‘For the Love of ‘Fee’ is one coffee-lover’s attempt to machete through the tangle of coffee beans and brews to find an awesome cup of coffee. Juan Valdez follows ME! 🙂
The Cartridge Club Con in Chicago, July 2018
The main purpose for our travel to Chicago, Illinois this summer was to meet up with some friends from the Cartridge Club. We’ve known most of them for a long time, and some we’ve only had an online friendship. This trip, I was excited to meet the Retro Nonsense Crew, Duke and Tara, and their three children in person. They are from Maryland, and were just as excited to meet us. When we met, Duke told me he had some local coffee from Maryland for me to try; Rise Up Coffee Roasters’ coffee. He handed me half a pound bag of their organic House Roast and explained this is the place they like to go. Let me tell you, the beans did not disappoint!
Maybe it’s because we have been finishing off old freezer coffee from Kevin’s mom’s house for the last month, but when I broke into the bag of Rise Up beans, the kitchen smelled like a coffee shop! Them beans were aromatic! The bag boasts that the blend therein has chocolate undertones, and I could certainly smell that. It just smelled so good, I wanted to jump inside!
And then I ground the beans…the place smelled heavenly! The percolator did them justice, and the brewed coffee was delicious with only hints of sweet from the chocolate. Those beans permeated the house so well that even after a long day out of the house, we could still smell the coffee that had been brewed at 6 AM. I was not disappointed!
According to Rise Up’s website, they sell only 100% Organic Fair Trade coffee, which says something about who they are. In fact, their opening page says, The farmer who grew this coffee should receive the glory. We are among the fortunate who get to roast their beautiful coffees and share them with you.” Indeed!
My mug depicts Lawren Harris’s “Lake and Mountain, 1928”. Only the best for this ‘fee!
A big Thank You goes out to Duke and Tara for sharing this Maryland favourite. Kevin and I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘fee, and I can see why this has become a favourite of yours!
Caught Me Gaming 
Cartridge Club meet up in Chicago. Cool. Was there any trading going on?
I need to look into something like this for cassettes of vintage stereo equipment. I’m sure they’re out there.
As for the coffee luckily the border crossing guards didn’t bring out the dogs.
I’m pretty sure the drug smugglers bring it over mixed in coffee and the dogs would have been alerted.
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We had a van load of games for other people going over the border to the US, and we were NERVOUS! We even cleared out our phones of errant texts and apps in case they requested to look at our phones, which is happening to Canadians now! We managed to cross. On our way back, the border guard was cool. BTW, roasted coffee beans are cool to pass across the border.
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Nice that you brought the games across.
(Cartridge) Community.
Curious to know if there were any the US people found were obscure/unique. I wonder if we got games up here that were rare in US and vice versa.
I was kind of joking about the coffee at the border thing. But inn2018. Who knows?
I am leaving for parts unknown today across the US border.
Hopefully the border guards don’t read aloud my emails about buying super duper exclusive vinyl boxsets in front of my wife. My daughter won’t want to have to travel to the US to visit her mom in prison for murder.
😉
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If you put your phone in airplane mode, you’re golden. But they can have access to any text messages you have on your phone.
As for weird games not available in the US…I can’t think of any.
The US have the weird sugary cereals. And be prepared to pray before your meal, and find some dry or alcohol free towns! These exist!
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We drive to the US alot. My daughter is a junk food addict so we always gey her treats not available up here.
As for the praying thing, never noticed that. We get that at my parents house, so we are used to it.
One thing I notice is the rah rah, anthem, pledge, salute the military over the top. Everywhere you go.
I just stand even though not my anthem. I.don’t want to be singled out.
I did have a guy tell me to go back to Canada once, and some polite ribbing about being Canadian “eh”, but 99.9% of the time it’s fine.
The dry counties I have been in. Typically in.poor, rural areas of.places like WV, Tenn., Kent with high incidences of alcoholism due to high unemployment.
Hence those were the.areas that moonshine was/is made.
Also the radio is.different. Many areas of religious/gospel/preachers. I get good use of.the cd’s
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US border guard “Hey. No one uses these games anymore. They must be full if drugs. Let’s bust them open and check.”
(Crunch. Snap. Crying and wimpering noises)
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Oh yeah. We were afraid they would. That would have slowed us down…
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I wonder what kind of recourse you would have.
Once when going through border security coming off a cruise in Jacksonville, the 2 border guards said something about me/ my wife/my family in Spanish, then laughed.
I felt about 2 feet tall and wanted to jump across the table and pound them, but I bit my lip and moved on.
The level of power those jerk offs have is unbelievable.
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No recourse. They are the law.
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COFFEE COMMUNITY=Brilliant!
A feel good read!
Great story and looked like a great time!
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Aw man… that coffee sounds pretty wonderful! I’m drinking cup number 4 of the day and thinking it’s just not up to scratch after reading this!
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It was really good coffee!
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And really good company! That makes it all pretty awesome!
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That does sound like a heavenly smell – I’ll try to remember this ‘fee if we’re ever driving through Maryland!
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