☕️ Re: Coffee tasting 101 + Tasting Experience @ the Roastery!

Today’s post is devoted to tasting better coffee… better! We’ll explore the top five coffee flavor attributes behind every great cup (besides impact for us, of course!) and end with a special invitation to join our very first Coffee Tasting Experience at the roastery, Sep 22 - Oct 27.

While coffee is professionally graded based on ten attributes (fragance/aroma, acidity, body, flavor, sweetness, cleanliness, balance, uniformity, aftertaste, absence of defects), there are five that, in our view, are more important and absolutely essential for every single bean that is worth roasting for you, and today we wanted to share with you some of our insights on why…

(1) Fragrance & aroma - this is one of the most distinct qualities of coffee and the very first thing you’ll experience on any coffee… from the moment you open the bag to the moment you grind and brew, we want your senses inundated with an intoxicating aroma that will serve as a warm invitation to take that first sip! If a coffee doesn’t deliver on this attribute, we already know that the flavor will be underwhelming as well, since retro-nasal aromas are also an important component of overall flavor (the proof: food just doesn’t taste the same when you have a cold - because you’re missing all those retro-nasal aromas!)

(2) Flavor - of course! Coffees must have other “tasting notes” beyond just the characteristic roasted notes. Typically, the more high-scoring the coffee, the more flavor complexity it will have… yet there’s also a practical limit, as we’ve found that coffees that are too complex or exotic tend not to be as enjoyable for most drinkers (i.e. they’re more of an ‘acquired taste’). We personally enjoy a wide range of coffees, from the more traditional nutty and chocolatey profiles to the uniquely exotic ones (i.e. barrel aged!), and we always aim to have a wide range of choices for you.

(3) Body - this is the sensation of viscosity (technically defined as the “resistance to flow”), and is perhaps best practically illustrated with the example of melted ice cream (high body) vs. full-fat milk (medium body) vs. skim milk (low body) vs. water (no body). Coffees with more body generally have higher soluble solids, which translate into a more flavorful and more satisfying drinking experience, which we are always seeking!

(4) Sweetness - this is often also described as “smoothness” in the coffee drinking experience, and is all about the available caramelized and residual sugars in the cup. Another essential attribute for every single coffee we source, and one where we also look for that perfect balance of sweetness and acidity (which also happens to be nature’s secret ingredient in every delicious piece of fruit you’ve ever had).

(5) Aftertaste - this is the lingering flavor in the back of your tongue once you have swallowed that delicious cup (or cups!)… it should be very pleasant and reminiscent of a comforting, familiar taste or experience. This attribute is again related to the aroma components that linger in the back of your mouth (swallowing actually ‘pushes’ those coffee aromatics into the nasal cavity, thus enhancing retronasal aroma perception) - and one of the most distinct differences between mass-produced, commercial coffees (which tend to have a strong single-note, ashy aftertaste) and high-end coffees like ours (which have cleaner, mellower, sweeter, nutty or chocolatey aftertastes - largely thanks to the quality of the beans, and to the superior slow roasting/fast cooling profiles you can achieve when you roast in small batches).

We invite you to evaluate each of these attributes on the next cup you get to enjoy, and notice which particular attributes are most important to you (and we would love it if you could share them with us… we never stop searching for that amazing coffee experience for you!).

We would also like to invite you to join us for our very first ticketed, in-person coffee tasting experience at the roastery! We’re limiting to just TEN participants (18 and older) per date (Fridays at 6 pm, from Sept 22 - Oct 27), so we can give you the best experience possible. We’ll provide all instruction materials (including cupping tools for your own personal use that day), delectable sensory aids, a bag of freshly roasted coffee to continue your journey at home (curated and roasted just for you earlier that day), and a few extra surprises I don’t want to spoil! It is our goal to make this an evening worth your valuable time, and one that will mark a step forward in your coffee journey, and in our Ethos journey as well! Tickets are now available online and I truly can’t wait to see you there,

💛 Lisbeth

P.S. Just in case you missed it… our new “El Espejo” microlot is also now online… and every bit as awesome as we promised it would be!

