Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour Chapter 2 · Saturday November 21, 2009 by colin newell
Pushing around a rake over coffee parchment to find my soul.
I reorganize and re-balance.
In coffee we are looking for the right amount of moisture in the bean.
In life we are looking for the right balance of love and fear.
Enough love to say Hey and enough fear to say Fool…
Yes. You do get it both ways.
The ying and yang of our existence is just about balance.
A balance that we never actually achieve but spend a lifetime walking the fine line
for.
Tropical Colors Warm Winds Tour 2009 · Tuesday November 10, 2009 by colin newell
Hello from Kona, Hawaii. Breaking my silence now.
Have spent a few days on light duty observation of Kona Coffee Fest – and what a wonderful, rural event it is indeed.
Sat with Joachim Oster of Blue Horse Kona (and my dear Wife Andrea) over coffee at the Keahou Outrigger waterside bar and talking about life, death, coffee, birth, the farmers life, the science of coffee and everything in between.
Photo above: I am loading 80 pound bags of Kona cherry into the pulper at Blue Horse Kona
This is why I am here. To get some of those pressing questions answered.
To hang the soul out to dry and to heal.
To let the rays of the tropical Sun trickle charge largely discharged batteries.
To move forward by sitting perfectly still.
This will become a regular home for upwards of a month a year.
I would suggest this kind of down time for anyone. It is amazing. And subtle. And gentle.
It is Hawaii.
Comment [2]
Fall colors changing seasons changing lives · Thursday October 22, 2009 by colin newell
On Monday evening, of this week, I was perusing a technical journal I wrote for in in the mid-seventies and was working on a bit of a tribute to the solidarity, brotherhood and sisterhood of the group of technical professionals – how it has changed my life and engendered and fostered lasting friendships.
And then around 8 PM my phone rang and I was summoned to a local hospital to be with a dear family member who succumbed to a long and exhausting illness.
In the end, she went quickly and peacefully – something all of us could
only wish for and hopefully achieve in our own personal journey through life.
What is kind of ironic were my thoughts leading up to that evening
on something as simple as a subscription to a hand-printed newsletter
from the seventies and how, by chance, I requested a free sample so
many years ago – that so many lasting friendships have been cast and hewn
by the fires of time and have resisted every challenge – including
death.
As word traveled throughout the evening it became quite apparent that my network of friends were way closer that I thought – They quickly formed a physical and spiritual circle around my wife and I – taking our hands in a time of need.
My thanks go out to this immediate circle of folks whose love and devotion I never entirely understood – now it is crystal clear.
And to my regular readers I offer a heart felt thanks – for those correspondents, reliable as gravity, have understood, that over the last 90 days or so, things have been somewhat difficult here.
Chapters are written and then closed – we now move on to the next phase of our life – Fall to Winter and then beyond.
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Fall 2009 coffee drinking - what's on today? · Wednesday October 14, 2009 by colin newell
Today: A surprise bag of Cafe de Altura – La Quinta MAry – 100% Organic… and no, you are not going to find this on any Cup of Excellence hot list or specialty coffee auction block. This is very good, freshly roasted Mexican coffee from the holiday heartland of Puerto Vallarta.
A colleague visited the historic town of San Sebastian while he was on vacation – and while there stopped at Café de Altura, which is at the town’s entrance; a coffee plantation run by Rafael Sánchez Alvarado, where you can purchase delicious coffee and mocha blends.
And I agree, it is delicious. It is not often I get hand delivered beans from someone’s Mexican vacation. Thanks Gerry!
Later this morning I will be brewing up some Karatina Kenyan AA from the Nyeri Region (with thanks to Transcend Coffee)
