Thursday, June 21, 2012

Merging our blogs, getting our act together!

As you may know, we have been a bit offline for the past few months.  Why?  We have been scurrying to get our new store opened in downtown Oakland.  We did finally get open in early April, now attending to blogs, tweets, etc.  Both Jake, our roaster's blog, and the overall Bittersweet Blog will happen here, from now on.  Here is a post from Jake just after we moved in:


Hello All,

As you know we have been running for a few weeks now. Last time I left out news of the roaster thinking that I would dedicate an entire entry to our IR-7 and its travels.  
Our little roaster has been a trouper.  Coming out of the move with no scrapes, scratches or other damage. It started right up and took on its responsibilities of roasting tasty coffees from around the world for you.  
With the new location comes new ways of doing things. The roaster is tucked into a space near the back door.  This makes for good airflow and keeps me from being cooked.  Along with this I have a variable speed exhaust fan that adds a layer of fine tuning that I did not have at the old location.  I was adverse to the fan in the beginning but quickly came around.  The more ways to tweak things is better.  While the fan adds another aspect to keep an eye on, every layer of fine tuning that you add gives you more control over what the coffee is doing and what you are trying to achieve.  


At the new space I have much less square footage than we had at the warehouse. I have had to grow up and not out.  Sharing space in the kitchen has been challenging but the system seems to be working well.  



I like keeping the active coffee close at hand without much of the mess that comes with having bags on pallets.  Of course I have to go down to the vault and refill these white Brutes.  This method makes inventory a little more difficult manage and I have to keep a close eye on things, but overall works very well. 

Till next time. 

-Jake