We’re opening our warehouse/shop doors slightly earlier for the month of January, to make your journey to work a bit better. Get a coffee, or a tea, or something else to take to work with you. It’ll make the walk to the tube station that little bit more bearable.
New year, new products. Awesome.
If you’re reading this, chances are you like coffee. We do. We like coffee a lot. Except for in the mornings at around 6am, when the first cup of the day seems a long way off. Then, it messes with our minds a little bit – what we need is a short shot of espresso to get us going. But the espresso machine takes aaages to heat up, and, quite frankly, ages is just too long to wait.
So a clever american person designed an equally clever little gadget that gives you an espresso in mere seconds. Yes, seconds! The Aerobie Aeropress is almost single handedly responsible for our early morning enthusiasm for life. Flick on the kettle, and once its boiled it’s a matter of 30 seconds before you have an espresso coffee in your hands. Granted, it’s not got the crema we expect from an espresso machine, but we’ll forgo that for speed and ease of use. The coffee itself is just as delicious, and it’s not all about looks….
The best news is that you can have one too. And for a limited time, we’re selling them for a special bargain price. It’s January after all, and most of us will be nursing a hangover until at least mid February.
Part three of our top tips for home brewing is the much loved French Press, or cafetiere, or plunger. Most households have one, but there are some easy steps to take to make the very best of your brew.
Here’s the second installment of our brew guides. We’re focusing on the much loved Aeropress this week.
It’s something we’ve been working on for a while now – we often get asked what the best way of brewing coffee is. The answer is always the same – there is no perfect way, everyone enjoys their coffee slightly differently to someone else. What’s perfect for Weanie isn’t perfect for Scott. But she does tell him off when he makes silly mistakes….!
Here’s the first a series of brew guides that we’ll be publishing, which shares some best practices for making coffee using various brew methods. (It’s called V.1, as we still need to animate it, but it’s too exciting not to share!)
Let us know if you find this useful & stay tuned for other guides coming up!
Week one focuses on the stove top pot, or moka pot, or italian percolator.
Fa-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la. For some of us, that means spending Christmas with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a straw in the other. For others, it’s a time to get together with our loved ones, play charades, pull crackers and go for walks in the crisp air. I am hoping for a bit of both this year. Christmas is one of just two days where we all have a proper day off. A real one. Where your phone doesn’t beep every 5 mins when it receives an email, and the phone doesn’t ring unless it’s a relative calling to wish you happiness.
A few years ago, I had to work on Christmas Day. I was working for a(nother) tea and coffee company, and it was my job to check that all the sale items had discounted properly in the shop till systems. I had to call the only store that was open, in Heathrow airport, and ask them to scan products into the till. It was a rubbish way to start the day, but I suppose someone has to do it. To be fair, it could have been worse, I could have actually been working in the store….
Anyway, the good news is that nowadays we have the internet. And that is the most convenient way to buy anything at all. Or so says Mary Portas in her report today…. We, however, wish to make it EVEN easier for you to shop and get your perfect Christmas presents. Use the code “COLLECT” at the checkout and you won’t have to pay for postage & packing. We’ll have your order waiting for you at one of our weekend markets (Saturday 17th at Barnes, Sunday 18th at Chiswick, Friday 23rd at Chiswick or Saturday 24th at Barnes) Simply make sure you write in the comments box which market you want to pick up from. It’s a stroke of genius, we know.
To help you and give you some inspiration, we’ve made a little list of our most favourite products below.
Under £5.00
Mulled Wine Spice Bouquets and Mulled Cider Parcels. It’s much easier than making it yourself, and 100%* of people surveyed said it’s much tastier than buying that ready made stuff in the supermarkets. (*100% of our friends)
Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans are the ultimate after dinner treat. It’s the little added wake-up boost you’ll need after the wine and the cheese and the port. You’d never miss the Queen’s Speech/Yearly game of Risk/Opening presents because you’ve fallen asleep after eating these. Plus they are super delicious too. We have 3 different types of chocolate covered coffee beans to choose from.
Under £10.00
Chilli Hot Chocolate is the ultimate in awesome warming chocolate type loveliness. It’ll warm you up right down to your toes and feel like you’ve got your own little fire in your belly. (not in a heartburn way though. In a good way)
We have a beautiful range of coffees available at the moment. They are so limited in stocks, that we’ve kept them just for our online customers. With some as special as producing just 300 bags a year, there’s something for everyone who loves their coffee. Our range of single origin coffees will be growing into next year as well, so keep checking back to see the changing range. Or…. better yet, buy your favourite person a coffee subscription and tell them to make sure they make you a cup each time a new coffee arrives!
