Wednesday, February 09, 2005


regional coffee culture, part xxxi

"it seems that if a town has a restaurant, there is a good chance that you will find a group of men and sometimes women having coffee in the morning. here in chatsworth we sure do."

long-time readers know i've written here about the local coffee culture in just about every place from malaysia, korea, japan, china, india, russia, germany, italy, the u.k., canada, etc.

and i love seeing these little articles in tiny hometown papers about the coffee groups that are central to the community in rural towns. remember niagara, north dakota? hartwell, georgia?

where is chatsworth, kansas? it's a town so small it doesn't even appear on google's new map site -- the closest you can get is el dorado, outside of wichita.

but coffee is central to these people's lives, and they will organize their community in any space they can find. it is really inspiring, the power of their coffee culture.

altho' we urbanites tend to think of these towns as dying, they are alive in java spirit. it's this passionate soul that we in the specialty coffee world should honor and foster among ourselves!

long-time readers may recall that i sent the people of niagara several pounds of gillies coffee to brew after i read about them. they were elderly people who lived on social security alone; they could afford only the big cans of the commercial supermaket coffee, and then only on sale.

i wish i could find some large specialty roaster to send the folks of niagara and the "green banana club" of tiny chatsworth, kansas, 2 pounds of coffee every month. . .

and speaking of coffee communities, i'll see you all tonite at the nyc coffee meetup at juan valdez!

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