Fall is official and our seasonal flavors are full of cinnamon, maple, pumpkin, and other things that are wonderful to cook with. My personal favorite is Pumpkin Chai, a beautiful blend of black, green, and herbal teas flavored with chai spices, caramel, and pumpkin. It smells so good I decided to find a way to eat it.

There are many ways to infuse foods with tea flavor, and I would like to try all of them. At the moment I’m too busy for a recipe that requires more than a few steps, so I decided to give a simple syrup recipe a try, inspired by the title. It is stupidly simple, and the end result is delicious and versatile. Here’s what you do:

1. Brew a cup of strong tea. I used three teaspoons of the Pumpkin Chai in one cup of boiling water and let it steep for about five minutes.
2. Strain the leaves and bring the tea to a boil in a small sauce pot.
3. While the tea is boiling, add a cup of sugar and stir constantly for about two minutes.
   
4. Let the mixture cool completely. Store in a container with a tight lid (a canning jar works great).

At room temperature the syrup will last about a week before it begins to crystallize. Refrigeration will extend the shelf life to about a month, probably longer, but chances are it won’t sit uneaten for that long.

What can you do with tea-infused simple syrup? Bake with it, poach with it, add it to an adult beverage, or drizzle it on whatever you want. I’m already planning a million variations on this theme.

Feeling under-challenged by simple syrup, I decided to keep going and make sundae sauce, adapting this recipe for wet walnuts, my favorite. I brought a half-and-half mixture of the simple syrup and maple syrup to a boil, along with the vanilla extract and pinch of salt. Then I stirred in chopped walnuts and let it cook for a few minutes. That’s all. Warm, on vanilla ice cream, it is mind-blowing. Warm, on pancakes, also mind-blowing. Cold, right out of the jar with a spoon, mind-blowing.

Have you tried cooking with tea? We’d love some recipe suggestions!

There’s something new and exciting happening here at Coffee Bean Direct: a new sister site, greencoffees.com. Perhaps you’ve noticed the new tab at the top of our home-page, or the link on the menu. Or our newsletter announcement and Facebook posts. Or perhaps you’re ignoring all that because what is green coffee anyway? Who is it for? Why would I bother with roasting at home? There are many reasons to give roasting a try and many, very accessible, ways to do it — see our DIY Guide for more on that. But first, we know there’s some confusion out there about green coffee, so let’s clear up a few misperceptions:

Green coffee is unripe coffee

Green can mean a lot of things, but in this context “green” refers to the color of the raw bean before roasting. Unlike a banana, green coffee is not unripe, just uncooked and bursting with potential. Raw coffee is greenish gray, yellow, or brown, and is covered with papery “chaff,” or skin. This burns off during the roasting process, as moisture is lost and sugars caramelize, producing the coffee color we know and love.

Clockwise from top left: Decaf Colombian, Sulawesi Kalossi, Indian Monsooned Malabar, and Sumatra Mandheling.

Green coffee is like green tea, with a delicious flavor all its own

We sell green coffee for roasting, not for consumption as-is. Unroasted beans are hard as a rock. Literally. If you’re familiar with the Moh’s scale of mineral hardness, it’s about a 5, somewhere between Apatite and Feldspar (we did the test, because you asked). Pulverization might be possible, but your home grinder is not up to that task, and neither is ours. Even if you were somehow able to brew it, it would probably taste horrendously bitter. Roasting lowers acidity, releases aromatic compounds responsible for deliciousness, and is an all-around wonderful thing.

Home roasting requires something like this in my basement

Like coffee brewing, coffee roasting equipment ranges from simple to high-tech. Fancy gadgets don’t necessarily produce a better end result — every method has its fans. Coffee beans have been roasted in a skillet, baking sheet, Dutch oven, popcorn popper, on a grill, etc. Heat and agitation are the main requirements. Chances are you already have what you need in your kitchen to give it a try.

Roasting is for coffee snobs

Roasting is for people who like fresh coffee. It’s easy to be a coffee lover without knowing much about what you’re drinking — many blends have names that reveal little about their ingredients (Breakfast Blend, Evening Fantasy, etc.). Home roasting is a great way to start exploring and discovering what you like. Flavor is partly the product of geography, and experimenting with single-origin coffees is a great place to begin. Starting with unroasted coffee allows you to experience how flavor develops as the roast progresses. You’ll gain an understanding of how each variable affects flavor, and how to produce the cup you want.

