Pumpkin and chai are two flavors that are as identifiable with the holidays as turkey and reindeer. But, unlike turkey and reindeer, pumpkin and chai taste delicious together. So, I decided to create a pumpkin chai tea based on a blend of black (Orange Pekoe), green (Sencha) and herbal (Yerba Mate) teas. I have always been a fan of black and green tea blends. I like the light, smooth taste of a black tea with just a hint of green tea flavor, and I like that it is still packed with all the health benefits of the green tea. The Orange Pekoe black tea keeps you warm, while the caffeine in the Sencha green tea keeps you going all day. Best of all, the theanine in the Sencha and Yerba Mate is calming and relaxing—we all know the holidays can be stressful—and helps keep your thoughts focused and sharp.

After I mixed up this special blend of teas I added our delicious pumpkin flavoring as well as a secret splash of caramel. Then I added our special spiced chai mix made up of cinnamon, ginger, clove and more. All these ingredients combined create a tea that looks beautiful and smells amazing! We’re talking mouth-watering, I’m instantly transported to a fall-winter-holiday-wonderland kind of amazing!!

I am not usually one to brag, but, WOW! I did really great this time. I had to share this tea with my coworkers immediately and now we have no choice but to share it with you. This will be our first special holiday flavored tea and I hope you enjoy it as much we have!

Our pumpkin chai tea is hearty and delicious. It will warm your belly and fill your head with your favorite thoughts and memories of the holiday season. Enjoy it any time! Perfect to start your day with, it will also compliment your dessert after that big family dinner. This tea is so delectable it might even be dessert itself!

Since its base is mostly black tea, our pumpkin chai can be served plain or with milk and sugar. I have been drinking mine with about half a teaspoon of sugar to help bring out the sweet flavors of the pumpkin and caramel. Let us know how you like it! I would also love to hear your suggestions for other special teas we can create in the future.

Suggested water temp: 175° F
Suggested steep time (different for every tea): 3-4 minutes

Click Here to Try Our New Flavor

I’m sure you all have noticed the handy dandy scales at the bottom of each of our coffee descriptions… you know, the ones that tell you the roast level, acidity and body of the coffee. These are great tools when trying to figure out what coffee is best for you. But, they only come in handy if you know what these terms mean. So, allow me to drop some knowledge on you…

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that we all know what roast levels are… we offer light, City, French and Dark Roasts. Light… is the lightest and Dark… um… Dark is the Darkest. Got it? Good… moving on!

Now, Acidity is a different story. This has a lot to do with flavor; it is through the acidity that fruit and floral flavors are identified.

The folks over at coffeegeek.com recommend tasting a coffee from Sumatra next to one from Kenya in order begin to understand acidity.

Body has to do with the weight of the coffee or how heavy it feels in your mouth. Appearance has a lot to do with it too. If you look at a coffee that appears to be thick it would have a heavier body than one that appears more opaque.

Um… I guess explaining this was little more difficult than I had thought.

For more information, check out Coffee Geek’s article on cupping.

This started out as a seemingly easy task, but it quickly turned into a night filled with epic fails and colorful swearing. This is how it went down…

Alright, this is what you are gonna need:

1 cup butter or margarine, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs, 1 pack of instant vanilla pudding, 1 cup pumpkin pie filling, 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 cup chocolate chunks, semi sweet or white and a couple tsps of ground Italian Roast Espresso.

Preheat oven to 375. So far, so good… I had a little less vanilla than I needed but I was able to squeeze a little under 2 tsp out of the vile.

So, the recipe calls for you to “cream together” the butter, sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie filling and pudding. I had absolutely no idea what that meant (I didn’t feel like looking it up) so I just used my mixer.

After taking only a few pictures, the memory card from my mom’s camera was full (her camera is nicer than mine) so I had put in another card.

Add the two eggs to the mixture and beat them in…

Now this memory card is full… STRESSED! Now I have to switch to my crap-tastic camera… boo

Alright here is when things start to go south… the recipe calls for you to add the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixture. I added the flour, the baking soda, the espresso and the sugar, but I completely forgot the brown sugar. I didn’t realize this mistake until I had the first batch in the oven already baking.

My distraction may have had something to do with my brother trying to take pictures of my backside because I had wiped my hands on my pants, which left hand prints. Not helpful!

Oh and at some point during this whirlwind of crazy I added the chocolate chunks…

So, anyway, I added the brown sugar to the rest of the mixture and baked the rest of the batches for 10 minutes each. They came out looking a lot better.

