Yesterday when I got home from work, I found a jar of freshly roasted coffee on my porch. We’re three weeks into our Coffeecology delivery service, and I think this might be the best thing ever. EVER!

The coffee is from Coffeecology, a local business that offers fair trade and organic coffee beans delivered by bike right to your home or office.

I’ve seen their cards around town for awhile but I never got around to actually ordering some coffee for myself. But then I stopped by their tent at the farmer’s market in July and took a 12 oz jar of coffee home for my husband to try. He was impressed – really impressed. And that’s pretty impressive.

Now, you have to understand something about my husband – he doesn’t take his coffee lightly. For example, when I make him coffee in the morning, I’ve been instructed to follow these steps:

1. Put fresh water in the kettle – NEVER boil water twice.
2. Put 4 tablespoons of coffee in the first grinder.
3. Grind.
4. Transfer grinds to the second grinder.
5. Grind.

I’m not joking. Two grinders. Neither of them grind the beans evenly enough to satisfy him, but the two grinders together they seem to do the trick. Or maybe he’s just CRAZY.

At this point, I move the grinds to the french press, but heaven help me if I’m caught doing that. I’m supposed to first PRE-HEAT the french press with the boiling water before adding the grinds. So we continue  on with step six.

6. Pour boiling water into the french press to pre-heat.
7. Pour the boiling water from the french press to the mug to pre-heat.
8. Add the grinds to the french press.
9. Fill the french press up about 55% of the way with boiling water.
10. Stir the water and grinds.
11. Brew for 5 minutes.
12. Press.

I generally skip steps 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10, and I usually triple step 11 by accident. Luckily I only make his coffee just as he’s waking up, when he’s far too groggy to be discerning. If I waited any longer in the day to make his drink, he’d ask for a soy latte instead and then we’d have an all-out war on who makes better foam (for the record, I do). Thank goodness neither of us are inclined to try latte art – the ensuing battle of the baristas would tear our marriage apart.

Despite our competitiveness, we often joke about starting our own coffee shop when we retire. We actually met while working at Starbucks (he was my supervisor), and we also worked together at Second Cup. In fact, between the two of us, we’ve worked at 11 different coffee shops and cafes. Just thinking about how many shots of espresso we’ve pulled between the two of us – we’ve earned our coffee snob status.

So when my husband told me that the coffee was great and asked where I got it, I was a bit taken aback. I trust his taste more than anyone else’s. I went straight to the computer and signed up for weekly delivery.

The cost is $12.75 a jar, plus a $1 deposit for the jar.  Of the blends we’ve tried so far, we definitely prefer the dark roasts, and we’ve found that the jar is exactly enough for one week (it’s nice that we can pick some up at the farmer’s market on weekends if we need a bit more).

I love how something as simple as a cup of coffee can represent so much. When we choose this service, we support local businesses. We can also choose from coffees that are organic, fair trade, pro-woman coffee growers, or are butterfly or bird-friendly – lot’s of feel-good choices there. And we’re not paying more than before or going out of our way in the least. How amazing is that?

Want to try some for yourself? Of course you do, it’s awesome.

The lovely people at Coffeecology are going to make their coffee service even more irresistible: If you sign up for a minimum of 3 deliveries (3 jars of coffee delivered at your choice of weekly, biweekly, every 3 or 4 weeks), you’ll get a FREE jar of coffee. To take advantage of this promotion, email info@coffeecology.com once you’ve set up your online account and regularly delivery – they’ll make sure that the 4th jar is free.