We have 21 different varieties of coffee available for you to enjoy at home. Including two new PT’s Direct Trade Coffee’s from Bolivia. We have the Juan Yujra Micro-lot from Finca Senda Salvaje featuring notes of roasted hazelnuts and brown sugar. The smooth, buttery cup rounds out to a delicate and refreshing sweetness of melon as the coffee cools. The Vicente Baltazar Micro-lot features a creamy body with notes of gentle honey, caramel, and a juicy acidity. The cup rounds out with a delicate jonagold apple sweetness as it cools.
Our current featured brew is also roasted by PT’s Coffee and is from the Tarrazu region of Costa Rica. La Candelilla Estate consists of 9 small coffee producers working together to produce their harvest. The pickers at La Candelilla Estate take special care to ensure they only harvest cherries at 100% ripeness. The cherries are brought back to be pulped, washed and processed. The coffee is then set out on drying patios to be sun dried, until the proper moisture content has been reached in the drying process. This coffee has a very nice aroma, hinting at caramel, chocolate and almonds. The cup has a mild acidity and a well balanced body with notes of caramel, gentle cedar and a soft melon sweetness.
We have five coffees from Copper Canyon Coffee Roasters in Springfield, Mo available for you to take home. Our current Copper Canyon selection includes the Sumatra Black Satin, Costa Rica, Matagalpa, Rwanda, and the Swiss Water Processed Sumatra Decaf. All of these coffees are Fair Trade Certified and Organic.
At Dancing Mule we enjoy offering a wide selection of retail coffee. We are happy to talk coffee and help you select the right one for you. We can also offer suggestions on getting the most out of your coffee brewing experience at home. We can always order any of the coffee available from PT’s or Copper Canyon for you if we don’t have your favorite.
Many businesses claim they are serving specialty coffee. Specialty coffee is often defined as the top 10 percent of coffee available in the world. Let’s talk numbers.
The J.M. Smucker Company bought the Folgers brand in 2008. It has been a very successful acquisition for the company. Smuckers gross revenue in 2010 was $4.6 billion. Folgers is the number 1 store brand of coffee in the United States. The Folgers brand accounted for approximately 40 percent of Smucker’s sales in 2010 or about $1.8 billion. The Folgers brand family also includes Millstone and a 25-year agreement to provide coffee for Dunkin’ Donuts. Dunkin’ Donuts sales were $276 million of the total, making Dunkin’ donuts the number 2 “specialty” store brand behind Starbucks.
Speaking of Big Green (Starbucks), it has around 11,000 stores in the United States and 17,009 stores worldwide. Starbucks sales were $10.71 billion in 2010. Starbucks bought 269,000,000 pounds of coffee in 2010.
McDonald’s by comparison has 32,000 stores worldwide, 13,700 stores in the United States and $24 billion in sales. McDonald’s sells coffee in addition to burgers – about 500 million cups per year.
Why have we thrown all these numbers at you? The coffee that Dancing Mule serves, roasted by PT’s Coffee, is not available in enough quantity to provide the big boys (J.M. Smuckers, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, McDonalds) with coffee for a day. PT’s sold approximately 205,000 pounds in 2009, and PT’s primarily buys coffee from small farms in small lots. One of their recent micro-lots from Hawaii was 210 pounds and sold out in two weeks.
PT’s develops direct trade relationships with coffee farmer’s that benefit the farmer by giving them a better price for their hard work and benefit PT’s by allowing them to source the top 1 percent of coffee available in the world. For more information about PT’s Direct Trade policies you can go here: http://www.ptscoffee.com/education/direct_trade_coffee.php.
For more information and a longer discussion of the definition of specialty coffee check out this article http://www.scaa.org/?page=RicArtp1 by Ric Rhinehart the Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America titled “What is Specialty Coffee?”
Having the best coffee available is only a starting point to providing truly special coffee. The coffee must be prepared and served correctly. The fact that there is only one Dancing Mule is a huge advantage over large coffee chains in regards to serving quality coffee.