🧮 Re: Our secret formula for the Perfect Iced Brew!

Our first “Re:” technical summer series is focused on the concept of “bypass” as applied to iced coffee brewing. We also wanted to share with you our simple formulas to achieve the perfect iced brew on ANY method. We promise a short, yet interesting read that we hope you’ll get to try on your next iced brew!

First things first… what is “bypass”? It is simply the term used to describe any water that “bypasses” the actual brewing process (i.e. it never comes in contact with your coffee grounds, and is instead added to your final drink). This concept can be applied to hot drinks (i.e. an Americano is a shot of Espresso with “bypass” water), yet it is always applicable to iced drinks (i.e. iced coffee is typically a stronger coffee brew that’s poured over ice). Equating “bypass” with ice when making iced brews is a simple, effective way to remind us that a final dilution will ALWAYS happen (which can be easily forgotten, resulting in uninspiring, weak brews).

So, how do we apply it? Our go-to (when brewing 500 mL or more) is a 50% bypass, which means 50% of the water in the final brew will be ice. In our 500 mL (~16 fluid oz) example, we would use 30 g of coffee (ideally ground slightly finer than you’d regularly grind, so you’ll be able to extract enough soluble solids with a smaller volume of water) and 250 mL of hot water to brew, and pour this brew over 250 g of ice. If brewing a smaller amount (<500 mL), a 40% bypass is recommended, in order to have a sufficient volume of water for the actual extraction. Therefore, for any given final brew (i.e. amount of coffee you want):

Coffee (g) = 6% x Final Brew (mL)

Brew water (hot, mL) = Final Brew (mL) x (100% - % Bypass)

Ice (g) = Final Brew (mL) x % Bypass

We encourage you to play with this bypass concept this Summer! We’ve been doing lots of iced Ethereal and Rio Coco (which will likely run out in the next 2 weeks*), and have been delighted with the results! Perhaps you’ll find just the perfect bypass ratio for each of your favorite beans and favorite methods? We also just began posting specific applications of this concept (Aeropress this week!) on our Instagram and Facebook (find us as @ethosroasters), so we hope you’ll check them out!

Grateful for our 8th Summer… Brewing Greatness with you!

Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. * Yes, this means “El Espejo” will be launching in July! 🙌

☀️ Summer Coffee news + upcoming Summer Series!

Happy May! This will be our last “behind-the-scenes” post for a while, since we’ll again be doing our technical “RE: Summer Series” in June, July, and August this year - which we’re planning to focus on 3 major coffee brewing methods (let us know if there’s a particular one you absolutely don’t want us to miss!).

So, we’d like to share some upcoming changes to our lineup this Summer. We’ll be discontinuing “Rio Coco” (Nicaragua) to make room for a limited-edition, off-the-charts microlot from Colombia… it’ll be called “El Espejo” and it may one of the creamiest, most complex and boldly sweet coffees we’ve ever encountered! It comes from a talented farmer, Marlibia Perdomo, who is a member of ASOPAP in Planadas (yes, the same region as our current “Planadas”!) - her coffee was just so outstanding this year, that they singled it out to submit to local coffee competitions and sell the rest to a small-farmer-championing roaster (lucky us! 😉). You’ll see a “last call” on Rio Coco for the next month or so, and you’ll see the new “El Espejo” launch soon after! (why the need to keep our options limited? we’re in our “slower” summer months, so having too many choices is a bit problematic on the production side… as the more choices we have, the smaller the size of our batches, which makes it challenging to achieve a consistently great roast).

We’ll continue offering Ethereal until September… and “Pacheco” for as long as supplies last (we may have a replacement later in the year if our non-profit partners are able to identify and select another high-scoring microlot from the group of small farmers they’re helping in Honduras right now… it will likely be a beautiful Washed coffee (our current “Pacheco” ended up as an award-winning coffee that was sold to Japanese buyers for record-setting prices this year… we declined the opportunity, as we’re also focused on maintaining our value, and a $40/lb coffee seemed not to offer the value we would want for our Ethos family) - yet we feel so fortunate we were able to be one of the earliest champions of this outstanding farmer who is now inspiring and helping lift others in his community.

