1. Drink Bee Bold Coffee – Use your coffee dollars to support your local pollinator protectors. We will send 20% of your online purchase of Bee Bold Coffee to the Bee Bold Partner of your choice. This organic, fair trade coffee is a full circle product.
2. Sign the Pollinator Protector Pledge –  Pledge to care for the Earth, your home, and your watershed for pollinator survival. You can protect pollinators by using organic land management at your place of residence, your business and community. Join the Pollinator Pledge.
3. Create a Pollinator Garden – Feeding local pollinators is possible at any size. Doorstep flowerpots, a tree between a sidewalk and the street, a border of herbs and flowers, a full backyard garden, a front lawn replaced by herbs and veggies, or acres of sustainably farmed vegetables. Garden spaces come in every size. Get planting here
4. Sponsor a Pollinator Garden – Support food security in collaboration with the Bee Bold Youth Core. Contact 

We Facilitate

• Pollinator Gardens to feed our communities

• Youth Projects to develop self-responsibility

• Intentional Creativity for visions of hope through art, music, and dance

• Traditional Ecology Knowledge for integrated relationships to all life

We Create

• A circle of regenerative ecology

• Support for continued life on Earth

• Hope for our future generations

We Celebrate

• Each season with heart-centered storytelling, art, dance, and music

• Connection to our natural world for social and systemic change

This is the Bee Bold Alliance, uniting pollinator protectors for the future of our biodiversity and food security for future generations. The Bee Bold Alliance is a project of Thanksgiving Coffee Company, a certified B Corp using business as a force for good.

Project Director ~ Lavender Grace Cinnamon ~ Sustainable Ecology Advocate  info@beeboldalliance.com or www.beeboldalliance.com

National Pollinator Week June 22 – 28TH, 2020

Thanksgiving Coffee Company is an activist company and has been for over 40 years.  We use coffee as a medium for change and a force for good.  We are passionate about Pollinators and the biodiversity they create in the web of life and food on the planet. We are so passionate about preserving Pollinators that we have created a product line to support this work.  Our Bee Bold Coffee generates funds for Bee Centric and Pollinator Protector Non-Profits to maintain the diversity of each bioregion and ultimately food security for all.

Sign the Pollinator Protector Pledge and show your solidarity for future generations.

Download and Sign the pledge 

Email it to Info@beeoldalliance.com

Subject line: Pollinator Protector

or

Simply Copy and Email the following information below to info@beeboldalliance.com:

Name

Date

Acreage

Zip Code

State

County

Watershed –  (Find your Water Shed Here)

 

By signing this pledge you agree to:

Be a steward of the soil and the water of your home residence Only use organic land management to ensure pollinator health To invite neighbors to take the Pollinator Protector Pledge
Are you a Pollinator Protector?

This self-certification is a way to give responsibly to our own place on this Earth. As an individual, you pledge to add the acreage of your home residence to the health of the pollinators by eliminating harmful chemicals and pesticides with the use of organic land management. In this process, you support the watershed that your land is linked to and all the pollinators that rely on this water. Not sure what watershed you are part of, click here. Your pledge will be added to the growing number of Pollinator Protectors from the Bee Bold Alliance.  We will add your acreage and your watersheds to a growing map, to show region by region the impact we have as an Alliance for Pollinator Health.  (The map is in process and will be live shortly.) As a business you can protect the lands you do business on,  or the property of your local school, library or community center.

By focusing on the health of the soil and the water we can provide a safe haven for our pollinators to be, to live, and to grow. Together we can unite the land as a sustainable food source for all pollinators, all people, all races, and all colors.  We honor and give thanks for the bounty of the Earth, and the waters that give us life.

We are looking to collaborate with other businesses and nonprofits to maximize the impact of our Pollinator Survival efforts.

To sign the Pollinator Protector Pledge and learn more about the Bee Bold Alliance please contact Lavender Grace at lavender@thanksgivingcoffee.com or 707 964-0118 ext 107.

