Coffee from far away

St Helena Peaberry coffee

St Helena Peaberry coffee

This week I decided to blow the remainder of my web hosting refund on a little treat – a helping of St Helena Peaberry coffee. It had to be small, because given the remoteness of St Helena in the world, the low volume produced, the high demand and the fact there is no airport it makes this particular coffee rather dear. Undeterred, I ordered some anyway…

Cardews of Oxford is an aladdin’s cave of things relating to coffee and tea and stocked some of this unique coffee bean. I can’t really begin to express how excited I felt to receive a well packed, tiny packet of treasure from across the seas. I really like the uniqueness of the blend, and the story and journey it would have had to go from coffee plant to my cup.

I shared the first few cups of St Helena with the coffee club at work – unusually we all agreed it was excellent. Strong, but incredibly well balanced and very drinkable. I don’t do coffee ‘cupping’ but I find the hasbean.co.uk review of the blend fairly accurate! If Wikipedia is to be believed it also seems that Napoleon was a fan of the coffee during his exile.

I’m enjoying a cup of the stuff while I write this. Having relatives who live in Finland – the biggest coffee drinkers in Europe – I love good coffee, and while I wouldn’t normally feel motivated enough to blog about what is in my cup I can’t help but feel a tingle of excitement every time I handle the basic, brown packaging and smell the aromas of far, far away fill my kitchen.

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    Moooooving house

    I am in the process of beginning two small blog series – one on my Drupal journey over the last two years and the other on my current and soon to be aquariums.

    I am however busy with the process of moving house and getting through the busiest time of year at the office. Coupled with removing a load of old content from the site the blog is going to look pretty empty for the next few weeks/months.

    Check back later in the year :)

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      Fish blog

      My girlfriend recently bought me a Fluval Roma 90 litre aquarium. I had grandiose plans to do a better job of it than the office tank, which is quite a lot of hassle due to an odd combination of species and poor planning.

      Initial stock ideas were some kind of shoaling group (probably barbs), a catfish and one or two peaceful cichlids.

      I set up the tank a good week before going to get any livestock – the gravel, although pre-washed, still kicked out a large amount of dust when it went in. My girlfriend and I opted for an Asian theme to the decor – with an oriental bridge, stone Buddha head, soft plants and a miniature Buddha who sits on the bridge observing the room with his jolly face.

      Cloudy tank

      A cloudy tank!

      Once the dust had settled – or rather filtered – what was left was a smart looking tank. Now I had to wait for the tank to begin maturing, I kick started the process with Nutrafin Tankaid, water conditioner, and liquid plant food to get some nutrients into the water and substrate.

      I picked up three golden gouramis to help the tank fully mature. I had to do a 25% water change to bring down an initial ammonia and nitrite spike, but this is expected. In the new year I look forward to gradually adding more livestock to the aquarium to provide a wonderfully entertaining decoration for the living room :)

      Golden Gouramis

      Golden gouramis by the Buddha bridge

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