We look forward to keep Brewing Greatness with you this Summer, and we and our small team are always grateful for every single chance we get to roast for you,

Jolian & Lisbeth

😎 Hello 2023 Ethereal Summer Blend!

Summer is here, and we’re excited to welcome it with our 2023 edition of Ethereal Summer Blend! - sweet, smooth, refreshing - it’s the perfect blend to enjoy during the hot summer months - both as an energizing cup in the morning, and later in the day as a refreshing iced or cold brew. We’ll re-visit our favorite iced and cold brew recipes and tricks on our “Monday Bit” this Summer (we post new “bits” every Monday on our Instagram @ethosroasters, and you can always watch past “bits” by visiting the Monday Bit highlights in our profile).

This year’s Ethereal features both Poaquil (natural process, Guatemala) and Pacheco (honey process, Honduras) to create a sweet, high-impact coffee blend that's perfect for summer sipping. You’ll get to start your summer days with a perfect balance of modern and classic flavors that will delight you in a wide variety of methods - both hot and cold - all while creating life-changing opportunities for small Central American farmers in the process! We’re really hoping you’ll love it, and that we’ll get to continue to support them by buying more and more coffees from them this year.

Thank you always for making our Ethos possible, and for all the love and support we feel every roasting day when we look at those beautiful long lists with every single one of your orders, ready to be fulfilled…. it is truly a joy and an honor to get to roast for you, and we hope that this Summer is filled with new adventures and new opportunities… we’ll keep roasting the most exquisite, most impactful coffees we can find for you, and hope they get to travel with you in your many adventures! Or, in case you prefer your freshly roasted coffee to travel to you… remember we roast & ship (via 1-3 Day Priority) to ANY address within the USA - three times a week, every single week!

Excited to share the new Ethereal, and always looking forward to roasting for you,

Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. We just got new yellow hats from our last trip to Guatemala… as one more impact-focused offering, and an always favorite summer accessory that keeps harmful UV rays away from your face (we do want you to live longer, healthier lives!)… we hope you’ll check them out, and let us know which other colors you’d like to see in the future! (we’ve also decided to include one as a special gift on all large orders (>10 lbs) this Summer!)

💫 We want to hear from YOU!

As we wrap up our 7 Year Anniversary celebrations in the next few weeks (i.e. share with you our last few kilos of our Madagascar vanilla-infused, barrel aged 2023 Brew Greatness Anniversary Blend and send you a few more Ethos slate coasters on your 3 lb+ orders)… we have begun thinking about new ways we can add value and connect with you - our growing Ethos family!

We’ve enjoyed doing our “Monday Bit” (featuring Matt Schisler - whose passion for roasting coffee for you is only matched by how much he loves and believes in our Ethos - we’re truly so lucky to have him!). We’d love if you could check out past episodes @ethosroasters Instagram, and give us your feedback, and most importantly - send us your ideas and questions for future episodes, as we genuinely want to be relevant, and of value to you (message us on IG or reply to this email!). We realize each “follow” is a privilege to communicate with you, and do not see our social media channels as a way to continuously “push” messages to “buy, buy, buy”, but as a platform to share our story (especially with those who may have never heard of us before), and as a tool that connects us with the most important people in our world - YOU - our Ethos family! As we’ve become busier and busier, I’ve realized my handwritten “thank you” notes to you have gotten shorter and shorter, and I’ve occasionally skipped them on our busiest days, as it’s essentially a choice between being able to ship on-time or writing notes… and shipping ALL of your coffees within hours of roasting will always come first!. Please know our gratitude is always deeply felt, and hopefully expressed in the dedication we give to our roasting, and our commitment to work as hard as required to always ship within hours of roasting.

