St. Nina's Coffee

St. Nina's Coffee Gaining Steam

12/6/2018

The Sisters of St. Nina’s sold more of our hand-roasted coffee this year than ever before, with steadily increasing sales ever since our first batch three years ago. We expanded our selection of coffees to include Breakfast Blend, a bright, well-balanced blend of Colombian and Brazilian coffees developed in house with the help of friendly volunteer cuppers! The Sisters are investigating new coffees to offer, as well as the prospect of roasting naturally-decaffeinated beans. And we look forward to ramping up our production with a new dedicated roastery facility running on sun power.

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Christ is Risen!

4/11/2018

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The Sisters of St. Nina's Monastery
wish to all
a joyful Feast of the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

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St. Nina's Coffee: The Hand-Roasted Difference

3/31/2018

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hand-roasted small-batch monastery coffee

So many of us drink a cup of coffee (or two!) every morning. And what Sunday would be the same without the parish coffee hour?

But where does that coffee come from?

People are starting to care more about where we get our food, who grew it, where. If we can afford it, we buy fair-trade or organic. We are beginning to realize that our every choice has importance.

What if your daily cup of coffee, or the pot for your parish gathering, could be more than just a mass-processed product of unknown origin?

St. Nina's Coffee is roasted by the Sisters of St. Nina's Monastery with love, care, and prayer as part of our effort to become self-sustaining, living by the work of our hands like the Apostles before us. We source our beans from Crop to Cup, a small importer based in Brooklyn that works with small farmers and cooperatives producing fair-trade and organic coffees. Every cup of our coffee is made with love. And we all know that not only does something made with love taste better, it is better, for all of us.

Why not order a pack of St. Nina's Coffee and taste for yourself?

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Give the Gift of St. Nina's Coffee!

12/21/2016

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So many of us drink coffee… but how many of your friends and family have enjoyed the special taste and aroma of hand-roasted St. Nina's Coffee? The Sisters of St. Nina's Monastery roast the best fair-trade, organic African beans in small batches with love, care, and prayer. We work as we pray and pray as we work to offer you a product that is more than just a bag of beans.

With Christmas around the corner, why not give the gift of St. Nina's Coffee? It's warm, smooth, and so nice to share. Even if you can't make it out to visit the family, you can still have coffee together—it's the thought that counts. Send them one bag each of our Ugandan and Ethiopian coffees to give them a taste. Or even better, send them a subscription and keep them in coffee for months to come.

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Summer Recipe: Perfect Iced Coffee

6/17/2016

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As summer heats up, it's time to cool your coffee down. Like iced tea? How about some refreshing iced coffee!

Try cold-brewing our Ugandan Bukonzo Nayabirongo for a chocolatey cup or Ethiopian Yirgacheffe for a sweet brew with a hint of fresh berries.

Perfect Iced Coffee
Prep time: 8 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 24

Ingredients:

1 pound ground coffee
8 quarts cold water
half-and-half (a healthy splash per serving)
sweetened condensed milk (2-3 tablespoons per serving)

Instructions:

Mix ground coffee with water in a large container. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature eight hours or overnight.
Line a fine mesh strainer with cheesecloth and set over a pitcher or other container. Pour coffee/water mixture through the strainer, allowing all liquid to run through. Discard grounds.
Place coffee liquid in the fridge and allow to cool. Use as needed.

To make iced coffee, pack a glass full of ice cubes. Fill glass 2/3 full with cold-brewed coffee. Add a splash of half-and-half. Stir. Then drop in 2-3 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk (or just plain old sugar) and stir once again to combine. Adjust to taste.

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Meet Hannu of Six Pot Coffee in Helsinki, Finland

6/6/2016

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Hannu of Six Pot Coffee in Helsinki.

Earlier in this blog we introduced Eija, longtime friend of our Monastery and fellow roaster. She hails from Helsinki, Finland, and it is in Helsinki that she met Mr. Hannu, the man behind Six-Pot-Coffee, "probably the smallest micro-roaster in the world" and model for our own start in coffee roasting... here's the story in Eija's own words, "a tale that begins on a rainy day in August 2015:"

In August of last year I was cycling in Helsinki. The weather was great, and it was fun to cruise along the Baltic. Then suddenly the sky got darker and soon enough it started to pour down rain. I was close to a small mall, and went inside from the rain. There, by the door was a table with tens of brown pouches, a heavenly scent of coffee and a smiling gentleman, Hannu, who is the CEO of Six Pot Coffee. I am a friend of St. Nina’s and we had many times talked about coffee, its origin in Ethiopia, and the possibility to roast some African coffees at the monastery. Hannu and I got to talking and he explained the sourcing of beans, roasting system, packaging, the channels for marketing, etc. I returned to Washington and talked with Abbess Aemiliane... and the rest is history... In October we got our first roaster, now we have three units, and do the sourcing and packaging and marketing much like Hannu had advised.

