Leadership Camping Trip '08

A few weekends ago we had our first leadership camping trip. We hope this will be a mainstay in our yearly operations. We brought a handful of our staff who have leadership roles in the company and that we hope will have these roles in the future. The six of us camped about an hour out of Kunming in a remote cave.
The essentials were hand carried in: water, hot dogs, smores, eggs, bacon, hot chocolate, orange juice, and a fresh supply of Sumatra Mandheling coffee.

This was the first many of our staff had ever camped but they adapted well.


The trip provided us a chance to reflect and take a look at the bigger picture that is Chicago Coffee.

Bus Bombing in Kunming

It has been reported that three separate buses exploded this morning in Kunming. The cause is unknown but we are trying to spread the news and encourage everyone to stay off public transportation until more information is known.

Kenya AA Coffee

Kenya coffee is finally back at a local coffee shop near you. Its been over 6 months since the flow of Kenyan coffee dried up. This was largely due to political unrest and internal strife in Kenya. Its interesting to see how connected and affected a coffee shop in China is to events across the world in Africa. Kenya Coffee is definitely a favorite with its berry and wine tones and full-body.

T.I.C. - 16 Hours

16 hours is how long it took me to get from Lijiang, a city in the north of Yunnan, to Kunming. It sounds reasonable if I took the bus, or a train, or even perhaps walked but its not a reasonable amount of time to fly from Lijiang to Kunming. The flight normally takes a literal 40 minutes. The flight is so fast that by the time you make it to the bathroom after they reach cruising altitude they are already asking you to go back to your seat to prepare for our descent. I don't mind being delayed for weather because there is nothing you can do. What brews me is when nobody knows anything about when they hope to begin flying again. They couldn't tell you if it was going to be a 15 minute delay or whether or not you were going to have to wait until tomorrow to get out. Then the kicker is the "stop asking and we will tell you when your flight is going to go" and you ask a few hours later to hear the not-so-surprising "oh that flight just left 5 minutes ago."