coffee fest chicago 2-23-09

Here are a few items we would have chosen
for our coffeehouse, if we still had it. We would not have
used these items for tea, as we were selling bulk tea and
making it in a french press when asked.
Still, the quality of this product looked good,
especially for on the run customers.

When we were choosing what kind of chocolate
we wanted for our mocha drinks, we were looking
for something dark, creamy, rich and european,
as opposed to either grrr-delli or hersheys, which is
what we were offered as choices. I checked out Mont Blanc
which was fairly new at the time, but then sampled Guittards,
and we stuck with that. I'm afraid, if still open,
we'd use this brand. Delicious, rich and not overly sweet.

When it comes to flavors, sadly in our area, we had
to have a wide variety, and stayed with Torani.
I'm afraid, we'd lose them and go with this brand.
Not only is the variety much broader, which leaves a door
open for more flavors in the Italian Soda dept in the
spring, summer and fall.
What flavors did we try?
A hint of Lavender. Rose. Vanilla.
And a very small amount, went a very long way,
which means of course a better tasting drink
and the product would stretch further since
you'd use less per cup. Very good for all concerned.
And we'd never seen nor heard of this company before.

What follows is a short video of our time in Chicago.
We always start at New Tokyo.
While there we had some Lemongrass tea in
a new product similar to the coffee french press.
These were being sold at the show to stores by 2 companies.
One for $9.99 per, and the other $14.99 per.

We are on the lookout to purchase a couple
once they land in the stores. We were surprised
New Tokyo already had them. They did not have
them on our previous trip.

Intelligentsia is down the street and
next door is a bookstore. Sadly, they have closed and
will no longer be in business. The clerk runs his own
silk screening business and we hope to visit him next time around.

The gentleman at the show at the espresso
machine is from India and we last saw
him at the SCAA show in SF in '99.
He uses a robusta bean, as opposed to an arabica
and gets very nice dark, rich looking crema.
I didn't like the flavor of it myself then,
and was surprised he's still at it.
Although, there are many who are adding
robusta beans to their arabica for
the crema you can get from it.

For those who do not know,
if you click here and look at
Nov 23, you'll see a bit about
our busy-ness venture.

Coffee Fest is not the mother lode for
coffee, the SCAA is. And that one we hope
to visit, perhaps next year. This is small,
whereas the SCAA has players from all
around the world, a lot of coffee people
selling their beans, as opposed to products,
although new products are shown there also.