Hannu sharing his expertise. He roasts with three small roasters right in his café to give his visitors the whole experience.

Eija's back in Finland for the summer and had a chance to meet with Hannu a few days ago to catch up and enjoy some of each other's coffee. She reports:

Just this week, I had a chance to meet with Hannu again to take him some samples of our roasts and see how he is doing. And he is doing great. Since last year, he has opened a little café serving a range of coffees. He also has a little three-wheeler which he uses to reach clients in Helsinki. Most of his marketing he now does via REKOs, which are marketing groups for locally produced foods. In these events suppliers come with their vans and sell bread, vegetables, meat, eggs, beer etc. produced locally. Clients place their orders via Facebook and then come to collect their purchase. Sometimes even a couple hundred people show up and that is a lot of Finns at one time, believe me. Maybe we start a REKO movement for Maryland…

Maybe! :)

We at St. Nina's are forever grateful to Hannu for all his advice and support as we entered into the
magic world of coffee roasting. Check out Hannu’s Six Pot Coffee Facebook page and see what's brewing over in Helsinki.

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St. Nina's Coffee now available at New Windsor State Bank

5/10/2016

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That's right, our hand-roasted fair-trade organic coffees are now available for purchase at your local branch of New Windsor State Bank:

New Windsor - Main Office
213 Main Street
PO Box 489
New Windsor, MD 21776
Phone 410-635-6406, 410-775-1468, 410-549-1414

Mt. Airy - Twin Arch Branch
1001 Twin Arch Road
Twin Arch Shopping Center
Mt. Airy, MD 21771
Phone 301-829-7355, 410-549-8948

Taneytown
222 East Baltimore Street
Taneytown, MD 21787
Phone 410-756-1580

Westminster - College Square Branch
444 WMC Drive
Westminster, MD 21158
Phone 410-751-7000, 410-526-BANK (2265)

Westminster - Market Place Branch
810 Market Street
Westminster, MD 21157
Phone 410-751-6297

Pick up a pouch or two today!

More retail outlets in your area coming soon—stay posted for updates :)

Many thanks to our friends at NWSB for this opportunity to share St. Nina's Coffee with their clients.

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Abbess Maria of St. Mary of Egypt Monastery, Uganda

4/17/2016

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abbess aemiliane abbess maria uganda saint st mary nina monastery union bridge maryland md

Abbess Maria with Abbess Aemiliane of St. Nina’s.

A big part of why we got into Ugandan coffee is Mother Maria, Abbess of St. Mary of Egypt Monastery, the first Orthodox monastery in Uganda. Our own Monastery's friend and fellow roaster Eija Pehu met Mother Maria on a research mission to Africa and made the connection. With her help and God's blessing, Mother Maria came to stay with us at St. Nina's for three months in the summer of 2015, establishing an ever-deepening connection between our Monasteries as we grow in Christ together.

Mother Maria with friend of St. Nina’s Lillian at St. Mary’s this spring. Passionfruit is one of the cash crops Mother Maria and her Sisters cultivate to help support the Monastery.

Mother Maria at St. Nina's last summer.

When we were just starting to get into roasting coffee late last year, the question arose—what coffee? And we remembered that St. Mary of Egypt Monastery is located in a region where coffee has been cultivated organically for many hundreds of years. Why not start with Ugandan coffee, as a first step toward our ultimate aim of partnership with St. Mary's in sourcing coffee directly? Mother Maria and her Sisters could put their experience and expertise in the areas of community development and agriculture to good use in helping to support themselves and the fifteen orphans they care for with proceeds from coffee sales, and we at St. Nina's could offer coffee from women farmers who are neighbors of St. Mary's in a Monastery-to-Monastery exchange!

In St. Nina's kitchen.

As a beginning step to this goal, we developed and perfected our own roast of Ugandan Bukonzo Nayabirongo, a fair-trade coffee imported by Crop to Cup in Brooklyn, NY. And is it ever good! Sweet, bright, and clean like a morning in the Rwenzori Mountains. Like a morning at St. Mary's or St. Nina's. Try it and tell us how you like it.

Would you like to help out Mother Maria, her Sisters, and the children they care for?
Contact us for more information about their needs and ways you can get involved.

Mother Maria with her goddaughter Evangelia, who was baptized along with her parents and four of her brothers and sisters last spring at St. Nina's.

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Roast Session 4/12/2016

4/12/2016

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We roast using three Behmor 1600 Plus machines, known as No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. Each one has its quirks and requires a personal approach :) Roasting coffee is no 'set-it-and-forget-it' process—we call our coffee hand-roasted for a reason!

This blog most fittingly commences with the thing itself— coffee being roasted today, right here at St. Nina's.

Today’s coffees were Ugandan Bukonzo Nayabirongo and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.