June is a month full of the promise of summer fun and we’re a little sad to see it go. About a third of our staff has a birthday in June which made for a cake fueled roller coaster of a good time and a professional atmosphere like the one pictured below.

Our annual kickball game divided us into two blood thirsty, trophy-eyed groups. Mouthy underdog team “Cat Attack’s” brave but ineffectual fight against “Unicorn Slaughterhouse” made for an exciting viewing experience. Of course as always, the real show was in the office rivalry.

 The winners, above.

The losers. They’re cure though.

June also marks our 10th anniversary in business, a cause for celebration! Nomad pizza’s wood-fired brick oven on wheels brought the party to us and a Friday afternoon parking lot party put to rest any lingering kickball rancor (for the most part). We’re ready to move on as a team united (next year, Cat Attack).

June’s been great, and we’re ready for more summer. Next month brings exciting new iced coffee flavors and we will continue to offer our popular Anniversary Blend. Tea drinkers, check out our iced tea sampler and watch for new samplers soon on Tattle Tea!

June is a beautiful month, especially the June I fantasize about in February, which does not include hay fever. That is a surprise every year. This June is extra-special because it marks our tenth anniversary. Ten years of roasting, blending, and creating some of the most unique flavors out there! We’re celebrating with cake, and not the ten year old frozen kind. Some of our featured flavors in June:

Strawberry Shortcake

Red Velvet Cake

If you’re a tea drinker too, celebrate the warm weather with a pitcher of Blueberry Lemon Cake iced tea (it’s great hot too).

Blueberry Lemon Cake Rooibos

Usually our customers fall into one of two categories: flavored coffee lovers and flavored coffee haters.  Lucky for you, we try to have something truly special each month for our customers in both camps. For you flavor haters (aka coffee purists,) our brand new anniversary blend is a mix of some of our all-time favorite coffees, or if you’re looking to try something new, give our smoked coffees a try. Smoked the old fashioned way, it is truly in a class of its own. In addition to our original smoked coffee blend, we’re also offering a new, slightly more mellow blend, Cafe Fume.

Although we’re thrilled that purists love the subtle smoke flavor, we also know that our flavor lovers might need something extra to keep their taste buds interested.  For these wild men and women, we’ve made Campfire S’more smoked coffee, Vanilla Bourbon Smoked Coffee, and flavor favorite Maple Bacon smoked coffee.

A decade of playing with coffee and flavor has produced some weird and delicious cult favorites (Jamaican Me Groggy, Zombie Cure, etc). Because we now have over four hundred flavors and we can’t stop experimenting, we regularly change what we offer on our site. Never fear. We can make just about any of your favorite flavors or blends for you year-round. Just call and ask!

In celebration of our April birthdays, staff member and culinary wizard Lori generously baked this gorgeous hummingbird cake which we devoured in a typical five minutes flat. A spring-y twist on carrot cake, hummingbird cake substitutes crushed pineapple for shredded carrot. It is fabulous with coffee or tea. The dried pineapple flowers ore optional, but impressive as heck and really pretty easy (tutorial here).

Recipe:

• 3 Cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups (about 3 large) mashed ripe banana
• 1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 cup chopped pecans (more for decorating, if desired)
• 1 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
• Dried pineapple flowers, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9-by-2-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of pans with parchment paper. Butter the paper and dust pans with flour, tapping out any excess; set pans aside. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.

Place butter, vanilla, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to combine after each addition. Continue beating until mixture is fluffy and pale yellow.

In a medium bowl, stir together banana, pineapple, nuts, and coconut. Add to egg mixture, stir until well combined. Add flour mixture; blend well.

Divide mixture between prepared pans. Bake until golden brown, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking.

Transfer pans to a baking rack to cool. Let pans cool 15 minutes before unmolding. Loosen sides with a small metal spatula or a paring knife, and invert onto greased wire racks. To prevent layers form splitting, invert again, so tops are up. Cool completely before assembling cake or wrapping airtight to freeze cake for later.

Using a serrated knife, trim the top of one layer (it is okay if the second layer is a bit rounded, for it becomes the top of the cake).

To assemble, place trimmed layer on serving platter. Spread the top with a 1/4-inch layer of frosting. Top with the untrimmed top layer. Lightly coat the assembled cake with a thin layer of frosting to protect against crumbs in the frosting. Finish with remaining frosting. Decorate with chopped pecans if desired and dried pineapple flowers, if desired. Serve immediately, or keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Source: Martha Stewart Living, June 2003

Many of us at Coffee Bean Direct are foodies and pretty talented cooks — if you ask any of us we’d be happy to tell you just how talented. That’s why potlucks turn into cook-offs which turn into marathons of indigestion. Today’s chili cook-off is an especially happy occasion since Sandy put last year’s event on hold indefinitely and we all had to suffer through the storm bloat-free. The chili was delicious, of course.

Also noteworthy was the collection crockpots, some museum-worthy.

The winning chili belonged to this beauty.

The talent behind the winning dish is chef John, was kind enough to share his recipe using our Dark Sulawesi coffee. Here’s the quick and dirty version:

Cook 2lbs of chopped onions in bacon fat over low heat until translucent, remove from heat.

Brown 2lbs of meat (the winning batch was a ground pork and bison mix) and deglaze the pan with 1/2 pot of brewed Dark Sulawesi Kalossi.

Throw everything in a crock pot, add 2lbs of Anasazi beans (soaked overnight), 4 pints of dark beer, chili powder, molasses, salt, and sliced Szechuan chili peppers (feel free to get creative with the quantities).

Cook on high 4-6 hours.

First and foremost, our thoughts are with everyone who was impacted by Hurricane Sandy. As a New Jersey based company, those affected by the storm are quite literally our friends and neighbors. Together, we will all get through this. If you want to help, we encourage you to donate to appropriate charities to assist those who need the most help.

The entire staff at Coffee Bean Direct would like to thank our customers and fans for their understanding and support during the past week.  We are all safe and some of us even have electricity again!  Since we have been closed all week, we are getting anxious and can’t wait to get back to work filling orders.

Speaking of which, as of November 2nd, our warehouse is still awaiting restoration of power.  Fortunately, the building itself is undamaged, and our coffee & tea supplies have stayed perfectly safe and dry.  That means that the moment the power comes back on, we will be working overtime to get all outstanding orders roasted and shipped ASAP.  We have the best assortment of employees in our company history, so there is no doubt things will be back on track in no time.  We have not been given a timeline as to when power will be restored, but it is looking like we could be up and running as soon as today or over the weekend.

In the meantime, we ask you to please continue to be patient with us as we get through this.  You can keep in touch with us via our Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as our official blog.  We will continue to post updates as time goes on, and you can bet we will announce when we are back to roasting!

Sincerely,

Coffee Bean Direct Staff