We are grateful for your pledge, we are grateful for your collaboration.

Local Pollinator Garden Project

Pollinator Week Garden Project Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Fort Bragg Bee City USA requests the help of community volunteers during Pollinator Week (June 22-28) to clean up the Bee City Garden at Guest House Museum Park. The Garden has not been maintained since February due to COVID 19 Sheltering-In-Place. Please come out and help weed and trim in the Garden on Tuesday, June 23 at 2 pm. We will wear masks and practice physical distancing. We can use up to a dozen volunteers. Please bring your own gloves, and your favorite weeding tool and clippers if you have them. We will have some tools available. In the unlikely event more people than needed appear, we will hope to sign volunteers up for other upcoming garden projects in our community. If you have questions, call 707-494-2149 and leave a message. Your call will be returned.

As I reflect back on the past several weeks in my life, I feel extremely grateful to be back in my office overlooking the Noyo Harbor. Thanksgiving Coffee remains a viable, although much smaller, business on the North Coast. I’m hopeful that it will survive these challenging times and remain an activist company for years to come. My family and I are blessed with a dedicated staff that has followed very strict protocols the last few weeks at our home office. We are a lean crew right now, but everyone remains upbeat and focused on roasting, packaging, and delivering coffee.

I want to communicate my recent experience in Nicaragua as everything started to change rapidly with the advance of Covid-19 throughout the world. I left the United States and arrived in Costa Rica on February 24. I spent two and half weeks on vacation there! Then, I traveled to Nicaragua with the intention to spend two weeks in Nicaragua working remotely for the business before returning home. I arrived a few weeks before the coffee harvest finished and my plan was to visit the farmers and cooperatives that we purchase from with Nicholas Hoskyns, a key ally of Thanksgiving Coffee. He is the Managing Director of Etico, which supplies our green coffees from Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala Nicaragua, and Uganda.

I arrived by bus from Costa Rica on March 11th. My temperature was taken and a basic health screening done. This was the first real indication of change that I experienced as a result of COVID-19. I arrived safely in Leon and Nick picked me up outside the bus station office. The speed at which events unfolded over the next week was mind blowing. The two distinct events for me were the travel ban with Europe and the Costa Rica and Honduras border closings. I realize for most people these closings were not significant, but they made it abundantly clear that this crisis was real and the world was shutting down. As the week progressed more and more flights were canceled and my window for leaving Nicaragua was getting smaller. I purchased a ticket back to San Francisco on March 22nd for Sunday March 29th.

Our plan was to visit several of the farms and cooperatives Thanksgiving Coffee purchases from, but this was becoming increasingly unlikely. Sara Corales, the daughter of Byron, has taken over the sales and marketing of his coffee. She arranged to come meet us at Nick’s house on Sunday March 22nd to cup the Corrales’ family coffees, as they needed to make export arrangements. This was just 8 days after the travel ban from Europe went into effect.

Sara brought all the supplies for the tasting: roasted samples, a kettle, and proper cups. This was our first cupping in the COVID-19 era. We exhibited caution by having our own dedicated cups for each sample. There were no known cases in Leon and four total in all of Nicaragua at that moment in time, so no one in our group was highly concerned. However, we did our best to keep space during the cupping so as to minimize risk. Sara brought the usual array of coffees we purchase, which showcased Byron’s ability to process coffees in a number of different ways: Arabica washed, Arabica natural, Maracaturra washed, Maracaturra natural and an Anerobic coffee (yeast fermentation). The four coffees we typically purchase tasted great – bright, lively, floral, fruity and clean! We anticipate these coffees arriving in June or July depending on when they ship.

Although it was different than our normal procedure for tasting coffees, I found the experience uplifting and enjoyable. Coming together during a time of crisis in community is a blessing. I have known the Corales’ for over 20 years and they are an important part of the Thanksgiving Coffee family! We enjoyed a delicious lunch and conversation outside before Sara parted ways for Managua.

