Brrr…it's January. The holidays are over, it's dark, it's cold and we've got at least another six weeks (more if the groundhog has his way next month) of winter ahead before the promise of spring. But it's a great time to cuddle up at home with a big ol' steaming mug of Café Campesino. And you can warm your heart with the knowledge that every cup of our coffee you drink this winter helps a farmer and his family live a better life.

In this month's Fair Grounds, we take an informative and amusing journey through the life of a coffee bean, from the perspective of the bean itself! We've also got an update on our activities, a new customer spotlight, a Fair Trade fact, a recipe for chili with a coffee twist, and a new trivia question. So read on and enjoy!

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So, you drink a dark liquid made by infusing hot water with a ground version of me but you don’t know much about how I came to be? Well, that’s no good! Let me tell you a story about my life so you can appreciate me more fully.

Some folks say I was discovered by a goat herder named Kaldi sometime in the sixth century in Ethiopia, when he noticed his goats were dancing around after eating the cherries from a particular type of bush. Whether you believe that version of my origins or not, I do grow inside of a cherry on a bush, and I imagine if goats ate enough of me, they would begin to dance!

Where do I come from these days? I’m pretty fussy about where I want to grow up...

Follow the rest of Kopi's journey, and see more pictures by following this link:

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We welcome Jimmy's Java of Boone, North Carolina, to the growing family of coffee shops that exclusively serve fair trade coffee and get it from us! If you are ever traveling through this western North Carolina town, stop by Jimmy's and let them know that Café Campesino sent you. The coffee shop is located one block from Appalachian State University in historic downtown Boone – and offers regular live music, local art expositions and free high speed internet service.

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January is another busy month for us at Café Campesino. Lee and Bill just returned from a quick trip to Washington, DC, where they enjoyed snowy visits with our good friends and customers Nan, Gwen and Sharyn and with our fair trade companeros Seth, Chris and Jaime.

Bill heads down to Costa Rica on Jan 24th to retrace the route of his original 1997 coffee adventure. First stop is COOCAFE in San Jose, then on to Matagalpa, Nicaragua to visit with CECOCAFEN. After a few days in the field, he will fly up to Guatemala to meet Lee and several other members of Cooperative Coffees. In Guatemala, we will visit with our friends at Manos Campesinas in Quetzaltenango, the farmers of APECAFORM and we will begin searching for a second source of Guatemala coffee. We’ll then travel by bus to Chiapas, Mexico, for our annual visit with Mut Vitz Cooperative and Maya Vinic.

We’ll return on February 9th, just in time for the annual Greenprints Conference in Atlanta — where hundreds of conference attendees will wake each morning to a hot cup of Café Campesino fair trade coffee.

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Think you know a lot about coffee? Then enter our Fair Grounds Trivia Contest. Click here for our question of the month. Entering is easy and it's FUN!

In keeping with tradition around here, every December 26 we enjoy putting together a large jigsaw puzzle. This year before we started we wrote the names of all of our Trivia Contest entrants on the back of one of the pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle. When we came down to the last piece, the one that makes the picture clear, we looked on the back and read the name of our winner. Congratulations go to — John Hice!

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"I recently learned that in an average lifetime a person walks about sixty-five thousand miles. That's two and a half times around the world. I wonder where your steps will take you. I wonder how you'll spend the rest of the miles you're given."

— Fred (Mr.) Rogers

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