We don’t have to make our coffee taste the same in 17,009 stores! We are a locally owned family business with daily management and involvement by the owner’s of the business. To sum it all up, Dancing Mule is Stubborn About Great Coffee.
Dancing Mule Coffee is hosting an Espresso Class on Saturday, June 18 from 1 to 2 pm. We will have two home espresso machines available and present an introduction to espresso preparation. This class will be limited to five people so sign up early at Dancing Mule.
Dancing Mule Coffee is changing our espresso to PT Coffee’s new Southpaw Blend. We have used the Gizmo Blend since opening day, so this is not a change we take lightly. Southpaw is more subtle and smoother in a milk drink than Gizmo and way more interesting as a straight shot with layers of flavor. It is well balanced, achieving a complex and sweet flavor profile and has enough body to punch through a latte. Southpaw has a sparkling tangerine acidity, juicy cherry sweetness, all grounded with rich milk chocolate and cocoa notes. The texture is syrupy and dense, lending itself well to combining with milk, creating a malty milk chocolate flavor.
We are excited to share this new espresso with you, and we think you will be pleased with the change.
Our current featured brew is Finca Cerro Paldo Costa Rica from PT’s Coffee. Finca Cerra Paldo has a beautiful depth with the aroma of brown sugar and chocolate. In the cup, it is sweet with notes of buttery caramel and milk chocolate. Its finish is clean and mellow. Costa Rica Finca Cerro Paldo received a 95 point rating from Coffee Review in 2009.
Finca Cerro Paldo is located just 45 minutes south of San Jose in the popular coffee growing region of Tarrazu. The farm is located at 5,570 feet above sea level, an altitude at which the sun’s rays boost the bean’s density and make this an incredibly sweet coffee. Juan Rafael Monge, a second generation coffee farmer, owns Finca Cerro Paldo. His father Adam Monge Castro bought two hectares of land more than 60 years ago and began their legacy of producing great coffee. Currently 10 people live on the farm and are devoted to producing some of the finest coffee in Costa Rica.
Come enjoy a cup today!
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tweet, text, and use Facebook, MySpace, cell phone, smoke signal, telegram: FREE DRINKS at Dancing Mule Coffee on Friday, October 16. To celebrate our Grand Opening, we are giving away one drink per person from 6 am to 10 pm.
Yes, we are crazy, and Stubborn About Great Coffee.
Dancing Mule Coffee will be providing coffee for the Step Out Walk to Fight Diabetes this Saturday, October 3rd.
The event start/finish is at the CoxHealth Wheeler Heart and Vascular Center. Registration begins at 8:30 am with a 10:00 am start for the 3 mile walk. Join us for Springfield’s largest walking event to help find a cure for type 1 and type 2 diabetes! The only Local diabetes walk that funds programs in Southwest Missouri such as Camp Earthworks, Family Resource Network, and much more… Register online and get more information at diabetes.org/stepout.
Johnny Cash, pancakes, and coffee are a great way to ease into Sunday morning. Join us this Sunday morning, October 4th, at Dancing Mule Coffee from 7:00 – 10:00 am for $5 all you can eat pancakes. The proceeds from the pancakes will be donated to the MS Society. You can, of course, make an extra donation above the $5 if you want (especially if you’re going to eat a ton of cakes). Dress in black to take a little darkness on your back and remove it from the world.
9/09/2009. A significant day in history. Dancing Mule Coffee Company is now open and a single digit repeating date will not occur again until 2/01/2101. We suggest you celebrate this special day by making your inaugural visit to Dancing Mule Coffee Company. After all, life is short and it is significantly improved by a great cup of coffee.
The Mule is almost ready to Dance. The legal hurdles of permits and licenses have been cleared. We have been diligently training this past week.
The POS system is programmed.
The espresso machine is hot, ready, and waiting.
The procedures and recipes have been tested and revised.
All that is left is a shelf or two, hang the seed to cup photos, and finish cleaning and organizing. We are close enough to call our shot and opening day is Wednesday 9/9/09 at 6:00 am.
Please help us celebrate and come by on Wednesday for your first cup at the Dancing Mule.