Nick and I were still contemplating a trip to Matagalpa to visit some of the farmers and co-ops on Wednesday and Thursday, but the hotel we usually stay at was closed. This was a sign. Nick made the executive decision for us to stay put and we went to the beach Wednesday afternoon instead! It was a good call for peace of mind, but disappointing to not be visiting the coffee region for the first time in nine trips to Nicaragua since 1999. I am confident that I will have an opportunity to visit the farmers and co-ops again and I feel grateful for a successful journey and to be back in a familiar and safe environment: HOME!

I hope everyone remains safe, healthy and mostly happy during this time of transition. We look forward to being your coffee of choice now and into the future. Thank you so much for your continued support! It means the world to me.

Grinding coffee at home is an excellent way to improve your coffee experience. The fresher your coffee is when you brew it, the better it is going to taste. To help you get the most flavor out of your coffee beans, this post will cover a variety of methods to show how anyone can grind their own coffee at home. But first, let’s cover the…

Grind basics

Regardless of what you are using to pulverize your perfectly roasted beans into grounds, there are a few basic principles to keep in mind:

1. Grind Size

Using the correct particle size in ground coffee is one of the most important steps in coffee brewing. In general, a finer grind will produce a more intense brew and a coarser grind will produce a less intense brew. At the same time, a grind that is too fine will produce an over-extracted, astringent brew, and a grind that is too coarse will produce a weak, under-extracted brew lacking flavor.

Not sure what grind size to use? Here’s a handy guide:

COARSE (looks like Kosher or sea salt)
Cold Brew Coffee, French Press, Percolator, Coffee Cupping

MEDIUM (looks like sand particles)
Pour-over Brewers, Auto-Drip Coffee Machines, Aeropress (with 3+ minute brew time)

FINE (looks a bit finer than granulated sugar)
Espresso, Moka Pot (Stovetop Espresso Maker), Aeropress (with 1 minute brew time)

2. Consistency.

The size of the grounds should be consistent or uniform, meaning you don’t want to see large bits and super tiny bits in your grind. The reason: it is easier for smaller particles to become water soluble than larger ones. If there is a wide variety in the size of the particles in your coffee grinds, there will be a wide variety in the extraction time of your brew. The more consistent your grind size, the easier it is to extract the full flavor from your brewed coffee.

Now that we’ve got the basics covered, the next step is how to get the best grind at home!

How to grind your coffee

The Burr Grinder

Burr grinders are made of two burred plates with ridges that draw in and crush / grind the beans to a uniform size. This is what the pros use, and with good reason. Burr grinders deliver the most consistent grind with the least amount of work on your part. Just fill up the hopper, turn the dial to your desired grind setting, and turn it on. A burr grinder will cost between $60 — $250 depending on what features it comes with.

The Blade Grinder

While not ideal, a blade grinder will do a fine job if you put in a little effort. The first thing to remember is to pulse grind. Don’t grind all the coffee beans needed for your brew at once, instead, grind smaller quantities and pause regularly to shake the grinder. This will loosen all the bits and help you get a more uniform grind.

Take your blade grind to the next level: Got a sieve?

Sift the grounds through your sieve until you are left with just the large pieces. Then grind those large bits again until you are left with just medium and small grinds.

Pro-tip: Use a paper towel to get rid of the ‘fines’

‘Fines’ is coffee lingo for the tiniest powdery particles in ground coffee. Too many fines will leave your coffee tasting bitter and over-extracted. A nifty trick to get rid of them is to dump all of your grinds onto a paper towel and then rub them down into the paper towel with your fingers. A few passes is all it will take. Then gently transfer the grinds onto a plate (or right into your brewer). This will trap the powdery fines on the paper towel, leaving you with the best (most uniform and consistent) grind possible from a blade grinder.

A Regenerative Ecology Network

Right now, bees are dying worldwide at an alarming rate. Why should you care? Because bees and other pollinators are an essential link in the food chain—our food chain.

The Bee Bold Alliance is a movement to help people attract and sustain pollinators in their home gardens, and at their place of work through habitat restoration and creation.

