May 2013 Coffee News

-The Farmers Behind the Coffee
-Describe your favorite roast
-New Name - New Label
-NPR Coffee Week
-Climate Action

Last week on National Public Radio they celebrated Coffee Week with a wide ranging series of on-air and online coffee stories. One new trend that came up is Direct Trade coffee. Velasquez Family Coffee has, of course, been direct trade since we started in 2001. But we thought we could use the opportunity to introduce you (or re-introduce you if you've been with us for a while) to the coffee farmers behind your coffee. Also, this month a new label for our coffee bags and a new name for our Vienna Roast, an opportunity to win a free bag of coffee, and four climate action steps you can take. 

The Farmers Behind the Coffee
Velasquez Family Coffee is grown by several members of our family in Honduras: Guillermo's father Maximo, his brother Abilio, his brother Sabel, and his brother-law-Alonzo. (You'll recognize some of their names in the names of our coffee roasts.) Read all about them on our "Meet Our Family" page. 

Describe your Favorite Roast -- for a free bag of coffee
Now it's your turn. We'd like to know which is your favorite Velasquez Family coffee. Why do you like it? What words would you use to describe its flavors and other qualities to someone else? We'd like to update the coffee descriptions on our website and if we use your words, we'll give you a free bag of your favorite coffee to say thank you. Send your responses to us at coffee@vfamilycoffee.com. Gracias!!

New Name -- New Label
In honor of Mother's Day, our Vienna Roast is now Natalia's Vienna Roast for Guillermo's Mom Natalia Rodriguez. We're also pleased to be officially releasing a new label on our coffee bags. We thank graphic designer MJ Heubach for the fresh look. You will start to see the new label on your coffee bags over the next few months as we use up old labels. (A few of you may have been lucky enough to get a sneak peak last month.)

Coffee News
We've been posting links to the NPR coffee series on our Facebook page all last week. "Like us" on Facebook to get our future posts. And you can read and listen to all of NPR's coffee week here. Topics included the history of coffee, coffee culture, coffee labels, women in coffee, Japanese latte art, Jerry Seinfeld on coffee, genetic varieties of coffee, caffeine in coffee as a miracle drug, and much more.

Climate Action
We wrote about the important topic of Climate Change last month and thought we'd follow up this month with some actions you can take (we hope to make this a regular feature of our monthly newsletter).

  • Read Bill McKibbon's latest Rolling Stones article called "The Fossil Fuel Resistance" and then sign up for 350.org updates.
  • Join a bipartisan effort to get big money out of politics at Represent.Us
  • Watch an inspiring 6 minute video by the Will Steger Foundation from the April 22 MN Clean Energy and Jobs rally and learn more at www.cleanenergyjobs.mn about exciting legislation moving forward in MN
  • Attend MN Goes Green on May 18 from 9 am - 6 pm at the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul (and stop by our booth to say hi).