As I’ve been thinking of other ways to connect with you - and communicate the ideas and inspiration behind our Ethos - I’ve had this idea to create a “Philosophy Bit” on Thursdays… I personally love philosophy (from the greek philo=love, sophia=wisdom), and think of my life as an - always imperfect, always improving - application of the wisdom I’ve read, observed, and experienced in my 40 years in this world. I’d share a single philosophical thought every Thursday morning in our IG/FB story, as I virtually enjoy a cup of Ethos with you, hoping it will be something that inspires you, and perhaps even gives you a new insight, or helps you in any way in your own personal journey (starting in April, if I hear back from at least one of you that this is something you’d like to see?)

So deeply grateful to start this 8th-year chapter with you, and I can’t wait to hear back from you,

Lisbeth

P.S. We’ll be doing free anniversary cookies one last time this Saturday at the Lakeland farmer’s market… and we would love to see you there!

🥳 Celebrating 7 years!!!

We are celebrating our SEVENTH year anniversary this March - and we have many surprises planned for you, Ethos family!

First, get ready for our most unique Brew Greatness Anniversary Blend yet! This year, we’ve built on our first barrel-aged experience, and have aged our honey-processed, high-impact “Pacheco” on white oak barrels (by Lugo’s Craft Distillery), along with real Madagascar vanilla beans (by Lakeland's Vanilla Exotics) for 20 weeks - and used it as the “base” for our Anniversary Blend! We complemented the sweet vanilla notes and creamy body with the chocolate and red fruit notes of Poaquil Natural - our most impactful long-term partnership (of 7 years)! We hope you’ll agree that the result is a full flavor party in a cup! Our first roast is tomorrow, March 1st and it’ll be available online until supplies last.

We have also commissioned a special Anniversary souvenir for you this year! One of our local makers (and Ethos fan) here in Lakeland made us some really cool Ethos slate coasters. We’ll be sending one to all our subscribers this month, and also automatically including one on every single order of 3 lbs or more (of any coffee) - for the whole month of March!

Finally, if you’re in the area and would like to celebrate with us in person, we’d like to invite you to stop by our booth at the Downtown Lakeland Farmer’s Market any Saturday this month! Find us at 200 N Kentucky Ave, every Saturday from 8 am - 2 pm - we’ll have FREE “birthday cookies” with any coffee drink purchase for all Ethos subscribers and long-time customers (i.e. our Ethos family!, please tell us your name or ask for the “birthday cookies” if we don’t immediately recognize you). We’ll have them every Saturday until supplies last… our awesome coffee partners at Honeycomb Bakers are making a fresh batch of cookies for us every Friday during the whole month of March so we can celebrate! (By the way, we’ll also be doing a special coffee cupping event at their bakery cafe in Winter Haven (140 6th St SW, Winter Haven, FL 33880) on Sunday, March 12, at 2:30 pm - we’d love to see you there!)

All these are our imperfect attempts to express the immense gratitude and overwhelming joy of celebrating this 7th year of getting to start our day Brewing Greatness and making an impact with you… it’s been about 3.7 million minutes, and we’re still in love with our Ethos, our Brew Greatness motto, our always freshly roasted coffee, and with this journey! (our only complaint would be… the minutes have gone way too fast!)

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you Ethos family for these amazing first 7 years,

💛

Jolian & Lisbeth

☀️ Hello 2023!

Happy New Year! We hope your 2023 is off to a great start, and that you’ve had (or will soon have) a chance to reflect and set an intention for the year ahead. We are looking forward to continue growing our impact this year, and are ready to begin with an open mind and an open heart for the new partnerships, new coffees, and new opportunities this new year may bring us!

Our first new crop arrival this year is Poaquil Honey (Chimaltenango, Guatemala) - and we can’t think of a better way to start the year than this incredible example of our Ethos. It’s amazing to look back and remember the Co-Op actually did their very first “Honey experiment” five years ago, and produced only about a hundred kilos for us that year. This year, they’re producing thousands of kilos, and is not just the quantity that has grown - their production capabilities and quality consistency have also exponentially grown. Poaquil Honey is now a consistently sweet, creamy, chocolate-forward cup that exists at that perfect intersection of unique yet familiar, and one that is definitely worth trying this 2023!