The Bee Bold Alliance blog will share stories that follow both the root causes for the disappearance of the bees and why it is so important to listen to the pollinators. Join us as we explore the diversity and abundance of our Pollinators of the world.

The four areas of focus:

• Culture

  • How Beauty, Art, and Intention Influence our Ecology

• Provisions

  • The Power of Food & Herbal Medicine for Global Health

• Regulation

  • Regenerative Systems for Ecological Solutions

• Support

  • Soil Health, and Traditional Ecology Knowledge of Ancestral People

In these stories we tell how to collaborate with our Bee Bold Partners for the greater good of all. We will look into how we learn from our mistakes and utilize all of the tools available to us to solve the problem of our disappearing pollinators and the huge impact this has on our ecology.

As a Certified B Corp Thanksgiving Coffee Company is prepared to lead the way for Pollinator Protection in our community and beyond.

The Main Objective

The Bee Bold Alliance is about helping people learn how to attract and sustain pollinators in their home gardens & at their place of work through habitat restoration and creation.

However we will not stop there, we are going to look deeper into the root cause of the disappearance of pollinators and discover modern solutions, that perhaps have previously been overlooked.

To find examples of a sustainable relationship with the earth, we will look to a regenerative ecology network that includes Traditional Ecology Knowledge (TEK). Incorporating Indigenous wisdom gathered from around the world by those who develop and maintain a deep and ancestral connection to the land.

Each one of us carries a piece within, it is up to us to find it, and use it for the greater good.

You too, are part of this solution, and I thank you for being here. Your support on this collaborative project is essential. Your participation will allow us to move forward for a bountiful future for all. If you are coffee drinker,  make your coffee our Bee Bold Coffee and support pollinator protection in your local region every morning.

The Beginning

The Bee Bold Alliance came into focus in 2018, just after receiving a loud and clear message that it was “my time” be a steward of this land. Shortly after I received this message, Thanksgiving Coffee Company invited me to relaunch the Bee Bold project.

In revitalizing this campaign, the Bee Bold Alliance for Pollinator Protectors came into being. The more I learn about my role in leading this campaign, the less I truly know. For example, now I understand it is not about being a “steward”, one who watches over the land, but more importantly one who actively gives to the land before one takes. To be full of gratitude for all we are given. To move through each day with honor and respect for the Earth that gives us every little thing.

The Bee Bold Alliance is a way to give to the land your home is on, to the land you do your business is on, and to the community you are part of. The vision is to build native food forest with First Nations People, the seed savers, and to support the health of our new generations. The Bee Bold Alliance is about honoring the original care givers of these lands, and protecting the pollinators who allow us to grow the seeds of real food that nourish us.

As we develop a full spectrum Ecology System, we must include the practices of Cultural Ecology from the wisdom of our elders. How has  community song & dance been part of the creation process for our food systems?  How do we honored the spirit of life through our culture, and how is the sound health for our ecology manifested? This is the focus of work I do as a singing woman and consultant at the Honey Hive of Mendocino.

The Earth is full of abundance, the gifts of life are all around us, all that we need to survive comes from this Great Planet. So how do we learn to live in harmony with the Earth and all its inhabitants. This is what I want to know, and I will take you through this journey of learning, as we travel many roads and look at many different tools that can be utilized in this work.

Here we are at the beginning of an emerging network for mutual support of our pollinator protectors: it will grow as we build it. Our World is as resilient as we make it. Let us find this new form of global coherence with the aid or one another. I hope you will join us on this journey. Become a pollinator protector with the Bee Bold Alliance here.

Upcoming blog – Bee Bold Advisors

This work has been informed by many wonderful advisors and I will share with you the work they do in the upcoming posts.

