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The Story:
This is the story of a coffee drinker. Not just your average grab a cup and get to work kind of coffee drinker, or a Dunkin Donuts coffee drinker, or even a Starbucks coffee drinker.

A coffee drinker.

It all started with an innocent trip to a local market called Guido's with my step mother Deb. Little did she know with that first cup of quality coffee that I would begin a life quest.
I started to drink more frequently, experimenting with different flavors of coffee. Then the coffee house craze hit. Being a musical type, I felt it was my duty to spend as much time in the coffee houses of Berkshire County, reading, composing, listening, and drinking coffee. Latte's, espressos, cappucinos, you name it, I drank it.
In college I fancied science. It was great! I started to learn about how the science of living things. This created a yearn to learn more of the biology of the coffee, which took me to libraries and book stores where I learned about the lifecycle of the bean, the special nuances of each varietal, and all the different ways that it is prepared around the world (each of which I had to try, of course). Also while in college, I took a part time job working at a kitchen store that sold specialy coffees, which helped fuel and fund my sampeling of each kind.
After college, I moved a little east. My addiction in full rage. Where would I get quality beans. I tried every shop, mail order, coffee shops: anywhere. How would I manage? I thought back to a trip that I had taken to San Diego, and I visited a coffee house that roasted their own beans. But, where would I get unroasted beans? Enter a coffee drinkers best friend: the internet. This is where I learned the power of such sites as alta vista and yahoo. I found more information than I could digest over a nice cup of Yrgachaffe! Around the same time, I took a job as a sales clerk at a specialty food store called the Coffee Gallery. My thorough knowledge of coffee helped me land the gig. Bonus: very quality coffee. Well, with my funds and beans flowing in, I found on the internet green beans, and more importantly how to roast them! After a few misses I was in business!
I continued on through the years still looking for a quality roaster, intermittently roasting my own. But I needed more. Something was missing.
Two events have come together to fill that void. While doing some work for a client company, I met a gentlemen named Hugh Kelley. An avid gardener and all around nice guy. We participated in a seed swap, where he provided me with tomatoes he started from seed, while I gave him some dead basil plants. Hugh also introduced me to the Gardener's Supply catalog. I had been a gardener in the past, but this latest addition of supplies from the Gardener's Supply as well as Hugh's completely ROCKING tomato plants renewed my hope in sowing the earth. Around the same time, I was planning for my wedding. Eileen and I searched and searched for the perfect wedding favor. We thought, wouldn't it be nice to give each of our guests a home grown plant? Enter the Whatcom Seed Company. While searching for "the right, most perfect thing", I came across the next phase in my coffee drinking: seeds for a coffee plant.

This story is a prelude to the story of the life of 12 coffee plants. My hope is that within a few years, I'll be drinking coffee picked from my own plants, hand roasted in my trusty popcorn popper, and brewed in the old stainless steel Cuisenart.

The actual planting occured on Sunday, June 23, 2002, at approximately 7pm, shortly after the Peck family left after a joyous day at the lake (and in the lake: oops! sorry Madeline!) Pictures and updates will be added periodically...