The State of the Portafilter Address... the first 100 days.

In Korean culture, a child's 100th day is celebrated like a first birthday. The "baek-il" is significant because many children didn't make it to 100 days, with infant mortality being what it was. A bit morbid, for sure.

A recurring theme in our 'clique' is transparency, and so I thought that it cool to let y'all know how this blog is doing so far.

This site was essentially born on May 25, 2005, and since then there have been a total of over 8,000 unique visitors, generating over 180,000 hits. The podcast has been downloaded almost 10,000 times, with a current total of over 900 subscribers. If you played every file that's been downloaded back-to-back, you'd have well over a full year's worth of continuous Jay and Nick blah-blah-blah.

This site was created for one main purpose: to help shape the conversations and discussions that folks are having about coffee. It's been an exciting experience to see that vision starting to be fulfilled... and we're only 100 days in. We have people from around the world who visit this site on a regular basis, and it is our honor to be bookmarked in people's browsers and have our RSS feed subscribed to.

Each of our contributors is known for a passion and committment to coffee quality that makes what they have to say something that people should perhaps sit up and take notice of. From Peter and Ellie's reports from abroad, to Bronwen's thoughts on cafe culture, to whatever Chris is thinking about today, to Trish's insights into a roaster's life... and much more to come, and from what we hope will be a growing and more diverse group of bloggers.

And of course, the podcast... the silly, silly, podcast. I had dreamt about a radio show for coffee professionals as I was listening to NPR one day, and I figured that rather than dream, I'd try to make something happen. Again, I'm honored and humbled that so many folks would choose to make Jay and I a regular part of their audio-diet. As we continue to develop the podcast, we hope that you'll see us continue to grow and mature into... aww, screw it. We ain't maturing, nor are we growing. But please know that we do take our 'jobs' very seriously.

I do hope that this site will continue to grow into its potential, whatever that may be. If it can add anything constructive to the coffee blog-o-sphere, then that's all we can really hope for, I suppose.

Thanks for all your support. Keep the faith.