Lavender Grace is the Sustainable Ecology Advocate for Thanksgiving Coffee Company and Consultant for the Honey Hive of Mendocino

Shade Coffee looks like this: grown under the canopy of indigenous trees. The white barked taller trees are commonly known in Central America as “Inga”. They are great for coffee because they not only provide shade for the trees but also habitat for biodiversity and leaf litter for soil nutrients. Leaves decaying on the forest floor is natural fertilizer. An additional benefit comes from the tree being “leguminous”, meaning its roots deliver nitrogen to the soil, further reducing the need for oil based fertilizers.

This environment is perfect for the cultivation of organic coffee. This site is located in Northern Nicaragua and is typical of the Mesoamerican Rainforest that stretches from Panama thru Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, all the way up to the Yucatan Peninsula. These forests are the home of Black Panthers and the National bird of Guatemala, the famous Quetzal. The trees are full of birds and Howler Monkeys and hundreds of species of orchards. At the higher elevations, coffee trees reflect the quality of this forest in the flavor of their fruit, and finally, in your cup.

When you taste coffee from regions like this, you are experiencing a message from the forest spirits. The expression, “There is magic in this package, only you can let it out” is derived from a walk through this place that I took with my good friend Byron Coralles long ago.

Es·pres·so – /eˈspresˌō/
noun: espresso; plural noun: espressos; noun: expresso; plural noun:
1. strong black coffee made by forcing steam through ground coffee beans.
from Italian (caffè) espresso, literally ‘pressed out (coffee)’.

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The Upsetter Espresso has been named a Good Food Award Winner, and it seems like a great time to talk about espresso roasts and perhaps clarify what that means. So let’s start with the basics:

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What is espresso?

Espresso is coffee of Italian origin, brewed by expressing or forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely-ground coffee beans. Espresso generally has more body than coffee brewed by other methods, has a higher concentration of suspended and dissolved solids which gives it a satiny mouthfeel, and has crema on top, which is a foam with a creamy consistency. As a result of the pressurized brewing process, the flavors and chemicals in a typical cup of espresso are very concentrated. Espresso is also the base for other drinks such as a caffè, latte, cappuccino, caffè macchiato, caffè mocha, flat white, or caffè Americano.

What is an espresso roast?

Espresso is both a coffee beverage and a brewing method. It is not a specific bean, bean blend, or roast level, though it is more finely ground. An espresso roast is simply a way of roasting any green coffee with the intention of it tasting good brewed as espresso. Any bean or roasting level can be used to produce authentic espresso. For example, in Southern Italy, a darker roast is generally preferred. Farther north, the trend moves toward lighter roasts, while outside Italy a wide range is popular.

By lightly roasting a blend of high quality coffee beans from three different countries of origin, our Roastmaster developed a new espresso flavor profile; one with deeper complexities than many darker roasts.

What is the difference between espresso beans and coffee beans?

This is a question that we hear in various forms all the time. Fortunately, our friends over at Earl of Coffee made a fantastic post that covers this question in detail!

Can I use an espresso roast in my home brewer?

The Upsetter Espresso has been named a Good Food Award Winner, and it seems like a great time to talk about espresso roasts and perhaps clarify what that means. So let’s start with the basics:

Most people who love their coffee go to great lengths to get exquisite beans, a capable burr grinder, and an expensive device for brewing.

For some reason, however, they never seem to give the water a second thought. The truth is that water constitutes more than 98 percent of the final drink. Perhaps we ought to see it as the most crucial ingredient in a cup of coffee.

I had been a coffee geek for years before I realized the importance of water. Once I finally understood the role of water in coffee extraction it changed my brewing for good

Water chemistry can get pretty complicated, so this is my attempt to boil the most important aspects down to some actionable advice, so you can also brew better coffee at home.

Water is more than H2O

Water is water. It’s everywhere in our daily life, and we never give it a second thought. Sure, you can get some fancy mineral water in the supermarket, but that’s just marketing. Right? Well, it probably often is, but there’s also some truth to it. Water is a lot more than just H2O when you study it carefully. It usually contains minerals, salts, and some impurities.

Depending on where you are in the world the water composition will be somewhat different. Rainwater percolates into the underground where it will go through layers of limestone and chalk. This process makes the water harder as it picks up minerals on the way.

