You have probably tried Cuvee beans if you’ve ordered a cuppa Joe at Caffe Medici, Houndstooth, Once Over, or Thunderbird.

Cuvee Coffee owner Mike McKim and "Future Barista" son

McKim included lots of interesting information for geeks and trivia nerds alike. His beans come from Central and South America and he purchases one year’s worth during the annual harvest. He told us that most countries harvest once a year except for Colombia.

While burlap bags are the traditional container for shipping green coffee beans, McKim was excited about the new GrainPro bag technology where beans are stored in air-tight plastic bags for extended protection against moisture and to extend freshness.

Ken and Jenner hang out with some fresh beans

Cuvee takes orders from their customers until noon for next day delivery. They also sell 12 oz. bags for sale at Once Over, Thunderbird, and Whole Foods. Cuvee’s head roaster, Clancy Rose, roasts hundreds of pounds of beans a day and was a home coffee roaster and barista at Caffe Medici before joining the McKims at Cuvee.

"So we pour a shitload of beans into this roaster...."

Before becoming a professional coffee roaster, McKim sold La Marzocco espresso machines. He was interested and became knowledgeable about how these machines worked and if memory serves (this tour WAS a month ago), I believe he would set them up and fix them for customers.

Below Mike shows off one of his roasters that he worked with his retired pilot father to take apart, replace parts, and put back together, along with the sensitive electronic tools he uses to make small adjustments during the roasting process.

"Look what I built, ma!"

After the roasting facility tour, we visited the training facility, where he teaches proper coffee grinding, dosing, tamping, extraction, milk steaming, latte art, drink building, and espresso equipment maintenance during weekly classes.

McKim talked about the recent history of coffee service as he prepared samples of Cuvee’s blends. He told us that brewing by the cup was popular before the industrial revolution but with the invention of factories, workers needed a quick way to brew and serve coffee to large numbers of people at once. The coffee urn was born.

Chemex Single Filter Drip

The Chemex Single Filter Drip that Mike used to prepare our coffee was made by a local guitar company (Collings maybe?).

While he prepared our drinks, he told us about his travels to Central and South America to purchase coffee directly from farmers and suppliers to ensure the best possible quality beans. He recommends that customers who purchase by the bag for home brewing use their coffee within two weeks of purchase and to store it in the pantry or fridge.

Carrie and Alison Tasting

Mike was very generous with his time, answering our numerous questions during the tour. At the end, he demonstrated how to properly create latte art and allowed two of us to try it for ourselves. I have actually had the unique opportunity to judge a latte art competition once, and it was neat to get to try it myself. I wouldn’t win any awards but Mike was a great coach/teacher and my final work wasn’t a total mess.

Mike demonstrates latte art as Tim and Rhonda look on

Alison bravely attempted latte art first. She looks pretty happy drinking her creation here.

We also got a sneak peek as we were leaving of some potential future Cuvee Coffee bag designs. I like the center one. You?

Potential Future Cuvee Label Designs

For two other accounts on the day, check out Michael Lynton and Eli Castro’s much more timely posts.

Thank you again to Mike and Rashelle McKim for your hospitality, to Paula and Cathy at Crave Communications for introducing me to the McKims and helping arrange this wonderful tour, and to Adam for his beautiful photography.

Since it was a choose-your-own adventure tour, each of the 500 or so attendees had their own unique experience. Below are some highlights from mine taken with my brand new Canon s90 point-and-shoot camera.

Tasty Up Tour Coordinators

Addie met me at around 11:30 a.m. at La Boite before she set off to Trailer Perk. The tour officially began at noon and those two spots were where Addie and I greeted folks and passed out name tags.

Austin Kleon designed the Tasty Up logo while sitting at his kitchen table.

Austin is an amazing artist and is coming out with a book of his blackout poems this spring. Check out his web site.

La Boite gave all Tasty Up tourers free french press coffee.

For me, La Boite was a highlight — I loved meeting owners Dan and Victoria and sampling their gorgeous pastries like the salted caramel macarons pictured above, almond croissants, and chocolate macarons with fresh strawberry cream.

Dollar. Dollar. Bills, y'all.

I love how prepared Sara and Cass from the J.B. and Sandy Morning Show on Mix 94.7 were with plenty of $1’s. You can check out their awesome Tasty Up tour video on Sara’s blog.

La Boite is made from an old shipping container

It was the first sunny day in a while and we sprawled out on the lawn to enjoy it, meet new friends, and catch up with old ones. Even Mark Meyer, architect of La Boite, was hanging out there that morning.

The Tasty Up was dog friendly…

This is one of Laura Kelso of Dishola's golden retreivers.

And it was child friendly too!

Ryder is Kay Marley-Dilworth of the Austin Examiner's baby.

It was bike friendly too but I didn’t get any blog-worthy photos of cyclists.

Next up for me was Franklin Barbecue, located north of 32nd Street on the east side of the I-35 frontage road.

Yes, that's the interstate upper deck in the background.

This brisket was amazing — the burnt ends make my mouth water with fond memory. Aaron Franklin told me he rubs salt and pepper all over it and begins smoking it at 9 a.m., taking it off 24 hours later.

