The Season’s Numbers Are Coming In

As feared, the numbers are downright grim. This is our fifth coffee season as Bea’s Knees Farm. Our cherry picked season-to-date is a paltry 21%(!) of what we had in last year’s season through August.

We still have fruit on the trees, but we know there won’t be much to finish the season. You will soon be seeing a big jump in price for our coffee. We will also adjust the shipping charges to reflect the USPS increases that have happened since we last adjusted in February 2020. We simply won’t have much coffee, and the next season won’t be ready until Fall 2023. We will sell out before then.

On the positive side, most trees are still alive, and they look reasonably healthy. I hope rust won’t take hold again and damage the trees. And I hope we won’t have a 2-month dry spell like we did last year. We are at the end of our rainy season, but this month has already had more rain than the four inches we had in August. Our dry season should not be bone dry, though it was in Oct. and Nov. last year. The dry season should just produce less rain than the rainy season. The official rain gauge year starts in October. Last year we had 70″ of rain (Oct. ’20 – Sept. ’21). We aren’t at the end of September yet, but so far we’re at 46″ for this year.

On another note, we were recently on the mainland visiting different sets of friends in different places. Big Joe in Seattle spoiled us. When we arrived there was already a freshly home baked bread made, plus leftovers from a few bread experiments. And while we were there, one day he baked three different sourdough breads: one with some spelt flour, a walnut loaf, and an olive rosemary loaf. Yummo! I think he wanted to experiment, and he needed guinea pigs who eat carbs and gluten. Can’t have all that delicious bread sitting around with insufficient eaters. Plus he could discuss techniques and tricks with Hubby (the bread baker in the family). Bea would have loved to be a guinea pig. She loves bread! We’ll have to create a GoFundMe site to Send Bea to Big Joe. Bea actually has history with Washington state and Seattle, which was before she settled in Southern California.

I shared this statement and link before in a previous post: Artisan bread complements specialty coffee in various ways. This article addresses How are artisan bread and specialty coffee linked?

Big Joe didn’t have a coffee burr grinder, so we gave him one to thank him for hosting us. I think it was the second or third grind, and he poured the beans ONTO the plastic lid (like he and we did on our grinder last year). It was his solution to put a sticker on the lid of our grinder, so we employed the same fix on his. We hope he’ll enjoy many cups of delicious, freshly ground coffee. And thank you to our other friends, including our new ones, who filled our mainland trip with socializing and fun adventures, and thanks to the sitters who kept the household and farm humming along in our absence.