We look forward to making 2023 one more beautiful chapter of our Ethos: one more year devoted to the continuous pursuit of better, of doing our best every single day, yet always open to discover a better way along the way. Every single day, and every single order - it is an absolute joy and honor to roast for you, our Ethos family! Thank you for beginning this new year… Brewing Greatness in the world with us!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. You may be seeing some different shipping boxes in the next few weeks… USPS will unfortunately soon discontinue the “regional” Priority Mail boxes we had been using all these years… so, we’ll be adapting and using other Priority Mail boxes - keeping your tracking, insurance, and free shipping on $39 and all subscriptions!

💛 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!)

🦃 Grateful for YOU!

Thanksgiving is fast approaching (it’s next week!), and it is once again prompting us to pause and count our many blessings. You are always top of mind (and of heart) every time we do this, as we look back to all the numerous opportunities (in the tens of thousands at this point in our history) you have given us to roast for you and those you love. Our Ethos continues to thrive and slowly grow into the coffee company of our dreams… one where our desire to make an impact continues to change minds, change hearts, and change lives every single day. Today, we want to say THANK YOU for making it all possible, and for the incredible privilege to be in this journey with you… we see our Ethos family as a remarkable collective of individuals with educated minds, kind hearts, and a desire to brew a truly better - not just better tasting - cup of coffee that can create the kind of change we would like to see in the world. This Thanksgiving, we hope that the thought of all the people around the world you’ll likely never meet, but whose lives you have changed through all your coffee orders through the years, brings you immense joy.

We’re celebrating this beautiful season with the return of our limited-edition Red Swan Holiday Blend! We’ve carried on the tradition of selecting 3 High-Impact single-origins representing all major coffee processing methods (washed, honey, natural), to create an intoxicatingly aromatic, well-balanced, strong, sweet cup featuring red fruit notes that nicely contrast with strong earthy, spiced undertones for a memorable experience worth sharing this Holiday season. This Organic blend features Marcala (natural), Pacheco (honey), and Amani (washed) this year, and it truly shines on pour-overs, drip, and french press.

We also want to extend you a warm invitation to come see your roastery and share a cup of Red Swan with us next Wednesday, Nov 23, from 3-5 pm (we’re at 132 Lake Beulah Dr, in downtown Lakeland - if you’d like to pick-up freshly roasted beans that day, just select the roastery pick-up option at checkout and we’ll roast your coffee earlier that morning!). Or, just stop by and enjoy a cup on us! - we would really love to say THANK YOU in person,

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. Holiday samplers, including limited-edition Swan-plers, are also now available, and we’ll keep roasting the rest of the Oak Barrel Aged Poaquil (we’re about half way through the barrel right now), until the barrel is empty. We’ll be adding our special 5-bag and 10-bag sets (our best-value coffee gifting option) on Black Friday.

🔥 Our first Oak Barrel Aged Coffee!

We’re so excited to finally share with you something we’ve been working on behind the scenes since January this year… our first Oak Barrel Aged coffee!

Naturally, we chose our highest impact relationship - Poaquil - for this very first special limited edition! It all began when we met Christian Lugo, of Lugo’s Craft Distillery, late last year. We instantly connected over a shared passion for our craft, for quality, and for creating something that’s truly one-of-a-kind. The moment he showed us a beautiful American Oak barrel, holding their first barrel-aged spiced rum (which was almost ready to be bottled for the Holiday season)… we saw an amazing opportunity to give it a second life as our first barrel-aged (aka. “secondary post-harvest fermentation vessel”) experience! Jolian has been personally rotating the green beans inside barrel every week, and we’ve been sampling and testing different parameters every few weeks. The beans have now completely transformed, and feature a beautiful golden color, a delightful smell (reminiscent of a distillery - yet, no worries - any traces of alcohol from the barrel will be completely evaporated during the first stages of roasting), and most importantly, a very unique, new flavor profile once they’re roasted. We believe we have achieved a memorable, surprisingly sweet and complex cup experience; one that features strong hints of stone fruits and a persistent honey sweetness in the palate.

