Aldo Coffee Company

The Mailbag

We've been asked a bunch of questions lately that we think a lot of you (ok, maybe a half dozen of you) have been thinking about yourselves, so we're going to post and answer a few.

1. What's up with this new 5pm closing time?

It could've been a 4pm closing. At least on weekends.  The new call center across the street keeps us busy till about 4:30 on weekdays. After that it's tumbleweeds.  And the call center isn't open Saturday or Sunday. So think of it as we're open on weekends an hour longer than we probably should be.

From a business perspective, we've traded the highly unprofitable 5pm-6pm slot for four extremely profitable hours at the Farmers@Firehouse market on Saturday mornings.  If you were in our shoes, you'd have wondered what took us so long to pull that trigger.

Mayo Clinic: Coffee Is Good for You.

And when the Mayo Clinic says so, that's more than good enough for us.  Should be for you, too.

Btw, on the part about pregnant women limiting intake to 200 mg of caffeine daily, that's either one venti cup of drip brew or about FOUR shots of espresso (good espresso that is, made with high-grown arabica, has around 50 mg of caffeine per ounce).  So you can pace yourself and stop by a couple of times each day for a delicious shot for you and your baby-to-be.

And that yellow teeth thing... they make toothpaste for that.

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3...

The past week is one we'd like to put behind us.  With luck we'll have our Linea back tonight with not only new tubing, but a complete cleaning.  The old "barista code" (a good barista can master any machine, any grinder...) has really been put to the test with the loaner espresso machine we've had.  Not to mention it's ugly as all get out and an ergonomic nightmare.

 We've managed OK with espresso, but if your latte designs in your cup haven't been as nice as with the Linea... well, there are limits as to what we can do with this steam pressure and these wands (let's just pretend we're in Italy for this week, ok?)

Meantime, we had some things in the works that we've continued to work on, and they're coming regardless of whether the Linea is back from the shop.

Stumptown/La Verdad in Thursday, Intelligentsia in Friday

Quick note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, Intelligentsia was closed Monday, so our order is pushed back one day and will be arriving on Friday, not Thursday this week.  Stumptown was working so their coffee will be in Thursday as usual.  And we'll have more La Verdad in stock, possibly even tomorrow.

Later this week we'll be debuting a new Aldo Coffee decaf espresso blend that's fooled even 'regular' espresso drinkers.  It's only partially made with relationship coffee at this point, but the blend of Sumatra and Costa Rican coffees is extremely creamy with chocolate and nutty notes and a persistent sweet crema.