Coffee Bootcamp: Just keep swimming- I mean roasting!

We are trying our very hardest to retain all the information that is being thrown at us every single day. Sometimes we have to ask a few times to understand the information, but we are at least trying and maybe possibly improving our skills.

Today was less roasting, 144 successful pounds. Actually, I am proud of us. We can, almost every time, know what level to roast to and where we should pull the beans out. We know the process the bean has in order to fully develop and about how long in between cracks and levels. etc. etc. We are well on our way to be confident! 

Heather and I also switched off in learning the barista part of things. Learning how to use a manual espresso machine, serving different lattes, americanos,  etc. It was also good to be able to see what was useful for them and what they would change if they got to start the coffee shop all over. 

After lunch we spent more time testing the beans that we roasted and looking up equipment on the internet, searching for prices, etc. 

The things that have overwhelmed me about this process have been changing this week. I am confident that we can roast beans, I am confident I can run a coffee shop... of course both of those things will still take time in perfecting. 

But, I am more overwhelmed with the amount of time and effort that it is going to take us to set up the coffee shop. I may be the only person that is overwhelmed at the thought, but seriously... so... much... work....

Anyways, with our new information and knowing that we now have to BUILD A BUILDING for the roasting machine, spend a significant amount of time searching Mexico and possibly the US and maybe even Italy for stuff AND going to many coffee farms... we decided to push the 'open' date for the community center and coffee shop to June1. We will still do normal ministry stuff and teach english at the schools, but all the other free time will be consumed with the new project before we can launch correctly. We also decided to hold off on some other projects we wanted to accomplish before summer, in order to focus more time and energy on doing this project well. 

Anyways, I think it was a good day, even though the overwhelming feeling has kicked in. We are ready for tomorrow where we get to kind of "rest" before jumping back in on Monday. By rest--- I mean that we are going to be tourists and go to the different villages around. We are looking forward to it! 

Thank you all for your prayers and we appreciate your continued prayers and support of this crazy plan that God has very clearly laid out in front of us. It will be a lot of work and we know that He will use it for His glory in Amealco and Mexico!