Gift Certificates - Not sure what to get? Let them decide. Available at the counter.

Coffee Program - If you want to get someone a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly coffee delivery, go on the website and sign up. We can work out any details like coffee preferences, start date, gift card, etc.

Mug - What could be better than unwrapping a pound of coffee and the official DoubleShot Coffee mug on Christmas morning?

Hoodie - You probably haven't seen it (maybe because you're not that cool), but the new DoubleShot Stealth Hoodie is the baddest thing on the streets. (You haven't heard the word "baddest" in a long time, have you?)

Wristbands - I found out that these are essential when practicing Parkour. Cool too.

Presspot or Pourover - You may not want to spend $282 for that new Technivorm brewer, but there are other great (and inexpensive) ways to make coffee.

Stickers, Buttons, and Tattoos - What great stocking stuffers we have.

Belt Buckle - It's what you got around your gut that matters.

Coffee, of course.

And remember, the DoubleShot won't be responsible for free Christmas wrapping because we're not Earth-haters like you...

Happy Holidays!

Jason and I are back from South America. Our trip was fun, eventful, and successful. It's rare that I can say that about anything I do. So if you can, come hear about our time in this remarkable country.

Our own Isaiah Sheese won the local barista competition, which was held at Topeca Coffee downtown on Saturday, December 6.  He competed after working by himself all day at the store, and then had to come back and clean up shop.  All part of his daily routine.  

Some of the best, most interesting coffees we've ever roasted here at the DoubleShot have been from Ethiopia. The coffees we're about to roast are going to be a pair that you'll be talking about for years to come. I'm not kidding.

I just bought one bag of each of two different micro-lots of coffee from different areas in the Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia. One is called Aricha micro-lot 10 and the other is Beloya micro-lot 12. They are both outstanding coffees.

We've never received coffee in this form. The beans were sourced by a man named Joseph Brodsky through the exporter (and miller) Abdullah Bagersh. Instead of putting the coffees on a shipping container on a boat and floating the coffee across the ocean (as is the usual practice), Brodsky had the coffees airfreighted to Denver. In Denver, he repackaged the coffees from jute bags into vacuum-sealed plastic bags. This keeps the coffee fresher before roasting. The result of all this is that you'll get to taste the freshest coffee you've ever had- almost directly from the mill to my roaster to your cup. And you'll notice the difference.

The two coffees are dry-processed coffees, so they have a sweet, fruity character. The methods that the Bagersh family uses to dry the cherries is far more advanced than other places around the world where dry-processing is being used. One big improvement comes from drying the cherries on raised beds so that the cherries get better air-flow, dry more evenly, and are far less prone to rotting or molding. Therefore much cleaner tastes reach your cup with a lot less off-taste. To give you an example, Bagersh is responsible for the Misty Valley Idido we have right now. If you enjoy the quality that has gone into that coffee, you'll love the Aricha and Beloya.

Here's the deal with the new coffees. I'm not going to roast them and let them sit around. These are our high-end coffees for the year. We will be selling the two coffees in 12-ounce quart metal cans for $31 each. You can sign up to purchase as many cans as you want and when we have enough orders, we'll roast and package them and you can come pick them up (right away!). The posters (see above) are on the walls at the DoubleShot, and you can start signing up to buy them, but we won't start roasting until the week of December 15th.

These are coffees that I know you're going to love and talk about for a long time to come. It's something you'll want to share with friends and family at the holidays. Because once they're gone, they're gone.

Amy Ferraris' film The Perfect Cappuccino is playing this sunday (11/9) at 1030a at the Dallas Video Festival.