Kokekaffe on Gitchi Gummi

"wonder if i can swim out to that rock"

Recently I have been greatly encouraged from the Nordic Coffee Culture.  They have seem to have a culture and rich history of coffee, that really trumps our history here. When people here talk about their first memories with coffee it goes like this "my first memory of coffee is of my parents or grandparents, and the drip coffee maker pumping out the Folgers", our tradition is to drink horrible coffee, drink a lot of it, and drink it cold and old. From the little (and I do mean little) I know of the Nordic culture, there seems to be more of a tradition of coffee that is built around friendships, and they involve coffee into their lives and activities on a more meaningful level. No doubt they do drink a lot though. [if anyone has any good resource of Nordic coffee, send it  my way]

This past weekend was sunny and beautiful for the middle of November, so we loaded up the family and went to the shores of the great Gitchi Gummi (largest fresh water lake in the the whole wide world). We met some friends their, brought some snacks and had a little Fika time. I was inspired do brew some coffee down on the shore and do it up kokekaffe style. This inspiration came from reading this great blog post, which speaks of turkaffe (Norwegian hiking coffee). A Traditional Cup of Coffee

Start with some delicious coffee, I went with Cultivar Coffee from Dallas

Dry drift-wood works great for starting a fire

Boil 1 liter of water over the fire

While water is heating up, grind your coffee or have a friend grind it

Once water comes to boil, let cool a minute then add 65 grams of coffee and let steep for four minutes. 

Some notes

I did make sure to stir the coffee when I first poured it in the pot and did put a lid on it while it was steeping. After four minutes of steeping I scrapped off the foam and grounds from the top, but most of the grounds had settled to the bottom, much like when cupping. I was unsure of this brew method, but besides being romantic it brewed a very very sweet cup of coffee, I was very much pleased and surprised. The Finca Santa Clara of Guatemala had a deep dark sweetness of chocolates and cherries which I did not discover on my V60 when brewed at home.

 Now get some good coffee, call some friends go on an adventure and start a tradition.

Balance

Not to sure what to share, so I thought I would just share some personal thoughts that I have been having about this whole adventure.

First off is "Balance", balance is something we all need to get stuff done, simply put you don't have balance you will not be able to stand up and walk. I'm realizing that I need more balance in how I approach this venture. I tend to function more in the realm of an "idealist" as opposed to a "realist". When I function primarily as a idealist, I get nothing done. Because if its not done just the way I want it, or if I don't have all the resources and people that I think I need, I don't move , I don't make progress. Were has I were to function as a realist, sure I would get things done, but there would be no life to it, no joy, no hopes of dreams coming true.

So this is were I'm at right now. I have a vision of roasting and brewing coffee on a "speciality level" (this term is abused greatly) in a very small small community. There is about 1300 folks in the city limits of Grand Marais and about 4 to 5,000 in Cook County. Is there a demand for this product and service in this area? I do plan on going regional and state wide too...

Well don't worry things are moving forward and we are making progress. Met yesterday with our business mentor from "The Northeast Entrepreneur Fund" and it was a good meeting. We are making head way and still shooting to have this plan done by the end of the year.  The building side of things are moving slower then we would like, but our options are fairly limited up here.