You probably never thought about it, but it’s not uncommon that a single liter of water contains enough minerals that it equates to the size of a headache pill.

People who live in areas with much calcium in the water, however, already know this since they have to descale their electric kettle and bathroom tiles regularly.

The science

One of the things that has become apparent in the specialty coffee community in recent years is that water isn’t just an ingredient in coffee.

The water – or rather the minerals in it – also acts as an extraction agent that pulls the delicious compounds from the coffee beans and into the cup.

The British barista champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood and chemist Christopher Hendon did a research project a few years ago that shed some light on the process.

It turns out that magnesium and calcium are the two most important minerals when it comes to coffee extraction. Especially, magnesium is vital if you want to be able to taste the fruity and lively flavors of light roasted coffees.

It could be tempting to think that more minerals equate better coffee but that isn’t the case, argued Hendon and Colonna-Dashwood in their research paper. Instead, there is a sweet spot where minerals and a buffer are balanced to create the ideal water.

When their book, ‘Water for Coffee,’ was published it made headlines within the specialty coffee community.

However, beer brewers had been aware of the importance of water for centuries. In fact, that’s the reason why beers from London, Prague, and Brussels historically had their own style.

Test your water

So how do we boil all this science down to some actionable advice? Well, luckily you don’t have to study water chemistry to start making better coffee.

One thing you can do today is to stop using hard water for brewing coffee if you live in an affected area. You should be able to obtain this information from your local water station easily. Otherwise, you can buy a cheap TDS pen online (I recommend the Xiaomi brand) and measure it yourself. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans have hard water in their taps.

To find out if a certain water is right, you can check the label and see what the amount of total dissolved solids (TDS) is. If it’s between 50 and 150, the water will most likely be great.

However, if the water has a TDS score from 0 to 20 – which is typically the case with reverse osmosis water – it will not be ideal for brewing. The flavor compounds of the beans need some minerals to adhere to in order to be extracted properly. The taste will be astringent and somehow artificial.

Soft water is better.

What if you have soft water in the area where you live? Then you’re one of the lucky ones.

You can probably get away with using a filter pitcher such as Brita. If you can find specific cartridges that convert calcium to magnesium, you should go for that.

It may sound like a lot of trouble to go through, but using the right kind of water makes a huge difference when brewing manually. If you’re still unsure whether it’s worth the effort, I’d encourage you to test it at home. Just brew a cup of coffee with tap water and bottled water and taste them next to each other. The difference should be obvious.

If you already care about buying freshly roasted coffee and have the right equipment, this last step will take your cup from good to great.

Unpacking Coffee is a celebration of coffee through episodes that focus on individual coffee roasters and their unique stories. The show’s hosts, Kandace and Ray, share a mutual love for all things coffee and created Unpacking Coffee to make the wide world of the specialty coffee industry more accessible.

In their newest episode, Kandace and Ray unpack Thanksgiving Coffee to find out what it means to be Not Just A Cup, But A Just Cup. They chat with Paul Katzeff about his political activism, and how his background in social work shaped the company that Thanksgiving would become.

“I was the first social worker to become a coffee roaster,” Katzeff told K-Ray. “When you bring two ideas together for the first time — or two professions together for the first time — you’re going to get an explosion of new ideas.”

This episode also features Roast Magazine‘s founder and publisher Connie Blumhardt, who provides some detail on everything that goes into the selection of Roaster of the Year.

“I think the most interesting thing about Thanksgiving winning, to still be a contender ahead of the curve and really stretching the limits of what most roasters do, was really impressive to me that they still have this amazing culture that they’ve adhered to for 30 plus years.”

So kick back with your favorite Just Cup, and enjoy this delightful episode all about Thanksgiving Coffee, made in some kind of Fort in Mendowhatnow California.

059 Thanksgiving Coffee from Needmore Designs on Vimeo.

Check out the Thanksgiving Coffee page, and the longer discussion with Paul Katzeff on the Unpacking Coffee website.