Pink Moon

On April 12th we all collectively experienced the full moon which is known as the Pink Moon. Northern Native Americans call April's full moon the pink moon after ground phlox, one of the first spring flowers. At some point in our early coffee roasting days, Brett and I realized that our roasting coincided cyclically with the full moon. We were quite literally roasting under the full moon in Jamesport, with our coffee roaster wheeled out of our barn into the night air to abide by the town’s instruction not to roast in any structure on our property. Our solution was not what the Town intended but, like many entrepreneurs, we figured out how to make it work until we got to our next phase (yes, pun intended here).

I’m happy to report that we’ve been roasting indoors in a commercial space for some time now. Since we no longer roast outside, Brett and I were not paying attention to the full moon on April 12 when we signed our business paperwork that established our company as Full Moon Coffee Roasters, doing business as Jamesport Coffee Company (sans the Sourdough). I am writing here, amazed at the coincidence that I do not think is a coincidence. There’s so much to say about that, it can rest with you and your own interpretation, but I like to think it’s a bit magical.

I’m committing to share a newsletter on the full moon, with the next one around May 12 for the Flower Moon, so named for the abundant blooming when spring is in full swing. At a minimum, when you see an email from us in your inbox, you’ll know it’s a full moon, though we hope these notes provide interesting content and coffee education. We opened a new instagram account @fullmooncoffeeroasters where we will document our next phase of expansion (notice “will” which indicates the account is quite sparse at the moment), and as always, you can stay up to date on our retail presence as Jamesport Coffee at our original account @jamesport_coffee.

Monthly Subscriptions

Did you know that we have monthly coffee subscribers? It’s something that happened organically when repeat customers asked to set up monthly automatic shipments. Until we can make sense of our web provider’s charge for a subscription service, we are hand managing it. The way it works is: we reach out to you each month, you respond with the roast type and number of bags needed, we send you a venmo request and ship your order. The customer experience is flexible and personalized. If you would like to hear from us once a month with a prompt to reorder kindly drop us a line at the link below.

Cupping, Cupping and More Cupping

It seems like the deeper we dive into coffee, the less we know. This is exciting because I am easily bored! We have been fine tuning our processes, with the help of industry professionals, developing new roasting curves and cupping, cupping and cupping our own and everyone else’s coffee that we can get our hands on. Cupping is the process of trying to isolate roasted coffee beans’ flavor and aroma so they can be evaluated completely on their own, without interference from additional variables (brewing techniques, milk, sugar/syrups). After a precise set up of ground beans and hot water, you swish and spit, similar to a wine tasting. Cupping has helped us dial in our roasting processes tremendously compared to just sipping coffee. For our High Tide Espresso, cupped three different roasting methods. My tasting notes are 1) kerosene! 2) bread, earth 3) berries, acid. Needless to say, batch 1 did not make the cut. And we modified our roasting process for batches 2 and 3 to meet in the middle and provide a balanced earthiness to a bright, berry flavor. We encourage the coffee enthusiasts out there to give cupping a try.

Things we’re excited about that have nothing to do with coffee

Tinned fish! So weird right? But not just any tinned fish. Have you all tried Fishwife yet? I must admit, I bought it because the packaging is beautiful. But when I opened that tin…kapow! Their marinades are bursting with flavor and just the right amount of spice. My heart nearly burst out of my chest when my kids couldn’t stop eating Fishwife sardines, then spicy mackerel, then smoked salmon. You get the picture. Before, they wouldn’t get anywhere near tinned fish. We have no affiliation or connection to Fishwife, but if you do, feel free to tell them that we love it ;)

That’s all from us for now! We’ll see you on May 12th for the Flower Moon.

Warmly,

Ana and Brett