12 May, 2019: That’s me. I’m drawing Clovers (and a Chickpea Fritter). We’ve hired a design firm to help us with some very specific challenges we’re facing. We never really landed on an “icon” style logo. And we need one badly. For blade signs. Did you ever notice Clover restaurants are sign-less? And for our app. We hired Perky Brothers.… Read More
10 May, 2019: A shout out to Scott who has been doing amazing things at Clover for years now. He’s been promoted to Area Manager, and we couldn’t be happier. If you’re a customer of Clover LMA you probably know Scott. He helped us open that restaurant and has been running it since. Before Clover Scott worked in fine dining… Read More
9 May, 2019: I love posters. When I was a student at MIT we were living in this buzzing new digital world. Early text. Early email. Early everything digital. But the way I learned about new events/ lectures/ or just strange and cool things that were happening around campus was strictly analog: posters hanging in the infinite corridor. When I… Read More
8 May, 2019: Carlos has 3 customers. George Howell. A former employee of George Howell. And Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t blend coffee from Montecarlos. It’s part of a program they have to bring super premium “black apron” coffees to some of their cafes around the world. (Recently it was sold in Tokyo Starbucks for about $30/ lbs. It’s sold out.) Pretty… Read More
7 May, 2019: You’re looking at over 100,000 coffee plants. They will all go in the ground in 2019 at Montecarlos. We stopped by this outdoor plant nursery late in the afternoon. You can see the sun getting ready to set behind the trees in the background. I couldn’t believe the scale of this. Can you imagine? 100,000 plants? Each… Read More
6 May, 2019: This gentleman was manning the weight station. Trucks are used to transport coffee berries from the mountain to the processing facility. When the trucks arrive they drive up to a full truck scale that is weighted. This weight is used to confirm the amount of berries that are being brought to the processing plant. Read More
6 May, 2019: That’s George Howell’s hand with the seeds of one coffee berry. Coffee typically has 2 seeds in each berry. There is a genetic defect called “peaberry” where a single bean grows instead of 2 seeds. You can notice these in a coffee bag because they look more “round” and don’t have a flat size. Sometimes roasters have… Read More
4 May, 2019: Most of the pictures you see of coffee show a red berry. Or green. Green is unripe. Red is ripe. But occasionally a coffee plant has orange berries. These are also ripe. And they are far less common than the red. They grow side by side. And the berries do seem to taste a bit different (not… Read More
3 May, 2019: The first day in El Salvador I asked Carlos Batres, the owner of Montecarlos, about his coffee drinking habits. I’m always curious to learn about how people eat and drink. He told me he fills an insulated pot every morning and then takes 2 hours to drink 6 cups. 6 cups!! His wife confirmed. And she said… Read More
2 May, 2019: Chris and I toyed with the idea of bringing a drone to El Salvador. But in the end we opted not to. I didn’t want to attract too much attention. Wasn’t sure it was a good idea. So the closest thing I have to an aerial shot is this picture of a poster Carlos had in his… Read More