Come on down Friday Feb first to Beautiful smalltown coffee in Kapaa Hawaii to celebrate the teams awesome 2 year anniversary! They are celebrating with free drinks all morning and a plethora of fun stuff and games and killer coffee. GO on down and wish Anni and crew a huge thanks for rocking quality coffee island style and weathering the storms!

Smalltown has been serving up sweet Barefoot Coffee love for two years of tasty bliss.

Rock it girl! we love the Smalltown!

www.smalltowncoffee.com

The annual in store Barista competition happens Monday Jan 28th from 4pm till 10pm or so. The cafe will be closed from 3pm on. ALL are welcome to come and watch and cheer on our hardworking Baristas. As always there will be complimenatary filter coffee all night but of course no espresso drinks.

This competition is the first, most grueling stage in the race to see which two Barefoot Baristas earn a spot on the 2008 competition team. Come on down and watch the magic as each Barista has ten minutes to make four single espressos and four single cappuccinos for four judges. The winner is the Barista with the most polish and poise, the best overall presentation and most importantly the best tasting espresso and cappuccinos.

It’s all about the coffee.

There is a boxy sexy shiny thing lurking around Barefoot these days.

its still a bit shy… but it will be coming out soon.

Bring on the Metal… \m/

Oh gosh we are in for a treat this weekend! Friday brings us a two-hour set by Redwood. Redwood plays large venues for hordes of adoring fans, but tonight they’re playing rootsy original pop just for us. Then, on Saturday, it’s like a one-two-three punch of cute, charming folk musicians as culturegoddess Ester Kang joins our neighbor from the north Finbar Padraic Hagerty-Hammond and local legends-in-the-laying Tin Cat. We’re taking bets on which of them will play the most timeless tune or the quaintest acoustic instrument, so don’t miss the action!

This Friday brings us a tsunami of gentle folk music. Hobbyhorse is a sometimes psychedelic folk duo whose music embodies a deceptive simplicity reminiscent of childhood, the collective subconscious, and the ramblings of lunatics. Listen to their sweet, dusty sound at http://www.hobbyhorsecafe.com. Hobbyhorse is joined by Aoede, an alternative pop rock indie trio who has been compared to both Aimee Mann and Nick Cave.

Then, on Saturday, Barefoot is visited by a cloud of Indie rockers from the North. Tell the Truth returns from Portland, bringing some Sheltered Kids. Rounding out the night is local boy Maxwell Tone.

Last week El Salvador was hit by gusty winds that affected coffee areas with winds hovering over 65 miles an hour and destroying the roofs of more than 5,000 homes in rural areas. Since 76% of the crop had already been picked the damage to total coffee production is estimated to be around 4%. However severe to total damage occurred in focalized high altitude coffee areas around the towns of Juayua, Ataco and Apaneca in the Sonsonate and Ahuachapan departments (west part of the country) and also in Chalatenango.

Regretfully, 2007 COE winners in Chalatenango were badly hit with crop losses above 60%, and foliage damage even worse (foliage loss affects next year’s crop). I sadly witnessed the damage on Mr. Raul Ochoa’s first place winner La Montaña where 90% of the crop was completely knocked down the ground. We appeal to the understanding of those buyers who were interested in the crop coming out of these areas as producers in most cases won’t be able to meet some verbal commitments, and to keep them in their radar for future deals. As you can imagine the morale among these producers is low but they are determined to fight back lead by the hope that their coffees have already gained recognition thanks to the COE.

Regards

Ricardo Espitia
Salvadoran Coffee Council

Eugenia Chien our head roaster will be visiting farms in El Salvador next week January 14-19th as part of the Women in Coffee tour. We will be working hard to support our farmers with strong long term committments. We will keep an update running. Thank you.