Weekly Newsletter: Sumatra Mandheling

It’s a bit of a blustery day out there, isn’t it?  If your garden is planted already, you might be thankful for the possibility of rain.  This year we’re following the old adage of waiting to plant until after Memorial Day–but not because of fear of frost: rather because of the particularly busy spring we are having.  This week our intrepid and hard-working manager, Becky, took the kids and finally got a start on the store garden.  You can view a few more pictures on our blog, here.

We may be late to the garden this year, but it will come.  In the meantime, our busy schedule has increased my appreciation of a three day weekend.  Happy Memorial Day!  Actually, the store will be open from 8 am to 4 pm on Monday, but the kids are out of school and I’m looking forward to a day spent together.  How will you celebrate Memorial Day?

This week we are offering our Sumatra Mandheling as the coffee of the week.  This coffee might be too easy to praise, as it is one of my perpetual favorites.  It’s light-roasted, smooth,  and full-bodied with light nutty tones.  You can drink it if you’re greeting the day with the birds, or if you’re winding down with a wedge of dark chocolate in the evening.

In case you haven’t been getting this newsletter for years (and I can use the plural because April marked our two year anniversary of sending out this weekly e-mail), let me explain the geography of Sumatra.  I’m pretty sure that if I wasn’t in the coffee business, I wouldn’t be able to find it on a map.  Sumatra is an Indonesian island that lies to the far west of the archipelago: west of both Celebes and Java, and close to Malaysia.

You can find the abbreviated story of how Knutsen Coffees, our green bean broker, came to import this particular coffee in their April newsletter, here.  Scroll down to the section with the header “Sumatra Mandheling PWN Extra Bold.”  You never know who will walk in your door!