Now that we are back in Vancouver, the blogs have suffered – but no fear, I have been learning and researching even here.
Last week, I took a trip out to “ethical bean” in east vancouver to find out about larger bags of coffee. I arrived close to 5pm, and spoke to the sales manager who happened to be bringing his dirty dishes into the cafe. I explained that I was sort of “looking for a year’s worth of coffee” whereupon he managed to convince me in a logical fashion that it’s not such a great idea – the coffee will only stay fresh for 3 months in those vac pacs anyway, so I should order 4 times a year if I absolutely *must* have ethical bean (or other not available in nunavut beans).
Then I explained my concern about many used foil nitrogen valvey bags to dispose of which is when he showed me their BAG RETURN BIN!
Ethical bean will take back your used coffee bags. You pop it in the mail and they have a warehouse of them piling up, with “the designer guys” working on ideas for re-use. They have also done their “due diligence” with compostable coffee bags, and found that the coffee didn’t taste as good from those bags, so they decided not to go with them. By the way, you can also send them coffee bags from other brands!
Plus, put your name and email on the bag and you are entered into a draw for … more coffee.
So… that’s what is going on with ethical bean. They solved my coffee bag waste issue! sweet! Oh.. and one more thing, the guy at their coffee shop suggested the OBVIOUS brilliant solution to keeping extra beans out of air and light… I was telling him about the plastic vaccuum-seal top containers I had been looking at online – he said I should just use old wine bottles and the same vaccu-vin lids. aha! waste-free and fresh. just what i was looking for.
My leftover decaf is now living in the vaccum-sealed bottle of "bombshell blonde" ale from Mission Springs microbrewery. fresh!
