This is because dark chocolate has a higher cocoa content and lacks milk solids, which makes it less prone to spoilage.

I don't currently have any in my preps but may stock up.

crop yields are way down.

Even before now I told her not to do it. She lives in a small town so there aren't as many commuters/coffee addicts as some places. She has no idea how many cups of coffee she'll need to sell to keep the doors open. I fear she is just throwing money away.

Never start a business without some kind of plan. I started very small and worked at it. I now do two farmers markets a week and community events June to the end of September. Christmas is crazy.

my concerns are

1. She has never worked in a coffee shop
2. Her only retail experience is 3 months in a gift shop
3. She's very slow to do anything/easily distracted
4. She does not have a lot of money
5. She has medical issues
6. She wants to lease a space right down the street from an established breakfast place
7. She just turned 63

She is a dear, sweet person and close friend so I worry for her!

Couldn't compete with the the big companies with respect to having the latest expresso machines..$5000 ' $15000 machines.

Didn't have a big clientele in his small town

and stock up on green beans! No way to stock up on already roasted

Oh, and hope your roaster doesn’t poop out!

... if you're careful, and if you stand at your stove to stir every minute or so.

When we're all unemployed that shouldn't be too difficult to do.

it when he visited us in the 50’s. Then he ground what I’d call his burnt beans in his Turkish grinder before making his Turkish coffee.

b/c the baguettes are absolutely out of this world. She said they get their flour and yeast from France. I looked it up and French wheat is a softer wheat. I don't know what they are gonna do if they get "tarriffed" on their wheat. I sure would miss it if they stop b/c of cost..
m

White Lily flour, it is soft wheat flour. It’s what we use in the south to bake with. Biscuits aren’t the same without it.

know, you can't make decent biscuits without White Lily flour. I've tried, and they never turn out the same

I’ve tried. And it’s a disaster! I could not get Lily white in Chicago. My biscuits were for shit! I did d try “cake flour”. But it wasn’t the same!

But, even though, they say white Lily is a Tennessee company. I do think the soft wheat they grow might be in Virginia.

and yes chocolate prices are up everywhere

http://crc.edu.tt/sta.uwi.edu/cru/documents/BekeleHistoryofcocoaproductioninTrinidad-2009.pdf

before things go bad.

I am also stocking up on shelf-stable foods that keep a long time.

Once they start rounding up all the farm workers, well, our food delivery system will fall apart.

n/t

Farmers have to charge according to what it costs them to produce, pack, and ship. They need seasonal pickers, like all agricultural products, which of course will be affected by Trump’s insane ideas.

OTOH if a tree is growing in your yard you are set. (During the recent high winds dozens and dozens of unripe avos were dumped in my SIL’s back yard off a neighbor’s unmaintained and overly tall tree. We have a big bowl of them ripening on our kitchen counter)

I don’t know if we are to expect diseases or insects to impact the trees in the coming year(s) but it would not surprise me.

Your average chocolate bar has degraded quite a bit as a result, and a box of good chocolates is also not what it used to be.

Coffee and chocolate are two of my favorite substances, alas.

We'll in the same boat. I don't think I can live without either coffee or chocolate.

at the end where Edward G Robinson goes to the suicide chamber and they give him "real strawberry preserves" before they kill him, they should have made it a real chocolate bar.

The climate crises is here.

"soylent green is people!!!"

From what I remember reading, Congress is in charge of tariffs.

The president can impose tariffs under granted authority if he declares it in the national interest as the result of some emergency; he has a free had if there's a finding of unfair trade practices or restraint of trade. (up to 50%, I think).

I don't recall other tariffs that wouldn't be struck down.

Biden kept and in a few cases increased tariffs on some goods, esp. those from China. Think Chinese-made EVs, for instance. I think there's a long-standing issue with Canadian timber. But he's waived some requirements for imported EVs from Europe, last I remember hearing.

When those dumpft tariff hits the price of coffee is going to be crazy. We don’t grow coffee beans here.

Then tariffs shouldn't be a problem.

Some of the best coffee in the world is grown in the United States!

Proper conditions being a cool, dry location, and in a sealed container.

I will be stocking up on coffee as well. The price of chocolate started going way up during the pandemic and never dropped, at least for ready made products. It was price gouging on comfort foods. I used to get Hershey's chocolate for my father in bulk and then kept getting it after he died for myself- a natural anti depressant. It went from about $20 per box on sale all the way to $36- the last increases in $2 or so increments in only a few months maybe at the end. I stopped buying it when it went too high and now I noticed it is not carried anymore where I purchased it in our area, so I guess others did too.

I did not drink coffee for over 40 years but started last year. I drink instant and get ground for my family. The instant I drink is fairly cheap. We don't have a coffee bean grinder anymore.

I did some baking at farmer's markets for a while, it was too much work and too expensive. I switched to something else. My grandmother was an excellent baker and I inherited it. But I can't eat any of that now due to type 1 diabetes. I have learned to bake some nice alternatives with almond and other low carb flours.