Frequently asked questions
Where can I buy your coffee?
Right here! And in addition to purchasing our coffee online, you may find us at the Lookout Farmers Market on Tuesdays in East Brainerd.
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Currently, we are only able to ship coffee to addresses within Tennessee. We hope to expand our shipping options to include other regions soon—so if you're a coffee lover living outside of Tennessee, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. As soon as we're able to ship to other states, we'll announce it there.
Where do you get your beans?
We source our beans from all over the world. We base our bean selections on flavor profiles, labor practices, and sustainability standards. Our current suppliers are located in Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Indonesia.
What are your environmental practices?
We love the forest folk, and the forest folk love their homes. So, we do our best to limit our environmental impact. Our current sustainability measures include sourcing our beans from ecologically responsible producers, limiting our use of single-use plastics, and packaging our coffees in compostable bags. We're always open to suggestions on other ways to be more sustainable as we grow.
Do you flavor your coffees?
Nope—our bags contain beans and nothing else. The flavors we list in each roast's tasting notes reflect where the beans were grown. They result from countless factors, including soil type, altitude, and humidity level. You might be familiar with how a grape's terroir affects the taste of the resulting wine—it's much the same with coffee.
What does a coffee's roast level tell me?
Lighter roasts bring out more of the original flavors found in the region where the beans were grown. Darker roasts, on the other hand, undergo a longer chemical reaction that alters that flavor. This is why darker roasts sometimes taste somewhat similar to one another.
While dark roasts often lack the more delicate flavors found in their lighter counterparts, they often appeal to a sense of nostalgia, as many U.S. coffee drinkers have been sipping dark roasts for as long as we can remember. Even the Giant likes a good dark roast!
What's the best way to brew?
The best way to brew your coffee is the way you like to drink it! But a good starting point for pour over, drip, and filter coffees is to use a ratio of 60g of coffee to 1L of water. For a French press, you might try 75g of coffee to 1L of water. Another ratio commonly used by U.S. coffee drinkers is 1g of coffee to every 15g of water.
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For best results, it's always best to grind your coffee right before you brew. It's also a good idea to research the proper grind size for your preferred brew method.
How strong is your coffee?
It's better to think about coffee in terms of flavor, not strength. Whereas roasting affects flavor, brewing style affects strength. So, how strong our coffee tastes depends on how you make it!
That said, you might be wondering about caffeine content. Generally speaking, light and dark roasts contain roughly the same level of caffeine. Like strength, caffeine content is affected mostly by the way you choose to brew your coffee.
Some wisdom from the Giant: There is no "right way" to drink coffee. But there is a right way for you to have YOUR coffee—and that's up to you to discover.