It will be available online only, and roasted fresh, on order as all our other beans (there’s also some special touches on the packaging, which we hope you’ll love!). Our first official roast will be this Monday, Oct 17th, and we will roast orders every Monday and Friday until the barrel is empty! If you are a subscriber, you can request it as part of your November box, or as an add-on, by logging into your plan at subscriber.ethosroasters.com (using the email associated with your account) anytime before your next shipment; or by replying to this email if you prefer!

We truly can’t wait to hear your thoughts, and we’re already working on some more surprises for our favorite Holiday (Thanksgiving!) next month. Thank you for continuing to make our Ethos possible every day… getting to be in this journey with all of you is the greatest adventure of our lives, and it means the world you have chosen to share it with us,

Jolian & Lisbeth

💌 Happy National Coffee Week!

“National Coffee Day” is celebrated around the world this week (Sept 29th in the US, and we’re celebrating with you in two ways this year. If you’re in the Lakeland area, we’ll be doing a special coffee chat + sampling event at Pressed - register FREE here (so we can plan ahead for samples - extra guests always welcome, of course!).

And, for all those not in the area, we’ll be sending extra generous samples on all your boxes (hoping you can share a cup with a friend this month!), now until our October newsletter. We’ll also be launching our first-ever Oak Barrel Aged coffee beans in October, and we truly can’t wait to share this very special collaboration with you! The barrel was previously used to age rum by Lugo’s Craft Distillery, a family-owned and operated Craft Rum Distillery a few miles from the roastery. We have chosen Poaquil for this first batch - as it is our longest high-impact relationship - and our early taste tests have us beaming with excitement… the cup is wildly different from the “original” beans - markedly sweeter and featuring a kaleidoscope of flavor notes we were not expecting! We need only a few more weeks for perfecting our roast, and for making its packaging a little more special… we should be ready mid-October!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for continuing to make Ethos possible every day… this monthly newsletter launched exactly 5 years ago, and 60 newsletters later… we keep loving this journey, this mission, and treasuring this amazing privilege to be your roaster.

Love to Brew Greatness with you,

💛

Jolian & Lisbeth

💪🏻 RE: New Science on the Health Benefits of Coffee

This Summer, we noticed a few new - very extensive and comprehensive- studies on the benefits of drinking coffee… which seemed perfect for our last technical Summer series article! Below are some summaries and links to the studies, which we hope you’ll enjoy learning about:

In the most recent study published last month in the Annals of Internal Medicine, daily coffee consumption was associated with longer lives on 171,616 people (mean age 55), followed for 9 years. Compared with those who did not drink coffee, daily coffee drinkers (1-5 cups per day) had lower risks for all-cause mortality after adjusting for lifestyle, sociodemographic, and other health factors. Benefits were most pronounced among the group who drank between two and four cups per day, whose risk of early death was 30% less likely than non-coffee drinkers. Interestingly, the positive effects were a lot less pronounced for those who drank coffee with an artificial sweetener, as opposed to real cream or sugar (one teaspoon, on average). Researchers believe other factors may be at play, including higher rates of obesity and hypertension among those using artificial sweeteners (yet recent studies on the effects of artificial sweeteners on gut microbiota suggest it may be best to stick to natural sweeteners, just milk/cream, or our favorite - just black!).

Back in April, three studies presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Session found that drinking coffee - particularly 2-3 cups a day - was associated with a lower risk of heart disease and had a heart-protective effect for both people with and without cardiovascular disease. For the first study, researchers examined data from 382,535 people (mean age 57) without heart disease to see whether coffee drinking played a role in the development of heart disease or stroke during the 10 years of follow up. In general, having two to three cups of coffee a day was associated with the greatest benefit, translating to a 10%-15% lower risk of developing coronary heart disease, heart failure, a heart rhythm problem, or dying. The second study included 34,279 individuals who had cardiovascular disease. Coffee intake at two to three cups a day was also associated with lower odds of dying compared with having no coffee. Importantly, consuming coffee was not associated with a higher risk of heart rhythm problems, including atrial fibrillation (AFib), which is a common concern. In fact, in the 24,111 people who had arrhythmia, drinking coffee was actually associated with a 20% lower risk of death. In a third study, researchers looked at whether there were any differences in the relationship between coffee and cardiovascular disease depending on whether someone drank caffeinated or decaf. They found, once again, two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day to be associated with the lowest risk of arrhythmias, blockages in the heart's arteries, stroke or heart failure. Decaf coffee did not have favorable effects against arrhythmia or heart failure, but did reduce cardiovascular disease. The studies attributed the benefits not only to caffeine, but to the over 100 biologically active compounds in coffee beans that can help reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, boost metabolism, and inhibit the gut's absorption of fat.

