As much as I love drinking coffee, I love the art that I find with a coffee theme.I'm particularly fond of the print featured below showing indigenous mountain folk picking the coffee cherry off of the trees during the harvest time. It is inside this red little pod that turns the color of a cherry that the beans are found. The coffee cherry will be glossy and firm when it is time to be picked.

Although the coffee beans can be picked by a machine, it is better that they are hand-picked so that only the ripe coffee cherries come off of the tree. The unripe cherries can be left until they reach their full potential on the next round through. It is less cost effective to pick by hand during the harvesting season but the best coffee always comes from doing it the old fashioned way with people like the ones in the picture above carefully choosing the most ripe beans to put in their basket.

The art print above makes me think of  Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. I wonder if it, at least,  used to be harvested in this same manner. It would seem a real shame to have the beans stripped by machines and loose the unripe ones in the process.

The inspiration for my change of focus on this blog came from a lady that admire very much. Her "Morning Coffee" art that can be applied to coffee cups, invitations, posters, cards, and tee shirts woke me up just like the caffeine from my favorite brew would. I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense but the way my mind works doesn't make a lot of sense to most people.

As you can see from the coffee mug above, Paula is a pretty terrific artist. Was it the painting that inspired this change? Well, partly. It did make something click in my foggy old brain.

Paula was giving advice to a group that we belong to and how that group could help all of us. She talks about her morning routine which involves a morning cup of coffee and that is when the idea became so clear in my head for the change of direction of this blog that had been floundering at best. How Professional Squids Can Benefit You might not be of interest to coffee lovers but it provided the right motivation for me to step out of my box just a little and write about something that I love...coffee.

So thank you, Paula, for the inspiration! I'm pretty stoked (probably has something to do with the amount of coffee I've consumed!) and am looking forward to sharing a lot of information about my favorite brew and the thing that go along with it.