Sharing a Coffee Nationwide.

Now I have been at this coffee gig for all of 2 months now and like the caffeine in my cup, concentrated and very invigorating, this business has kept me up nights. Once the coffee beans were chosen and the packaging designed, the website running and the processes settled, just how do you get on with the business of selling coffee?

Turns out there are online forums, trade shows, discussion boards, competitions (some just for patterns on the top of lattes), newsletters, meeting groups and tastings, or "cuppings", paying homage to the sacred bean. Then there are the auctions for the most expensive beans, only at choice times through the season to fight over prized varieties. A sponge for information about the passion of the moment, I love this stuff. Pity my poor husband Matthew, who has to listen to my trivia over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Fortunately, others of my craft love to gab about this information as well, and not long after I became a maven of mocha (apologies) I hooked up with some mentors who were generous with their knowledge. I greased them up with my Kona and Jamaican Blue and fortunately it was good enough to keep them talking. Mark Prince, moderator and coffee genius of www.coffeegeek.com is an incredible chat, as is Colin Newell of www.coffeecrew.com. Nick Usborne, the Coffee Detective is another site that has offered advice. Had I not been in business for myself before, I do not think I would have had the guts to just call on these guys and ask them to review my coffees and for information, just like that.

One of the first guys I ever had the pleasure of speaking with had to be Barrett Jones. His company, 49th Parallel Coffee out in BC has to be a model of how to do this business right. The web site, the branding and the products, and seeing him on TV... the guy has it going on.