Enjoy!
Weanie xx
It’s starting to get cold. We had such a glorious weekend, but lots of people were telling me that it’s going to snow next week! SNOW?? We’ve had one weekend of summer and now we’re going into the dead of winter. GUTTED.
We’re finding ingenious ways to make the stockroom nice and warm all winter long – I’m all for having a chimenea outside, but I fear open flames would be frowned upon – so I think it’ll have to be regular old heating inside….
The good news is that our winter stocks of Chilli Hot Chocolate have arrived, and the jars are even prettier than they’ve ever been – we’re dead proud of our packaging designer. And for those of you that already have the jars at home, we’ve heard your calls and we’re delighted to let you know that you can now buy refill packs. (*which makes the shipping costs cheaper too*)
You’ll find us at the stockroom all this week, 10 – 5pm. If you come along on Monday, you’ll get to meet our newest barista – Ben, who’s coming in for some espresso training, and if you’re here friday afternoon, you’ll meet our second newest barista – Sophia, who’s also coming in for some training. Happy days.
Weanie x
We like partnerships. Being a small business can sometimes be a bit lonely. You find that packing orders is sometimes a one (wo)man job, and delivering those parcels is definitely a single person task.
But we have a two seater sofa (three if you don’t mind being cosy) in the shop, and 3 seats in the van. So sometimes, we like to have company so we can share good news with.
This week, we’re very happy that we’ve had a lot of company on the sofa in the shop, and we’ve (metaphorically) now got company in our delivery van; We’ve teamed up with Gourmet Origins to sell our lovely products all over Europe! (that’s a mighty big place…
So if you’re in Finland and you’ve been desperate to get hold of our chilli hot chocolate, or in Lithuania wanting some super coffee beans, you can now have it delivered right to your doorstep.
Exciting times.
Hey folks,
We had a great weekend working with our friends over at Climpsons at Harvest festival this weekend, there were a few panicked moments when we had to use all our machine fixing skills to tweak the machines and grinders that were there – things always go wrong at the wrong time. And it doesn’t help when you get a phone call telling you that your machine is playing up as well – remote machine fixing skills – we should hire out our servicing skills. *ahem*
Moving swiftly on….. as we took Esmerelda to Harvest with us (she’s our big beast of a machine) we are awaiting her return, which will be on Monday evening. This means that we won’t be open on Monday at the stockroom, but we will be for the rest of the week – AND to make it an even better week for all, we’re offering you all free cake. If we’re completely honest, it’s a bribe though. If you come to the stockroom this week, we’ll have a laptop available for you to use for the sole purpose of voting for us in the Smarta 100 http://www.smarta.com/smarta10
Opening hours:
Tues – Fri: 10 – 5pm
Cake flavours will be vanilla and citrus, with chocolate or vanilla frosting. Yum.
See you soon,
Weanie xxx
Tea, glorious tea!
Did we mention we sell tea? We have a range of tea as awesome as our range of coffee. Seriously.
If your new year’s resolution was to detox, then we can definitely help you out there. Green tea is full of fabulous anti-oxidants, and a great big mug of the stuff will have you ready and raring to face the day in no time.
One loyal customer tells us that she switched her builders onto our Himalayan Jade green tea, and now whenever they come in they want a cup of that and are snubbing the usual “builder’s tea”. Ha!
Anyway, 2012 will see our range of teas growing to include a much wider range, including some lovely assam and ceylon, and more herbal teas like mint & chamomile. But that’s for later.
For now…. we can highly recommend the himalayan jade, which is an incredibly refreshing green tea – our tasting notes for this simply say “WOW” I reckon that speaks volumes. And the rebaked baxian, which is an aged oolong tea. Oolong means semi fermented, so not quite a black tea, but definitely not a green tea. It’s bursting with flavour, and just like a good wine, will only improve with age.
Friend & loyal customer to Weanie Beans, Julia, tells us that our teas are lovely, but we should be charging more – a pack of the Nepalese White tea lasts her 12 months, and she drinks a LOT of tea. No need to panic though! Prices won’t be going up – we like a bargain.
Enjoy your tea drinking. Have a scone and some clotted cream with that cuppa! nomnomnom.