Saturday started out rainy, but cleared up and became a gorgeous day. It was also my first farmer’s market day. It was exciting and exhausting all at once. I also need to work on my spiel, as I kept forgetting what I was saying.
I had a decent amount of foot traffic, which I loved. I’m pretty passionate about fresh roasted coffee and sharing what I know with everyone. I don’t pretend to know everything, and the industry’s knowledge base is always discovering new things. That being said, I encourage everyone to do their own research, and if you find something that I’m wrong about, please let me know.
On that note, I had around 3-4 people that seemed interested in my whole bean coffee, but didn’t have a coffee grinder. As I’ve stated before, I will eventually offer ground coffee (with some reluctance, as the coffee goes stale faster), but that is because I still want everyone to realize that they can enjoy fresh roasted coffee. It is not just for ‘coffee snobs’.
For those that are thinking of getting a coffee grinder so they can enjoy my fresh roasted coffee (or that of any roaster), the options can be a bit overwhelming. I had my old Kitchen Aid Burr grinder for 12 years (? I lost count of how long I had it) before I broke it in my move last summer. When I went to look for a new one, I almost decided to stick with my manual grinder that I had for when I worked at my old job (yes, I was THAT person). The options were a bit daunting.
I ended up getting an inexpensive one that has all the basic features. I think I spent about $35 on Amazon, with free shipping. There are only two important features you’ll want. The first feature is that you want to be able to adjust your grind size depending on how you brew your coffee. The second is that it is a burr grinder. Burr grinders do not heat up the beans when grinding. Blade grinders do, which then causes some loss of flavor. Luckily the price range goes from about $25 to over $1000, with most falling into the $35-$100 range. The higher end ones offer a lot more electronic feature so you can program it for your morning routine.
My only other input on coffee grinders is to not leave all of your beans in the hopper for the grinder. Having them sit in the hopper allows more oxygen to get to the beans, which causes them to go stale faster. I leave my beans in an airtight container and then put about the amount of beans I need for my coffee into the hopper and then grind them. You’ll have some sitting in the hopper after, but those ones will only sit there for a day or so, which won’t cause a huge difference to your coffee experience. I know it looks pretty to have all those beans in the hopper, but don’t let that convince you to leave them there.