This is Aaron Franklin

The BBQ here is dry rubbed of course but they offer three types of house-made sauces alongside. They plan to bottle and package them for sale soon but in the meantime, gave my friend Dana a small plastic to-go container of the Espresso sauce.

The espresso sauce is made with local Owl Tree Roasting beans.

The next logical choice was another BBQ joint – Oldschool BBQ & Grill. Owner Dan, his son Danny, and their business partners dish up brisket, sausage, burgers, fresh-cut fries, a mac ‘n cheese wedge, and more at their school bus turned kitchen.

Jackie Huba and her dog Mini place their order.

Crowd favorite was the mac ‘n cheese wedge and I was impressed with the fresh-cut, twice blanched french fries with cajun spices.

With an hour and a half to go until our final stop, we decided to hit odd duck Farm to Trailer, Gourdoughs, and Austin Brevita — three trailers sharing one lot on S. Lamar just south of the Alamo Drafthouse.

Odd Duck Pork Belly Sliders (and lovely server)

I couldn’t resist checking out Gourdoughs…

Awesome design

And there was no way I could miss checking out the special $2 Tasty Up doughnut hole sampler. They included naughty and nice (cinnamon sugar), slow burn (cream cheese with habanero jelly), flying pig (bacon and maple icing), shortcake (cream cheese and strawberry), ODB (cream cheese filled topped with icing and coconut).

Heaven is a ball of fried dough

Adam took a shot of me seeing what everyone else was up to on the tour. We created a #tastyup hashtag to stay in touch. This was a great way to get recommendations on food, lines, and more.

Yes, I am addicted to social media

We rolled out to the patio of Liberty Bar to hang out, drink beers, and try to fit some Thai-fusion goodies from East Side King into our too-full bellies.

We met new friends,

Nibbled on beet home fries, thai chicken kaarage, rice, and cookies,

The busy East Side King guys are also chefs at Uchi

And I was interviewed by Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon from the Statesman for a short video he made for their web site:

And with that, we headed home to change into elastic pants (I wish – I had to go to a formal event) and make plans to visit the trailers we missed some day soon.

To get updates and early notice about future Tasty Tours, join the Tasty Touring Facebook group. For information on Addie’s monthly events, join the Addie’s Eat Ups Facebook group.

I’m also playing around with Gowalla, a location-based iPhone app, and set up a Tasty Up trip there with ten of the 16 participating locations. You can also print out a Google map of ALL of the businesses and check ‘em off as you visit. Blogs about past tours with ideas of other spots to check out can be found in the Tours category on this site.

More photos from the day are posted here:

Those were my highlights from the tour. I’d love to hear about your experiences and feedback as well.

She asked me if I would send her photos for inclusion in her weekly series, “What’s in Your Fridge Friday” and I decided to send pics after a long weekend trip when it was especially empty and immediately following my weekly grocery shop when it’s at its best.

Tasty Touring blogger Jodi Bart: What’s in Your Fridge Friday?

By Addie Broyles | Friday, February 5, 2010, 01:43 PM

Fridge Pre-Groceries

Grocery-Filled Fridge

Jodi Bart is the food blogger, but her boyfriend, Adam, is the resident chef in their Northeast Austin home.

Bart’s blog, Tasty Touring, tracks the best of what’s happening in Austin’s food scene, and in the past year and a half since she started blogging, she’s become a leader in the food community, organizing Tasty Tours for her readers and, up until December of last year, hosting a weekly radio segment about food on KGSR.

The pictures above show their fridge before and after a trip to the grocery store. “It doesn’t look like much but it kept us fed for the week,” she says. Adam might be in charge of dinner most nights that they aren’t out at some of Austin’s most buzzworthy eateries, but Bart has been expanding her cooking repertoire recently with dishes like this Thai stir fry.

This month, we’ve created a Tasty Tours/Addie’s Eat-Up mashup event at more than 10 trailers tomorrow. The Tasty Up Trailer Tour will start at coffee/breakfast trailers from noon to 1 p.m., and then it’s a choose-your-own-trailer-adventure at some of the newest and most talked-about mobile food vendors in Austin.

You can find all the details at the Facebook event page, and stay tuned to the Tasty Touring and Addie’s Eat-Up pages for more events like these in the future.

What three things are always in your fridge? Mootopia Skim Milk, breakfast fruit (blackberries in the winter, blueberries and raspberries in the summer) for our cereal, random jars and bottles of exotic jams and sauces that Adam promises we’ll use some day.

What’s your favorite condiment? Adam’s homemade chipotle aioli

What’s your go-to late night snack? Cereal or graham crackers topped with crunchy peanut butter and drizzled with honey.

Full disclosure, I helped plan the event along with Amy and John but since I paid for my own ticket and all, I’m allowed to blog about it, right?!

Below is a photo that Adam took of the setup — five large picnic tables seated ten people at each. It was cozy but I don’t think anyone minded since the brewing room is open to the fresh air and it was a brisk 50 degrees. Those of us without jackets were feeling the chill.

Beer and Cheese class begins!

