Spring is ripe and tender

Winter is in fact over and new beginnings are never ending.

Hello and Happy Beltane / May Day

Are you feeling the breath pulsating through the buds of spring? New blossoms and near blossoms are coming through, and the landscape is lush where we’re located. Spring has really sprung and we’re loving its sweet scent! The blooms of spring are an unshakeable truth that we can rely on to give us hope and lead us down shiny new pathways. A beautiful juxtaposition from the unsteadiness of political theater, greed, war, and genocide spinning around the world.

Staying grounded, nurturing healthy relationships, and releasing what doesn’t serve seems to be the balm of our era. Not to get all spiritual in a coffee blog post, but I don’t think its possible to overstate how intertwined and connected we all are and how believing in this truth is paramount to knowing that small changes can create lasting impacts of which inspire meaningful, positive shifts. It’s a beautiful fact of life that demands recognition. This ego trip of our age is depressing to chew on, no? There is no right way to move through the onslaught of protections and rights being taken away but I hope you’re finding ways. I urge us all to find, lean into, and be with community. One of my ways of figuring out and moving through life is clearly through language. Ha!

Lastly, and before diving into the exciting business side of things.

Amy Putney Koenig has a weekly free/donation restorative, slow and stretchy Relax & Reset Yoga class at Black Box Movement (1221 Center Street Suite 8) every Wednesday from 7-8pm in Des Moines. It’s a refreshing addition to the week and helps build the muscle of letting go, moving forward, and finding intention. Highly recommend this class. Gorgeous flyer by Amy herself, who is a local legend!

We’re putting together an art exhibition calendar

We took the winter to mull over and entertain a new concept to our coffeeshop in the side room, which would have made our rotating gallery more secondary and on the back burner. We’re thankful for deliberately finding the stillness to see that whole idea through on all angles. Through our thoughtful approach, we found clarity and decisiveness. YAY!

We are doubling down on the concept of operating as a rotating art gallery. We had our second art show in our gallery space in the back of the shop over the month of April. This experience was super affirming and brought us back to our initial intention for that space. We are inspired to build out an exhibitions calendar for the rest of the year. We have two more shows that we are currently planning for and another two probables in the pipeline. We are so excited for the local and regional artists that we will be bringing in to share their work with our community!

We are new producers at the Iowa Food Cooperative

We’ve been so excited about becoming producers at the Iowa Food Cooperative here in Des Moines over the spring! We offer our coffee for online sales there, and have a small amount of 12oz bags available for purchase in their retail store as well. Think of this coop like an online farmers market. Learn more on their website here.

Photo is from our lil booth at their open house event in March. Being a part of this co-op makes is so convenient and a great way to support local farmers and producers. So great for meal planning, too! The produce, eggs, and meat offerings are all just outstanding, and there is so much variety to their selections generally. They have a plant sale coming up tomorrow Friday May 2 (2-6) Saturday May 3 (10-2) that is open to nonmembers and members alike. Definitely pop by and check it out if you can!

Bulking out our bulk coffee offerings

With the exception of our alien moon espresso blend, we now are offering all of our roasts to be ordered in bulk 5 lb amounts. Our little bag prices have seen a sharp incline on the shelf at our grocery partners (you have probably noticed this if you live in Iowa City) and we want to help make all our coffee roasts more easily attainable for our customers. This also helps us out on the financial side of things, so it’s really a win-win! So for bulk in mail, bulk pick up at our shop in dsm, and bulk monthly pick up in Iowa City—5lb bulk now includes Mind Changer and Cool Beans!

If you feel comfortable, help us get the word out about our monthly local pick up in Iowa City at Trumpet Blossom Cafe by letting your coworker/friends/family/neighbor know about it.
The next bulk monthly pick up date in Iowa City is May 20 from 4:30-5:30.

5lb pricing:

Hive Jive, Storm Cat and Rip Van Winkle are $60

Decaf is $70

Mind Changer is $75

Cool Beans is $85

Photo from a couple weeks ago at our first monthly bulk pick-up in Iowa City taken by our newest production worker, Brooke.

Origin shifts

Mind Changer has shifted its origin a couple times these past few months, from Honduras fair trade organic to Bolivia fair trade organic. Next week we’ll start roasting up an organic Costa Rican origin, its certification of which meets the environmental gold standard for coffee production: The Smithsonian Bird Friendly Certification! Fully washed and dried in the sun as well as via mechanical dryers. With notes of lemon/lime, pear, golden raisin, and dark chocolate. We can’t remember the last time we got a bag of coffee from Costa Rico, but it’s been at least 5 years! As always, this offering will be roasted to around 420 degrees, a medium-light roast.

Rip Van Winkle has shifted its origin as well. Currently our dark roast coffee is sourced in a western Sunda Island of western Indonesia, Sumatra. Notes of cake dough, pipe tobacco, and chocolate! This one has a more bold flavor profile than we typically offer for our dark roast and will be a real treat especially fans of dark roast. The wet-hulled process—or “giling basah” in the local Bahasa language—results in a robust cup. Giling basah necessitates fermentation in order to speed up the drying process of coffee harvested in this humid, rainy climate. This coffee requires much attention to detail and we’re so glad that the certification of it meets the fair trade organic standards of ethics and sustainability, supporting the hardworking farmers while keeping the environment in mind. This offering is roasted just after the second crack to near 450 degrees.

I think that’s all for now. We hope to see you at our shop sometime soon :) We have some delicious new drinks that use strawberry syrup that you might be wise to try.

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We’re located at 3605 Douglas Avenue in Des Moines and are open 8am-2pm Tuesday-Saturday.

Thank you as always for your support.

Peace and calm,

Cristin