I was stuck with a few neon orange, mutant cookies, but the rest of the batches looked and tasted pretty good. They came out surprisingly soft. I’m thinking that had something to do with the pie filling.

All and all they are worth a try. I hope your baking experience is more pleasant than mine… happy Fall everybody!

Pre-heat oven to 375*.
Cream together butter, sugar, vanilla, pumpkin and pudding.
Beat in your eggs and then add your dry ingredients (batter will be stiff).
Drop by spoonfuls onto greased or no-stick foil lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Recipe adapted from Examiner.com

Most of the decafs we offer are decaffeinated using the Direct Method or Methylene Chloride Process. This process is almost like a visit to the spa… the coffee beans are sent to a steam room for half an hour. Then they are given a chemical treatment with a chemical known as methylene chloride (or dichloromethane or DCM) over a 10-hour period, then they are steamed again to get rid of any Methylene Chloride left on the coffee. Alright, maybe it’s a little more hard core than a day at the spa.

The second process used by CBD is the Carbon Dioxide Method or CO2 Process. In this process beans that have already been steamed (at the spa) are then exposed to carbon dioxide at EXTREMELY high pressure levels! At this time the carbon dioxide is at a stage somewhere between gas and liquid. Finally, the CO2 is run through filters made of charcoal or water to get rid of the caffeine!

We recently cupped decaf Colombian and CO2 decaf Colombian to compare the differences. We found that while, the decaf Colombian had a nice smooth flavor, the CO2 decaf Colombian had a much more intense Earthy flavor in comparison. So, if you are a big fan of decaf and are not expecting the blast of bold flavor, you may want to stick to the decaf. If you are a fan of regular coffees like Colombian and you are not looking to be fully caffeinated 24/7 you may want to look into CO2 decafs.

Alright, that’s all i have for now. Hope you enjoyed the post.

“For Millions of farmers around the World, Fair Trade means thriving communities, kids in school and a healthy environment. For consumers, it means great taste and a responsible purchase. By participating in Fair Trade, you support the farmers who deliver quality coffee, tea, cocoa and fresh fruit to you.

Fair Trade Certified products are grown by artisan farmers around the world with a tradition of excellence going back generations. Choosing Fair Trade enables these farmers to continue giving their crops the care that produces quality, even during times of market volatility.”

For the entire month of October we encourage you to support the farmers by making an effort to purchasing Fair Trade products. Coffee Bean Direct proudly offers 15 varieties of Fair Trade Certified coffees. For your convenience Coffee Bean Direct also offers a Fair Trade/Organic sampler pack, which includes 7 of the 15 varieties of FT coffees as well as 4 organics.

While showing your support for farmers during Fair Trade month is a fantastic effort, we hope that you continue to show them your support all year run!

For more information on Fair Trade Month and Fair Trade Certification please visit fairtrademonth.org!

Source: transfairusa.org

For lack of time to prepare for such an occasion, here’s what I have come up with: In honor of National Coffee Day I invite everyone to take a few seconds to share their thoughts on why coffee is so awesome! So, go ahead and gush… I’m all ears.

Look at these cute coffee/tea cup cozies I found online! Each cozy is hand knitted using ego friendly yarn and fastens with a cute hand-carved wooden button. It’s a really neat way to keep your coffee/tea warm and your hands cool.

They go for about $15 and come in all different colors with three different choices of buttons. If these cozies tickle your fancy you can purchase them here.

I think these would make great gifts, especially paired with some coffee from CBD… I’m just saying.

In my most recent internet quest in search of nuggets of wisdom for you guys, I came across a really great blog post. I was going to try and summarize it, but I felt it best to just let you guys read it for yourselves. It’s a post that touches on the importance of small specialty coffee roasters called “What Happened to Coffee?” So, thanks Coffee Break and Review… I couldn’t have said it better myself! Here’s the link!

I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but when I think coffee I generally don’t think beach attire. I’d be more inclined to purchase a $1 beer off of one of these girls than a mug full of Joe.

What do you think? Would a scantily clad… um… lady cause you to buy more coffee? Or would simply a good cup of coffee cause you to buy more coffee?

HeraldNet has more on this story.

Today a customer ordered our smoked coffee with the intentions of making her own smoked porter… um that’s pretty flippin’ cool, right? So, that lead us to Google things like ‘coffee and beer’ and ‘how to make beer in a coffee pot’. We found a few cool techniques that seemed way to complex to even try… have any of you tried something like this? Was is successful? What did you make? How did you do it?!