Amy, John, and Kendall co-led the class and walked us through four pairings of beer and cheese. To read a great play-by-play account of the tasting, check out Food Dilettante’s post.

My co-hosts got together not once but twice to pair the Independence beers with the right cheeses. If only I didn’t have a day job, I could have joined them but all of the tastings were during the workday.

My friend Summer Huggins took wonderful photos and put them together for the pairing pics below. To see more of her work, check out her Flickr account.

Freestyle Wheat and Buff by CheesyGirl. Photo Credit: Summer Huggins

The first pairing featured above was designed to bring out the honey and sweetness in the beer. Buff by CheesyGirl is a locally-made cheese from Sealy, TX. 

Marcos Kirsch and Leora Rockowitz

New friends and old gathered to enjoy the tastes. We spread the word about the event through the Tasty Touring Facebook group, Twitter, the Antonelli’s listserv, and through old fashioned word of mouth.

Austin Amber and Pont L'eveque by Graindorge. Photo Credit: Summer Huggins

My favorite pairing of the day was the Amber and the Pont L’eveque. This Normandy (France) cheese comes from a damp and cool climate perfect for aging washed rind cheeses. I loved the stinky smell and rich taste and kept sampling this cheese over and over again.

Teddy Babcock and Lindsay Lehfeld take a moment to smell the cheese.

Fellow food bloggers Teddy of Fun with your Food and Lindsay of Apron Adventures literally inhaled the cheeses.

John told us that to experience the absolute best flavors from the tasting, we should exhale slowly through the nose while eating cheese and drinking beer to actually help us smell better. Some commonly used words to describe the flavor of cheese include: fresh, milky, fruity, mushroomy, earthy, floral, toasted, spicy, nutty, and stinky.

Bootlegger Brown and Walserstolz by Emmi. Photo Credit: Summer Huggins

The Brown beer and the Walserstolz (Swiss-style cheese from Austria) made me feel like I was at Oktoberfest. The cheese is aged 8 to 16 months and develops a hearty, tart, and spicy taste. The beer is malty, and tastes of chocolate and coffee. Together, the flavor became nutty and the beer had a toasty taste.

Assorted bread basket, jam, clementine, tasting notes. Photo Credit: Rebecca Otis

We contacted Lauren Hubele of Bona Dea Bread to provide the main delivery mechanism (other than our fingers) to deposit the cheese into our mouths. She made fresh Sourdough Semolina Rosemary, Fennel Anise Sourdough Rye, and Challah with Sesame and cut them up into small, tasting-sized pieces.

Independence Pale Ale and Hopelessly Blue by Pure Luck. Photo Credit: Summer Huggins

The final pairing was the pale ale with locally produced Hopelessly Blue from Pure Luck Dairy. Pure Luck is an amazing operation and we were able to see firsthand how well they take care of their goats when we visited for the farm tour last month.

Fresh bread with Pont L'eveque and Austin Slow Burn Spiced Peach Jam. Photo credit: Summer Huggins

How beautiful is Summer’s photo above? It makes my mouth water. John and Kendall picked up some fun nibbles to enjoy during the class. They included this Austin Slow Burn Spiced Peach Jam, honey, almonds, grapes, banana chips, and pomegranate seeds. At the end, they put out Hershey’s nuggets for everyone to enjoy.

Amy Cartwright gives tour if Independence Brewery. Photo Credit: Summer Huggins

Amy gave us an in-depth tour of the Brewery facilities. I learned two things:

1. Learning about science can lead to cool things, like making beer.
2. Adding to the list of things I will never be (including president and astronaut), is master brewer.

L-R: Rob and Amy Cartwright, me, Kendall and John Antonelli

At the end of the class, the happy hosts and planners posed for a picture in front of the Independence Brewing Co. mural. Rob Cartwright joined us right at the end of class, after delivering kegs and pallets of beer to stores and bars around town.

By the way, if you want to order a keg of Independence beer for your next house party, the only place in town that sells it by the keg is Party Barn on the drag.

See you at the next Tasty Touring event!

We’ll enjoy samples and learn about four different local brews and four cheeses carefully selected to pair with these beers. Cheese will be served with slices of Bona Dea bread. There will be time for additional beer sampling and brewery tours after the class.

Cost: $17

For planning purposes, all tickets must be ordered by Wed., Dec. 16: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/92159.

NOTE: No one under 21 years old will be admitted. This event will sell out at 50 people.

Cheeses will be provided by Kendall and John Antonelli, owners of Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, located on Duval St in Hyde Park (opening in late January 2010). Antonelli’s will be Austin’s first mom and pop cheese shop dedicated to showcasing great American Artisanal cheeses, pairings, and charcuterie alongside Europe’s classics.

Rob and Amy Cartwright, founders of Independence Brewing Company, embarked on their dream to brew flavorful, deliciously easy-drinking beers for the people of Austin in October 2004.

What started with a married couple and their dog, has blossomed into a crew of nine and a community of beer drinkers who enjoy drinking fresh, handcrafted beer.

Be among the first to hear about future Tasty Touring events by joining the Facebook group.