Flavor of The Month - Pumpkin Galore!

Dear Friends in Coffee:

October is upon us and with it my favorite season of all! Autumn is a time for change, a time to prepare for the wonderful feast of the end of the year. With that in mind, we are proud to bring back some of our favorite flavors.

Flavor of The Month - Pumpkin Galore!

Split Bean Coffee is proud to introduce once again our original Pumpkin Flavored Alfajores and Marshmallows. Our Pumpkin Alfajores are made with homemade pumpkin preserve and a dash of secret spices to add a touch of heat, and our mallows are scented with a hint of pumpkin spice and special oils that brings us memories of Grandma's fresh baked pumpkin pie. Like Rachel Ray says "Yummmo!". Try a piece of our White Chocolate Pumpkin Fudge and you will die and go to pumpkin heaven!

IF YOU ARE ORDERING FOR DELIVERY BY OCT 31ST - PLEASE ORDER EARLY - OUR DEADLINE FOR SHIPPING ON TIME USING USPS IS OCT 24TH, BY NOON.


Spanish Style - Mantecados and Polvornes!

We are proud to also introduce two new cookies for your enjoyment - Mantecados and Polvorones. For those of you who don't know what Mantecados and Polvorones are, they are traditional Christmas cookies that originated in Spain over 400 years ago. This delicious cookies are made with almonds, flour, spices, and lard. Mantecados are like spicy shortbread cookies, and polvorones are crumble like little biscuits that make a delicious mess when you eat them.

Our Mantecados and Polvorones are based on a centuries old dating to the late 1700's. We had to do a lot of trials and taste tests on several willing victims.

Holiday Gifts?

As you make your list and check it twice, we would like to remind you that Split Bean Coffee products make great Holiday Gifts. Do you have a large list of clients? A large extended family? or just a small group of friends.....who you know would love our handmade goodies?
Give us a call and we will help you put something together. You can always order over the phone (877)448-5185 or at www.splitbeancoffee.com .

~~~~~

Split Bean Coffee has a lot of friends who have small businesses. Here are a few of our Circle of Friends. As the Holiday approach, please be sure to visit our friend's site. You might be surprise what you could find!

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Let there always be laugther.
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Btw if you know Oprah or Ellen, we would both love to be part of their shows!

www.splitbeancoffee.com

This is Crazy Crazy - A pound is always 16 oz.

A few weeks ago a friend of ours asked us to send samples to a company they thought might like our products. Well, we normally don't send samples because when we started Split Bean Coffee, people took advantage of our "newbie" status and were requesting samples left and right. So, we implemented a policy where by the sample requester pays for the samples and we will then deduct their payment from their first order.

This policy has worked great for us, and I would say that 9 out 10 the sampler requester does place a large order.

So, out of courtesy to our dear friends, we made a sampler box to this "possible customer', since they had been pestering our friends for the items. I personally delivered the samples to press the flesh like I always do for local prospects and they seemed genuinely surprise when they saw the samples. One of them even stuffed their face with our marshmallows and she couldn't swallow the big hunk of mallow.

A few days later I called to follow up on the samples and they basically told me that business was slow, but in passing they also mentioned that our bag of marshmallows were too big! This I could not understand. We sell our mallows by the pound and eight ounce bags so how could a pound of mallows be too big to be a pound of mallows? Follow me?

Well, it turns out the boutique environment doesn't lend itself for such a big bag of mallow. They suggested I trim down the size of the bag and charge the same or more. Perhaps a nice bow or higher end bag would be best, they suggest.

In a time, when we should be using less packaging to promote less waste and polluting the environment in the process, I honestly don't feel my customers should be made to pay for this pollution. I am a big believer of the Keep It Simple stupid rule. I try very hard to make our products look as nice as possible with as little cost to our customers, or impact to the planet. Furthermore, at a time when companies give you less for your money, it is nice to know that our One Pound bag still weights One Pound. I guess this is why the Wall Street Journal said we were the best value for your money in the Gourmet Marshmallow category.

I promise that when you pay for a pound of something at Split Bean Coffee, you will get a pound of what you paid for, not a pound of wasteful packaging!

www.splitbeancoffee.com

Mantecados & Polvorones

Picture of Polvorones - The Crumble Cookie Related to Mantecados

A Brief History of Mantecados

September is when Christmas begins in the small town of Estepa, Spain. This quaint town located in the province of Seville, jump starts into full production of Mantecados, a humble shortbread-like cookie native to the area. Mantecados bring much happiness to the millions of people who over the years have made of these delicious cookies a treasured Christmas tradition.
Over the centuries, Estepa has become famous for their Christmas sweets, but Mantecados and their sister cookies Polvorones and Alfajores are more than just an ancient tradition. The industrialization of these cookies has provided much needed development and economic growth to the town's people and surrounding areas.It is a very sweet reward to the people of Estepa that such a traditional and artisan product has become much appreciated in the entire Iberian Peninsula and abroad.

Today, Mantecados, Polvorones and Alfajores are as much a Christmas tradition where ever Spanish is spoken, as turkey is the USA for Thanksgiving. As in the case of Alfajores, both Mantecados and Polvorones are also quite popular in Latin America where as with all other gastronomic traditions of Spanish origin, they have been adapted and infused with local flavors and ingredients, and are now consumed year-round.

The origin of the Spanish Mantecado dates back to the XVI century, a time when the region of Andalusia experienced a surplus of grains and pork products. Around this time, a certain type of biscuit commonly known as "lard cakes" were popular in every house and specially in the religious convents like the famous Convent of Santa Clara, where the historical archives reference the kind of dishes and ingredients used to make these biscuits.

However, the first direct reference to Mantecados dates to the end of the XIX century, and is tied to the life of a woman named Filomena Micaela Ruiz Tellez. The beginning of the mass production of Mantecados is credited to Micaela, as she was popularly known. Her husband was a peddler between the town of Estepa and the city of Cordoba, and she gave him a few of her cakes to sell on the way. The biscuits where a hit and soon they turned into a full time enterprise. Micaela’s success was primarily due to her baking method, which consisted of completely drying the cookies to produce a shortbread bread like biscuit which was crispy in the outside, yet tendered in the inside. By 1934 there were over 15 homes in Estepa where families where fully devoted to the production of Mantecados for the Andalusia market.

Today there are over 30 artisan factories in Estepa which are dedicated to the production of Mantecados and Polvorones for the domestic and international markets. These artisan workshops continue to use the closely guarded original recipes and are organized into the Estepa Association of Manufacturers of Mantecados.

Although Mantecados, Polvorones, and Alfajores are produced throughout Latin America and where ever Spanish is spoken, only a very selected few follow the Spanish recipe for Mantecados and Polvorones from Estepa. We at Split Bean Coffee have developed and tested our own recipe using as reference a recipe book dating to the XVII century found in a friend's personal library. After many trials and taste tests we have reproduced a product that can proudly say is truly inspired in the Mantecados first made by Filomena Micaela Ruiz Tellez from Estepa, and still produced in Estepa, Spain.

We are very proud to have discovered this old recipe and to pay tribute to many centuries of tradition by making our Mantecados and Polvorones using only natural ingredients. You can order your own Spanish Style Mantecados, Polvorones and Latin American Style Alfajores on our website at http://www.splitbeancoffee.com/ .

Spanish Style Mantecados