Sharing stories about coffee, stories, and stoke
One of the most exciting parts of reacquiring Loam Coffee after three years away has been sharing the journey with you—not just re-engaging with the company but also planning for its growth. Since getting Loam back was unexpected, I feel like I’m playing with house money. There’s no rush. Instead, I’m focused on the long game: building and executing a thoughtful, sustainable plan.
So, what’s the plan?
The Hario gooseneck kettle is my go-to for brewing coffee in Nacho the Van. Since I use camp stoves to heat water for pourovers, it never occurred to me to use anything else. Most often, when I serve coffee, I'm off the grid as there's no electricity besides the small Jackery electric generator I use for my coffee grinder. However, when I had to start using the Hario at home every day, I realized how fantastic of a kettle it is.
So what happened?
Since the beginning, Loam Coffee has been attached to mountain biking and trails. Some of our earliest outings were serving coffee to volunteer trail builders here in the rainy Pacific Northwest. This past weekend, we linked up with a couple of other orgs for a day of free shuttles plus free coffee. The goal? Not only to get out and ride but also to raise funds for a local trail building and stewardship non-profit.
When it came time to replace my hand grinder, I knew I wanted to test drive a higher-end and more expensive one. Would it even make a difference? That’s when I decided to pick up the TIMEMORE Nano. I knew TIMEMORE already created a wide variety of quality coffee serving and brewing products. It was time to make the leap from a $15 grinder to a $120 one. Would I even notice?
It is easy to get boxed in with our own thinking. At times, based on social media algorithms, what we see, hear, and consume can be limited to an echo chamber of familiarity. Therefore, what we experience in the daily rhythms of life becomes normalized and then set into a routine. As a result, it is easy to go through life with something like blinders on, you know, like the ones at times placed on horses to limit their vision so they’re not easily spooked.
But then something happens, and it is as if those blinders are ripped off, our echo chamber is depressurized, and our routine is sabotaged. That's what happened when I explored the coffee scene over the summer in Bangkok ...
How do you normally brew coffee? Do you brew coffee differently at home compared to when you’re on a week-long bikepacking trip or exploring the high desert backroads in your conversion van? By the way, there’s no right or wrong answer here. If you feel stuck, would you like some more ideas and options?