We hope this was an interesting read… and it makes us so immensely happy to be able to offer you a delicious cup of coffee that we know will benefit your health in the long run… thank you for starting your day Brewing Greatness with us,

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. The new crop of Poaquil should be finally arriving at the roastery in early September! 🙌 (we’ll announce it on our website and Instagram/Facebook, and we’ll be sending samples in your boxes as soon as it arrives!).

☕️ 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!

❄️ RE: Iced Coffee Essentials

Summer is definitely here, and these warm temperatures are having us experiment with iced versions of all our favorite methods! Did you know you can “ice” virtually any coffee brewing method? Here are our top tips for you:

1. Taste your ice! High-quality, great tasting ice, made from Spring or filtered water is essential for a tasty cold drink. You can very easily - and unknowingly - ruin a perfect brew with ice that has any mineral, metallic, or off-flavors from your freezer.

2. Weigh your ice! Remember it will become “extra” water as it melts, and dilute your drink. Our standard technique is to reduce the amount of water used by half (i.e. 30 g of coffee in 250 mL of water instead of the standard 500 mL you’d normally use). Keep in mind, you normally need at least 250 mL of water for proper extraction, so you may need to double the amount of coffee you use in our brew for a single serving (this way there will be “enough” water to extract properly… otherwise it is very likely you’ll get an under-extracted, weak, probably acidic cup). For example, we normally do 15 g of coffee for every 250 mL in our hot drip and pour-over brews. For our iced brew, we would use 30 g of coffee for the same 250 mL of hot water - which would then be poured into 250 grams of ice, for a resulting 500 mL drink. This method works well for both drip and pour-over methods. Espresso drinks -due to their concentrated brewing nature- are even easier, and natural fit for iced drinks. Simply add ice instead of water to your espresso shot, or half the amount of milk if you don’t normally add any water.

3. Cool immediately & keep cold! It is very important that you ice your drink as soon as you finish brewing (this will keep all those special “fresh brewed” aromas and flavors in your brew) - and if possible, brew your espresso shot or pour-over directly over ice. In our experience, iced brews keep well for 2-3 days if iced immediately after brewing and kept under refrigeration.

Beyond grateful and excited for one more summer, Brewing Greatness with you!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. Your roastery will soon be powered by the sun ☀️! We’re planning to install solar panels this Summer, projected to generate ~110% of our electric needs (the excess will be automatically donated to the City of Lakeland)… we’ll do updates in our IG/FB stories (@ethosroasters) as the project advances!

🇨🇴 Get ready to meet your new favorite Colombian! 💃🏻

Some very special beans just arrived at the roastery! It’s the 2022 crop of our Organic “Planadas” from ASOPAP, a Co-Op we have been supporting since 2019. This year’s crop is everything you would wish for in a Specialty-grade Colombian cup: boldness, sweetness, and intensity! Its intoxicating aroma will invite you to immerse yourself in subtle citrus notes that perfectly complement a light caramel sweetness dance on the palate, and its bold finish will leave a lasting impression. It’s now online, and shipping to subscribers starting tomorrow! It is an extremely versatile cup that’s perfect for summer, as its high soluble solids lend themselves well to a variety of brew methods - from your morning Drip to home Cold Brewing!

