Levi – Week 16

Someone is kinda slacking lately in the picture department…
Sweet little hands. He likes to help hold his bottle a lot. And can hold it on his own if it’s really full. Big boy! :)

 

Surrounded by toys…

Getting ready to leave for work

The many faces of Levi 

Irving Farm Coffee Review

First let me try to explain my lack of order and total randomness in regards to the coffee posts. This is obviously a hobby, I post for fun and when I have time. My goal is to do a number of random post about coffee experiences and build off each one. In addition to those posts I plan on reviewing different coffee roasts. The goal will be to stick mainly with PA coffee roasters. Although my first one is from our neighboring state of NY. End of Intro…now on to the actual review.

A big thank you to Irving Farm for sending me two of their roasts, Gotham Dark Roast and 71 Irving House Blend.

The 71 Irving House is a blended roast of beans from Latin America countries. I could tell by the taste and body right away. This is a lighter roast and it had a hint of sweetness (after I read the tasting notes on the back of the bag it had Chocolate listed). I will admit I am not a huge fan of lighter roast but this was very enjoyable. It was smooth and loaded with favors. Both of the roasts from Irving Farm tasted so much better made in the French press verses our auto-drip. It made the cups much brighter. You have to be careful with lighter roasts as the roaster can not hide mistakes as easy as they could with a darker roast. If you enjoy a medium light roast 71 Irving House is a safe bet!

The Gotham Dark roast was more my “taste”. Again this was a blend from Peru, El Salvador, and Honduras. This was harder hitting than the House BUT it was not the overpowering burnt the beans black taste that can come with some dark roasts. This one had hints of spice and smoke but neither was too heavy. I would recommend this to people who want to try a darker roast but fear they are too strong or bitter. This was neither. I would venture to guess the name “Gotham Dark Roast” scares some people away who would actually enjoy this. Think Bruce Wayne not Batman when sampling this coffee. You can find these and more at  www.irvingfarm.com

Fresh Gotham Dark Roast:

The beans before they went into the burr grinder. The Dark Roast is on the left and if you look carefully you will see the beans are “shiny” compared to the House Blend. This is because the dark roast bought the oil to the outside of the bean:


{Disclaimer}: This coffee was sent to me free in exchange for a review but our thoughts and opinions are my own.


Next up for review coffee from Fat Puppy Coffee.

Intro before the coffee review….Part 1

I am going to attempt in this post to give the background in my coffee journey and hopefully keep it simple and informative. This is a hard subject to write about because to tell someone everything there is to know about coffee one could easily write a book. My goal for this will be to give simple guides to coffee and making coffee at home without dogma or being overly complicated about it.

The major fail many people are guilty of with coffee is they think all coffee is the same. Coffee varies at lot by how it is roasted and what region of the world the beans were grown in. Coffee is like any other food if you buy cheap and overly processed you will lose out on taste and enjoyment (most likely health benefits as well). Here are some popular roasts:
1) Breakfast Roast- this is a light roast with high acidity and no caramel notes.
2) City Roast- this is a little darker than the Breakfast Roast but not enough to loose the acidity but it has more of the caramel notes. This is the most popular roast of specialty coffee.
3) French Roast- this is the most pronounced roasted note. It moves beyond caramel and has spicy notes.
You will notice the darker the roast the shinier the beans are. This is because the longer they are roasted the more their oils will surface and coast the exterior of the bean.

I will post some information on the equipment I use to make coffee in part 2….

Levi – Week 15

Getting behind with the weekly updates(now I’m even farther behind because our internet was out all week!!). I was sitting here thinking I couldn’t even remember how many weeks old Levi was. I do know that he’s going to be 4 months tomorrow(July 29th). Crazy! It feels like he’s been with us forever and not just a few short months… But onto the pictures… Cuteness OVERLOAD!!! He is such a little sweetheart…

He didn’t seem to mind sitting in the grass.

 

Jack in his face was another story…

Staring so thoughtfully at his caterpillar.

Reading

Back to that caterpillar…

Finally figured out how to get those fingers in the mouth.

Our happy boy!

Sleepy walk with Momma

First time in the highchair

Went to get him after a nap and found this little cutie!!