I don’t drink enough coffee to roast at home

If you can’t accommodate 50-lb burlap sacks in your kitchen, you should know that we also sell green coffee in 1-lb, 5-lb, and 25-lb bags. Unroasted coffee is less expensive per pound than roasted, and it has a shelf life of more than a year, as opposed to roasted coffee which, stored well, loses flavor after a few months. If you have the space for a larger bag, you can take advantage of bulk savings without worrying about your stockpile going to waste. Roast only what you need. Chances are, your home set-up will only be able to accommodate small batches anyway.

Coffee Bean Direct offers an abundance of affordable, fresh-roasted, coffee. The hard work of discovering the best blends and roast levels for each bean has already been done. I can’t improve upon perfection.

Perhaps once you’ve failed miserably at home roasting, you will forever appreciate just how amazing our roasted coffee is. But that’s not our objective. When it comes to roasting and blending, we know that what we offer is just the beginning. Like Liz, who keeps our office tremblingly productive with countless pots of coffee each day, you can get as creative as you want with blends like Yenya Rican (Yemen, Kenya, and Costa Rican) or Papua Guatzil (Papua New Guinea, Guatemalan, and Brazil). Some are hits, some are misses, but our palates are never bored and we’re wide awake.

New to roasting? Send us your questions or success stories!

We’re not afraid to be ourselves at CBD, and that often means being nerds.  Tea guy Anthony is one of our biggest nerds and the blog entry below is proof.  It’s Anthony’s version of the origin of Coffee Bean Direct… told as if CBD was a superhero story.  Think Spiderman or the Avengers, but our super powers are roasting great coffee and our archenemies are high prices instead of super villains.  Like all epic superhero stories it contains a little embellishing – and is just flat out silly at times – but it is actually a great way to learn the history of CBD.

Flashback to 1998: One Andrew Esserman decides he is tired of marketing other people’s companies. He quits it all to start his own gourmet coffee and tea business despite having a wife and kids to provide for (okay, so his family supported him but it sounds more daring this way). Fed up with watching evil coffee villains trick cafes into leasing equipment only to be enslaved, forced to forever buy their overpriced, stale coffee, Esserman sought to change the coffee world for the better. Selling coffee and tea from his basement and renting time on other people’s roasters, Andrew built a business based on the principles of giving everyone a fair price while maintaining quality and freshness. No contracts, no minimums, and no dirty tricks.

Flash forward to 2004: Every Batman needs a Robin and Andrew finds his in Gregg Shefler. Now with his own coffee roaster and warehouse space in Jackson, NJ, Andrew hires young Gregg. Self-described as “THE WORST BEAN PACKER OF ALL TIME,” Gregg was apparently so bad working in the warehouse that Andrew had to find something else for him to do. A true genius at recognizing the potential in even the strangest of individuals, Andrew continued to work with Gregg and together they came up with the idea of selling coffee on the internet.

And Thus Coffee Bean Direct was born. The goal was to keep the same standards of quality and fairness but build a site that made ordering quick and easy, allowing anyone—home drinkers, cafes or large businesses—to buy gourmet coffee at wholesale prices. Andrew and Gregg had to teach themselves how to build a website, market online, charge credit cards electronically, and fulfill online orders. Like all superhero stories, the journey was long and arduous but worth it in the end.

Back to the present, a.k.a., 2012: Now with a not-so-secret secret warehouse in beautiful Hunterdon County, NJ, Andrew and Gregg have assembled a team of over 30 heroes to battle against stale, over-priced coffee and tea. We offer more than 100 varieties of coffee, the vast majority of which are roasted within 24 hours of being shipped out to you. Continuing the pattern of innovation, we have developed products never-before-seen like smoked coffee, maple bacon flavored coffee, and green tea spiked with Mombasa pepper.

Using mostly their gloved hands, superb might, and unrivaled willpower, these heroes are able to fulfill orders big and small—from 1-lb to thousands, from tiny boxes to trucks full of pallets.

We made a mock trailer for CBD The Movie based on this origin story.  Check it out here:

Knowing that someone is a coffee or tea lover doesn’t necessarily make them easy to shop for. Chances are they already have everything they need to brew their favorite beverages at home. However, before you decide to go with a gift card, check out this list of gifts we think any true coffee/tea person would love to receive. You might want to add a few to your own letter to Santa (translation: share it with your friends and family on Facebook).

Ajiri Tea

One of the most exciting new additions to our website, Ajiri Tea, is a robust and flavorful Kenyan black tea, available in bags or loose-leaf, and packaged in boxes with beautiful hand-crafted labels. The sale of Ajiri Tea benefits the Ajiri Foundation, which creates business for small-scale farmers and employment opportunities for Kenyan women. 100% of the profits fund educational expenses for orphans of Western Kenya. Read more about the Ajiri Tea Company and the communities they support on their site, ajiritea.com.