We also recently launched our 2022 Ethereal Summer Blend , a refreshing cold brew or iced coffee blend featuring our beloved Poaquil Honey this year! This triple single-origin blend aims to be the perfect balance of classic and modern flavors to cold brew or enjoy as an iced pour-over, an iced coffee, or an adventurous hot brew for your summer mornings. Plus, in an effort to expand on healthy, refreshing drink options for us this Summer, we’ve paired Ethereal’s launch with a new herbal (iced tea) offering, our Sunrise Summer tea! We will continue to send extra samples of this one on all your coffee orders >3 lbs this summer, until supplies last (i.e. we’ve drank it all!).

Our 2022 “RE:” technical summer series begins next month, and if there’s any particular coffee topic or question that you would like us to professionally review for you - we would love to know about it! Thank you for continuing to make our impact possible… we’re facing many sourcing challenges (i.e. opportunities!) this year, yet knowing that we have the support of our amazing Ethos family has allowed us to pay historically high prices for all our coffees this year, while continuing to have a thriving business which we hope will be able to sustain this commitment and this work for many, many years!

Wising you an adventurous, impactful, and refreshing Summer season!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

🎉 "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

🌼 Spring into... a new roast! ☕️

As our 6-year Anniversary celebrations continue for three more weeks, we have been taking a closer look at every single coffee and every single blend, with the goal of continuing to raise the bar on everything we do. Celebrating Ethos’ first six years have made us realize we really want to celebrate the 60th (I don’t know who will be writing this blog/newsletter then, but we do hope they’ll look back kindly on these early chronicles!), and do it as happily and as proudly as we are now celebrating these early years!

It is our deepest desire -and commitment- to add more high-impact coffees as permanent offerings as our volume grows, so we have decided to do all we can to support “Amani” (from D.R. Congo) as a permanent offering, and make it our signature Dark Roast. We have been experimenting with a darker roast profile on this bean for a few months, with the idea of potentially adding a second “dark roast” to our menu… yet, now that supply chain issues have delayed the arrival of “Andes” (our dark roast from Peru), it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make this one our main dark roast and hopefully get to support the Co-Op in D.R. Congo in a bigger, permanent way. We’ll be sending it as a sample this coming week, and can’t wait to hear your thoughts! (no worries, most of our offerings will remain in the light and medium roast profiles… yet we wanted to have a dark roast with the potential to appeal to 4th-wave* coffee lovers!).

And of course, our 2022 Brew Greatness Anniversary Blend will be available for a few more weeks, until April 15th, and we will continue to send a free 8-oz bonus bag on every 5-lb order! We also have a few more surprises in the works… and as always, would love to hear what would you like to see from YOUR Ethos this Summer! (remember our technical Summer Series runs from June-August - we’re planning a historical piece, an “Iced” tutorial, and are still looking for a great topic for our third piece!)

Beyond grateful to begin every day Brewing Greatness with you!

💛 Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. We’re also on our last half-sack of Geisha… and can’t thank you enough for supporting it in such a big way! We will try to get it again next year if the grower decides to separate it again as a super-premium nano-lot.

*We consider ourselves part of the “4th Wave” of coffee - which is a term that has been used to describe both the quality and attitudes of (first-world) consumers towards coffee over time. The first wave was canned/brick, cheap robusta coffee (i.e. Bustelo/Folgers), the second wave was higher-quality arabica coffee (i.e. Starbucks), the third wave was even higher quality, freshness-focused craft coffee with an emphasis on flavor, and the fourth wave -which we’re working to pioneer- is coupling that highest-quality, freshness focus with an equal concern for the impact and quality of life of the people who grew it. MLK famously said “the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice”… thank you for your role bending it!

🥳 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!

🎄Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! 🎉

Today we just wanted to wish you a very merry Christmas from the bottom of our hearts! Thank you for one more year of making our #BrewGreatness dream a reality.

We look forward to an amazing 2022, and we hope this New Year brings you all the opportunities, adventures, and achievements your heart most desires. Roasting for you continues to be our absolute joy, honor, and the most wonderful adventure!

- Jolian & Lisbeth

P.S. Your small Ethos team is planning to take a short break this week - from Tues Dec 28 to Fri Dec 31. We’ll be visiting our families (and our farmers in Guatemala). Our last roast of the year will be this Monday Dec 27, and we would be honored to roast for you if you need some coffee!