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Well folks, not only have we survived another holiday season, but a Mayan Apocalypse as well; we'll call that an overall success!

We truly hope you all have had a wonderful holiday full of friends, family, good food and, of course, great coffee.

We couldn't be more thankful for all of our family and friends who support Blanchard's Coffee Co. and all of the awesome businesses and coffee lovers who help people enjoy a great cup of fresh roasted coffee every day. With all of your help, we can proudly announce another record breaking year here at Blanchard's, including over 2,100 pounds roasted in a single day during the week before Christmas! Yes, if you're wondering, that is a ton of coffee--literally.

Its easy to fall into a deep winter slump after all the excitement of the holidays wears off, so we're working on a few things to keep you pumped, in the least, about coffee.

First up, this was a HUGE year for our seasonal Holiday Blend, but even good things must come to an end. Before we wrap up the Holiday Blend for this season, we wanted to offer you the chance to pick up a few more bags at a great sale price as a thank you for all your support. Starting January 1st, for a limited time, you can pick up as many bags of Holiday Blend as you like from our website for $7.00 per bag--as a loyal blog reader, you can get a head start by buying here:

Holiday Blend  12oz Bag

Grind Preference
Regular or Decaf
We're also going to start a Blanchard's Newsletter to which you can subscribe for email alerts about cool happenings at the Roast Lab and beyond. You can subscribe here--we promise, we will not spam you.

We'll be announcing stuff like new blog posts, coffee events, featured coffees, coffee specials and awesome partnerships like the ones we have with the James River Association or Road Holland, so be sure to sign up!
 
 
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Raise your hand if you follow Blanchard's Coffee Co. on Twitter and Facebook.

If you didn't raise your hand you should get on the bandwagon. As much as we try to blog about every cool thing that comes down the pipes, some stuff slips through the cracks--but we rarely miss a beat on social media.

Perfect example: If you were following our Twitter and Facebook feeds Friday evening you probably saw something about a Saturday morning espresso tasting idea. That idea, by the time it was confirmed around 10:00pm Friday night, became known as PopUpEspresso, and if you didn't come out, you missed something pretty special.

For those of you that missed it--here's the story:
I put out a question on Facebook and Twitter around 8:30pm Friday night asking if there was any interest in an espresso tasting Saturday morning--I didn't have anything to do and I needed to be out of my house for a few hours, so I was looking for something interesting to get into.

Enough people expressed interest so I decided to run with it, and at 10:00pm, I announced on Twitter and Facebook that I would hold a PopUpEspresso. What is that you ask? Think of it like a surprise espresso bar. There is no set schedule, no set format--I announced the times and the rules Friday night for the next morning.

This time around, the rules were simple: Come, taste espresso and/or macchiatto, rate it, comment on it, stick around, socialize, ask questions and learn about coffee--if you want to purchase coffee beans, fine, otherwise, leave your money at home. The rules may be completely different next time (and there will be a next time) but they will always be posted ahead of time so you'll know.

This Saturday's event was a great success. We had a bunch of visitors, lots of new faces, and some great feedback on the several espressos we were testing out. Old friends and new friends stuck around, socialized, got highly caffeinated and learned tons of new stuff about coffee and what goes on at Blanchard's on a daily basis.

It is pretty exciting to see how energized an idea can become, even after only a short period of time, so we're already planning the next one! If you want to participate then keep your eyes open for our posts on Facebook and Twitter--it'll be here before you know it!