year of coffee
Hello Delamere,
A year of coffee...lucky recipient.
You will probably get a ton of responses for this post. I am from New York and was recently out in Seattle for the Coffee Fest trade show.
The Northwest is very up on and competitive about coffee roasts. Although we were there to launch our new music product, I made some connections with many roasters to consider using in our upcoming coffee gift baskets. I tried all their coffees.
The top of my list is probably Silvercup Coffee out of Seattle. Seattle Gourmet is another and you might find him through this forum and the last is Ravens Brew Coffee. While finding a quality roast seems to be subjective at times, I think the novelty and appeal of Seattle area coffee would be a real treat for whoever receives this gift.
If talking to the roasters by phone, ask for Jackie at Ravens Brew, Laurey at Silvercup and I believe Rick at Seattle Gourmet.
Now if you're on the West coast, and the appeal is for an eastern roaster, there are two who I would highly recommend. Gabe at MonkeyJoes in Kingston NY is a fave for L.A. people and BlueStone Coffee in Montclair NJ are of excellent choice.
I am sure any one of these would be great choices for you and able to work out a one year deal. Making certain or course that it is delivered fresh each month.
Depending on how you want to arrange the gifting, it might be cool to send a coffee from each of these places over the course of a year. If you see a "topher" listing on one of these forum pages, check in with him too. He is a roaster with bocajava out of Jacksonville Florida I believe.
I have not ever tried his coffee, but he certainly seems to know his stuff!
Good luck.