Apr 19 2009
Day 7: 31 Days Coffee Break - Green Mountain Costa Rican Peaberry
Welcome to Day 7 of the 31 Days Coffee Break!
Today’s Coffee: Green Mountain Costa Rican Peaberry
Skip to: Today’s 31DBBB Assignment Today’s Linky
Today I’m serving up Green Mountain’s Costa Rican Peaberry coffee, a light, bright, crisp cup of coffee that’s a perfect morning wake-me-up. Costa Rican coffee is a standard bearer for Central American coffees, embodying all of their best attributes. If you generally like “American” coffee and find most coffee house coffees too strong, Costa Rican is a great choice for your taste buds. It has a little more body than typical American coffees - just enough to set it apart and make you go MMmmmmm!
Now, about that “Peaberry” part. Coffee “beans” are actually more like cherry pits, a seed surrounded by a fleshy fruit. Usually, each pit contains two beans. However, about 5% of the time, you come across a coffee pit that contains only one bean - those are called Peaberries. Unlike most coffee beans, which are vaguely kidney-bean shaped, peaberry beans are closer to round. Because they’re round, peaberry beans tend to roast more evenly than flat beans. They also tend to be a bit denser. Between that and the fact that peaberry beans are picked out of the other beans by hand, peaberry coffee is typically higher quality than other coffee beans.
Now, there are coffee experts who contest this. Coffee chemists will tell you that there’s no real difference in the makeup of peaberry beans vs. flat berry beans, and I’m sure that they’re right. I can tell you from personal experience, though, that every peaberry coffee that I’ve tasted is absolutely stellar.
Green Mountain’s Costa Rican Peaberry does have one drawback - it’s not sourced through Fair Trade sources. Y’all know that I’m an ardent supporter of Fair Trade in all its forms. So why am I sharing a coffee that is not Fair Trade? Because it’s from Green Mountain, a company that has made a commeitment - and is actively working toward it - of increasing the share of coffee that they source through Fair Trade and direct trade every single year.
Today’s Assignment: Day 7 - Give Some Link Love
We’re up to Day 7 of Probloggers 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. Today’s challenge - write a link post. Now, I’m an old-school blogger, so this lesson really resonates with me. Personality-wise, I’m a connector. I love hooking people up with other people that I think will “fit” together in some way. If I read something cool on your blog, chances are I’ll probably share it with other people. If you write something that inspires me to write a post, chances are that I’ll start off by sending a hat-tip in your direction.
One of the things that has bothered me the most in the whole “money-blogging” phenomenon is this belief that when you link to other blogs you are either a) “leaking page rank” or b) helping your competition. I’ve heard from a lot of so-called professional bloggers that you’ll never make money if you send your readers to other blogs. I can’t even start to tell you how -wrong- that feels to me.
Maybe that’s because I’m a hippie-type, quasi-socialist, grass-roots kinda gal. I’ve always believed that when you share love, you don’t divide it, you multiply it, and my linking policy here at CoffeeBreak - and my other blogs - is pretty free and easy. If I like your blog, I’ll link to it. If you say something I think is important, I’ll link to it. If you write about my blog, I’ll link back to you. I believe in networking - which is one of the reasons that I love-love-love Mr. Linky to death. It makes networking -easy-.
Today’s Linky Link to Your Post
Do you write link posts? Have you written a link post? I’d love to read what you’re reading and what you think is important in your own little niche. It’s how I learn! If you have a post where you linked out to another blog, post the link in Mr. Linky below, then leave me a comment so that I know you linked up. (I get notified of every comment - I haven’t got that capability with Mr. Linky - yet. I will, though, with my next upgrade. Till then - comment if you want me to come check out your posts!)
