Organic Coffee History

Coffee cultivation began under the shade canopy of existing trees, leaving intact the natural ecosystem of the rainforest and preserving the habitat for the animals and insects that lived in it. Similar to most 'modernization' efforts, coffee growers began to grow coffee in the sun. More sunlight resulted in a faster ripening berry and higher crop yield, but was done at the expense of needed more fertilizer and pesticides to maintain production. Additionally, the berry quality was degraded and flavors changed by making the ripening process is quicker.

Our mission to provide organic and shade grown coffee is for two reasons:

1. to protect the environment from further deforestation and degradation through the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers
2. to create authentic natural coffee that is unalterred in it's cultivation cycle by too much sun exposure, and free from unwanted chemicals.

Chocolate covered shortbread Joe Go's!

Joe Go's go great with our Mexican Viennese Decaf
RECIPE INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. brewed Joe Greengo Mexican Viennese Decaf or regular
3 ounces semisweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 teaspoon canola oil or pure vegetable shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium-sized bowl, mix all the ingredients with your fingers until the dough is smooth and holds together.
2. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch and cut cookies with your favorite cutter, Then place them on a non-stick cookie sheet
3. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges begin to lightly brown.
4. Remove the shortbread from the oven and immediately , then transfer to a wire rack to cool thoroughly.

Melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, on the top of a double boiler, over 1-inch of simmering water, stirring occasionally. Stir in the oil. Dip half or one-third of each cookie into the chocolate mixture. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack to dry, or place them on parchment paper in the freezer for 10 minutes until chocolate is set.

Leftover Girl Scout Cookies?

"All Abouts" and Mexican Viennese Decaf are a fantastic after dinner combination. I have to thank my daughter and her junior girl scout troop for inspiring this combination.

Now, we have to see if we can come up with a recipe for our own Greengo version of chocolate covered shortbread cookies...

Caramel- Latte Scone

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup toffee bits
1 table spoon of Joe Greengo! Guatemala medium coffee grounds
2 eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream

Method:

Cut butter with flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.
Fold in toffee bits and Joe Greengo! Guatemala Medium coffee grounds.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Put bowl in freezer for 30 minutes.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs and cream. Pour into dry ingredients in the chilled bowl. Mix with a fork.
Make two balls on wax paper. Dough will be dry. Pat each ball into a circle 1 inch thick. Score triangles into dough. Do not separate.
Bake on cookie sheet at 400 degrees F (200 C) for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) and bake 10 more minutes.

When scones are cool, caramel sauce over them (recipe follows)

Making your own caramel sauce from scratch is a lot easier than you might think,

Caramel Sauce Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup of sugar
6 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Method
First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go - the cream and the butter next to the pan, ready to put in.

Heat sugar on moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart or 3-quart saucepan. As the sugar begins to melt, stir vigorously with a whisk or wooden spoon. As soon as the sugar comes to a boil, stop stirring. You can swirl the pan a bit if you want, from this point on

As soon as all of the sugar crystals have melted (the liquid sugar should be dark amber in color), immediately add the butter to the pan. Whisk until the butter has melted.

Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat. Count to three, then slowly add the cream to the pan and continue to whisk to incorporate. Note than when you add the butter and the cream, the mixture will foam up considerably. This is why you must use a pan that is at least 2-quarts

Whisk until caramel sauce is smooth. Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes, then pour into a glass mason jar and let sit to cool to room temperature. (Remember to use pot holders when handling the jar filled with hot caramel sauce.) Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Warm before serving.
Makes a little over one cup of sauce.

Flavor pairing of the day

My fascination of the day is our Greengo! Organic Guatemalan coffee with Caramel Toffee Scones...

This one really melts in your mouth.

Flourless Cafe Mocha cake

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup Joe Greengo Organic coffee
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white sugar
18 (1 ounce) squares bittersweet chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
6 eggs




DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease and dust with cocoa powder one 10 inch round cake pan and set aside.
In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the coffee, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
Either in the top half of a double boiler or in a microwave oven melt the bittersweet chocolate. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot coffee. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Have a pan larger than the cake pan ready, put the cake pan in the larger pan and fill the pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
Bake cake in the water bath at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 45 minutes. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan.

To unmold, dip the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 10 seconds and invert onto a serving plate.

Roasting differences

Medium, Viennese, FrenchDid you know that the lighter the color of the bean is, the more caffeine it typically contains. During the roasting process, heat converts the starch in beans to sugar and then carmelizes them into the brown color that is seen. The acids and caffeine also weaken as heat builds, eventually resulting in the production of the oils that give coffee its aroma and flavor.

The net result of all this is that darker beans give you more aroma and flavor, but less acidity and caffeine. Whereas lighter roasts have a brighter flavor, less bitterness, and more caffeine.

Freshness and Biodegradability go hand in hand

Roasted coffee is considered fresh within 3 weeks of roasting it. This can be extended to about 6 weeks if coffee is properly sealed. So our question at Joe Greengo! is, "why has the industry standardized on lined, vacuum sealed, foil bags?"

Coffee is not meant to sit on a shelf for months on end before it is drank by a consumer. No matter what the quality of the seal is, the coffee itself will degrade inside the package. Add to this the fact that foil bags are not biodegradable and then even organic coffees that are packaged this way are leaving a negative impact on the planet.

This is why we use only PLA lined kraft paper bags at Joe Greengo! The PLA liner is biodegradable, yet still allows us to heat seal the packages so that beans do not come in contact with air. However because it is biodegradable, that seal will weaken after 6-8 weeks.

In our opinion, the use of biodegradable packaging not only lessens our impact on the planet, but is also our guarantee to consumers that they are getting the absolute freshest coffee possible.

Greengo! Selects coming soon

We've enjoyed roasting coffee from around the world we thought we would try our hand at some of the world's premier coffees. We ordered our first bags of organic Costa Rican, Kona Fancy, and (what we are looking forward to the most) Yauco Selecto, from Puerto Rico.

Organic Peruvian is in

Organic Peruvian Coffee Beans:Our organic Peruvian coffee is in. It makes a wonderful French Roast. As you can see in the photo, the beans have a sheen from the oil that is extracted from the process which gives a full very bodied flavor good for both coffee and espresso.

Welcome to Joe Greengo!

It has been a lot of hard work, but our dream of an exclusively earth friendly coffee roasting company started selling coffee in December. The word of mouth has been incredible, much more than we could have asked for.

Ray and I are looking for a new space where we can install a new roaster, and the online store will be up and running in another week or so.