Around these parts, you can support countless farms by buying their diverse products, whether it’s beef, honey, tomatoes or … coffee? That’s the goal of Madison-based Terra Bean Coffee, which partners with roasters who directly source their coffee and features a different artisan roaster and farmer each month.
“The reason that I am doing this is to build awareness of the origins of coffee amongst consumers to encourage them to place the same value on supporting small-scale coffee farms as they do on other agricultural products,” Founder Tamara Goldschmidt told me.
She invited me to learn more about her mission and sample this month’s coffee, La Colmena from Los Alpes, El Salvador. The coffee is excellent–good flavor, not at all bitter and something I could easily drink every morning.
But I don’t think that’s the point. This is a coffee I would probably never have heard about otherwise. Each coffee comes with a one-page flyer that includes background on the roaster and farmer (in this case, I learned how Mike Johnson of Johnson Brothers Coffee worked with farmer Luis Alonso Araujo to rebuild his farm).
Not all the coffee is fair trade certified, as Terra Bean Coffee’s objective is to “ensure that businesses that are truly creating sustainable relationships are being featured, regardless of whether they have the seal.”
You get a 12-oz. bag of coffee (ground or beans) each month with your subscription. Three months is $19.95/month and six months is $18.95/month.
I was a little surprised when Food Fight, Inc. decided to close Ocean Grill to create a new restaurant, but the successor, 
The French onion dip with house-made chips ($4) had huge chunks of onion in it, and after a few bites the onion became overwhelming. I probably should have ordered one of the other sides, like the blue cheese and bacon fries ($2/$5) or the sweet potato fries with sriracha mayo ($2/$5).
