Fair Trade Organic Coffee by Silent City Uprising

Hello friends, greetings of the season of spring, the season of new beginnings and hopeful dreams!

My friend Danny Burns and I are launching a small coffee roasting business that we hope will be a win/win situation for everyone involved. For you, you will get fresh, organic, fair trade and locally roasted coffee at a fair price. You will also be supporting two peace and justice activists who need/like to be self-employed because it provides more flexibility to do our activist work. We anticipate being paid a living wage for this roasting business, something we both feel strongly about for all workers. We will donate a percentage of every batch to a cause that is close to our hearts, so that is another way that you can feel good about buying our coffee: we will all be supporting the ongoing work of peace and justice. We will be roasting a couple of times a week, so that what you drink will be fresh, and that makes a huge difference. We can even deliver to your house on our bicycles, if you live in the flats of downtown Ithaca. Otherwise, contact us and we can make an arrangement. Our coffee is also available at GreenStar Coop in the bulk section, if that's easier for you. We're so grateful that the coop is willing to sell our coffee, though it will be better for us if you buy from us directly.

We are pro-worker, pro-farmer, pro-union, peace and justice roasters, and we're not ashamed to say it!

The name of our business is Silent City Uprising. Silent City was a section of Ithaca, on the inlet, in the 1800's and early 1900's where people lived in shacks and scraped together a living by poaching, fishing, doing day labor, and whatever they could find. They helped each other out, as people in dire straits often do. Let us take inspiration from them in these times.

We raise a cup to the women, men and children of Silent City.

A percentage of the sales of this first batch of coffee will be given to the Veterans' Sanctuary, which is located here in the Ithaca/Trumansburg area.. They are a non-profit organization which is creating a residential space for returning Iraq & Afghanistan war veterans. Veterans have access to peer support networks, holistic care, & artistic tools of self-expression while gaining skills through farming and community living. For more information, you can go to: www.veteranssanctuary.blogspot.com

And lastly, a shout-out to our mentor in Chicago, David Meyers, who's been roasting for a few years and is taking the justice angle there to a bigger level. Thanks, David!

Recent News

Hello coffee lovers, since we last communicated, Danny and I have bought a new motor which turns the drum around 50 times per minute as opposed to 6! This has enabled us to get to the second crack more consistently. What is the second crack, you may ask? This is coffee lingo, pure and simple.

Roasting coffee, of course, causes green coffee beans to expand and change in color, taste, smell and density. When we roast, we listen for a sound like popcorn popping. This happens when the beans' temperature is around 400 degrees. The first crack marks the beginning of light roast. Then when the beans get up to around 440 degrees, they start a second crack. This is the dividing point between medium and dark roasts. Maybe way more coffee info than you were hoping for in your email! (But if you want even more info, read the Wikipedia explanations. They even include pictures!)

This is all to say that Danny and I still have coffee available for you and your coffee habit. This batch is Bolivian. We have a dark roast for $12/lb and a lighter roast for $15/lb. With the lighter roast, you can taste more of the subtleties of the coffee. Both are, again, organic and fair trade. We are still hoping to pay ourselves a living wage. And we are still giving a portion of each bag to the Veteran's Sanctuary in Trumansburg. So it's a win/win for everyone involved.

And we still will deliver to you if you live in the flats of Ithaca. Or there is easy pick-up on Danny's porch downtown. Or we can mail it to you, if you live out of town.

Let us know. Thanks! - Mary