium roast with a sparkle of jammy red-fruit laced acidity.

We created the Tiny Footprint “Christmas Morning Blend” to capture the joy and magic of Christmas morning and add an extra touch of good feeling to the holidays. This coffee will easily become a staple to your holiday traditions alongside a glass of egg nog and a plate of sprinkled sugar cookies. Even Santa Claus wouldn’t pass up a hot, freshly brewed mug of this tasty coffee.

Tiny Footprint Coffee’s “Christmas Morning Blend” is truly a good karma win-win. The more coffee you drink, the more trees we plant and wouldn’t you know, it’s the perfect gift for the coffee lover in your life (even if it’s you).

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TINY FOOTPRINT COFFEE

To check out the complete article and list of winners, click on “Nibble 2011 Artisan Food Awards”

You can also shop for coffee online, and check out the other great products featured on the Nibble’s Gourmet Market online.

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TINY FOOTPRINT COFFEE

To read the full post and enter the giveaway, check out “The Nutritionist Reviews: Tiny Footprint Coffee Review & Giveaway”

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TINY FOOTPRINT COFFEE

Name: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Worka Cooperative (Dry Processed)

Roast Level: Light

Flavor Profile: Hailing from the same region as the Biloya wet-processed Yirgacheffe we featured earlier this year, dry-processing (the whole coffee cherry is dried on raised screens–see additional images) by the Worka cooperative results the coffee equivalent of the Willamette Valley Pinot Noir that teaches you why without the too dear to consume as often as you’d like price:

jammy red fruit with nuanced layers of honey dew melon, spice, orange zest and a viscous long, sweet finish.

Just a couple of mouth-watering bags of this mark passed through our hands at the end of the last crop the crop cycle, packed in GrainPro (protective poly-bag liner inside the traditional jute export sack-) it still cupped amazingly well. Much to our chagrin the importer “lost” our last few bags in their warehouse precluding us from offering it widely—gone as soon as it arrived. This year we were able to secure a small amount forward and will look to buy more if it becomes available, there are no guarantees, enjoy it while you can.

Certified Fair-Trade & Organic. 100% Shade-Grown Arabica Bean Coffee.

About the cooperative:

Worka is a micro-cooperative producing boutique coffee for the much larger Yirgacheffe Farmers Union.

The unwashed Yirgacheffe-3 is coming from the Yirgacheffe region, sub region Gedeo located in southern Ethiopia.  The coffee is a natural mixture of minimum 4-5 types local varietals and is growing around 1500-2300 meters above sea level.

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To view the full article and more, you can use the interactive Artful Living online magazine, click here.

We’d also like to congratulate “James Murphy,” the winner of some free coffee that we donated to the blog as well to inspire karma goodness among readers. To read the full article, click on this link – Tiny Footprint Coffee Review & Giveaway

Green Solutions is an on-line magazine designed to report information about environmental solutions and services, expert recommendations, best practices, products, tools and other solution-based news and resources to help economies, communities, businesses and individuals with alternative options that they can implement to create sustainability, prevent destructive impacts on or improve the quality of life and the environment.

Check out the actual article here to find out what other amazing groups are up to.