The Ekobrew Filter

Stores have been pushing single-serve brewers hard during the holidays. You may have bought one for a friend or received one yourself, only to discover their hidden cost. Not only do pre-packed cups cost an average of $30 per pound of coffee, but the grounds inside have been allowed to “gas-off” (go stale) prior to packaging so that the sealed cups do not explode. The Ekobrew filter saves the day by allowing you to brew any fresh-roasted coffee you like in most single-serve machines, no pre-packed cups required. It’s easy to clean and at $9.95, a bargain that will save lots of money down the road. You can find more info and a list of compatible brewers here.

Bodum Bean 8-cup French Press

The French Press is the perfect gadget for coffee lovers who enjoy having control over every aspect of brewing—from steeping time to water temperature—to bring out the best in their beans. Simple and elegant, it’s hard to improve upon the original design, but this press has a few fine qualities that make it a standout. Easy to use and dishwasher-safe, the Bean press is well-insulated and completely spill-proof. Perfect for the pre-coffee klutz.

Jasmine Pearls

One of the highest grade teas available at Coffee Bean Direct, Jasmine Pearls make a perfect gift for the tea lover. The pearls are hand-rolled green tea leaves and buds that unfurl upon steeping to release a gorgeous aroma and sweet flavor. Truly a special tea!

Holiday Balls
For some reason this flavor is a tough sell with men. That’s a shame because it’s delicious. Reminiscent of another seasonal favorite, Zombie Cure, it features caramel and popcorn flavors plus a surprise (don’t worry — it’s chocolate). If you’re uncomfortable giving your Holiday Balls order to the friendly and professional women who answer the phone here, feel free to substitute the word “orbs,” or place your order discreetly on our website.

Bodum Tea for One 12-oz Double-Wall Tea Strainer

Tea lovers know that the best stuff doesn’t come in a teabag. But it can be cumbersome to haul steeping gadgets around with you on your travels. Beautiful to look at, Bodum’s Double-Wall Strainer is made of lightweight thermal glass, and includes a removable fine-mesh filter (which can fit inside most mugs). The silicone lid doubles as a coaster, and the whole thing is dishwasher and microwave-safe.

The Kone

Having endured the Jersey leg of “Superstorm Sandy’s” East Coast Tour, my romance with fancy modern gadgets took a hit. Without power, the carafe was the only useful part of my coffee maker, and only because I was lucky enough to have a gas stove and clean drinking water. I used a filter-holder and poured hot water over my grounds, hipster-style, and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed coffee more. The Kone is a well-designed and versatile reusable filter, and makes a delicious pot of pour-over coffee, compatible with just about any coffee pot or carafe.

Hand-Crank Grinder

I never gave any thought to this before Sandy struck. I think it was only day three of the black-out here that I tried to club my coffee beans with a rolling pin (it doesn’t work). An old hand-crank coffee grinder would make a fantastic addition to an emergency kit. Modern technology has certainly improved the grinder (these are a great choice when the lights are on), but a die-hard coffee lover will want one of these stashed next to the D batteries in case of emergency.

Coffee Bean Direct Coffee/Tea Lovers Gift Baskets and Sampler Packs

Between our Sampler Packs and Gift Baskets, we have the perfect gift for every coffee and tea drinker. Our Assorted Coffee Sampler includes a variety of flavors and roast levels—a great gift for two (or more) people with different tastes, or for the person who likes a little variety in their cup. If you’re after something more specific, check out our Gift Baskets. You can choose premium coffee only, decaffeinated or flavored coffees, green, herbal, or traditional black teas.

Bodum Thermal Vacuum 15-oz Travel Mug 

If you’re a Coffee Bean Direct customer, chances are you are no longer able to enjoy the coffee available at that pit stop on your way to work. Until we infiltrate gas stations nationwide, you’ll have to brew a pot at home and take it to go. Since you care about how your coffee tastes, you already know that your drinking vessel matters and a good travel mug is hard to find. This one scores high on heat retention and ease of use. Stainless steel, with a tight fitting, closeable lid, it fits easily in any cup holder and is dishwasher safe.

Angie Anderson, Vice President, Canine Relations 

A little about Angie…

Age: 9

Preferred snacks: red bell peppers and dog cookies.

Favorite past-times: walks, enjoying the great outdoors, fetching anything, vocalizing.

Virtues: loyalty and patience with her little sister Hayley, who likes to use her as a pillow.

Namesake: Angie Harmon, for her brunette beauty.

What she loves about CBD: the fantastic company and the crumbs on the office floor.